Custer or Montgomery - Which Will I Be?

There are two kinds of writer’s block. The first is where you want to write but you have nothing to say. You sit at the keyboard, you stare at the screen, and you pray for inspiration. The longer you wait, the more miserable you feel about being an uninteresting inarticulate piece of pond life.

The second kind is worse.

That’s when you do have something to say, but you can’t say it because you’re not sure what it is. I’ve spent all day sensing that there is something lurking under the surface of my conscious thought. Like dust-motes drifting in a beam of sunlight, I can sense its form but I can’t see the structure that will solidify it. It is the precursor of an idea but I have no idea what it is. So as an experiment I am just going to start writing, hoping that the tappity-tap of my fingertips on the computer keys will tease it into existence.

I think it might have something to do with the last few days at work. I’ve felt a sense of tiredness. Not inside me but around me, like the smell of stale cigarettes. Dull eyes. Tired faces.

I suppose I noticed it more because lately I’ve been feeling the opposite. The Significant Other recently remarked that I’ve been unusually energetic about work. And it’s true. Some time ago I had a boss who had the intriguing idea that work was a game that it’s impossible to lose. I think I am beginning to understand now what she meant.

But most of the faces I looked at last week belonged to people who did not think they were in a game. And if they did, they were not enjoying it. Ironically, some of them were colleagues with whom I spent the last two days talking about how to get the best from the people who report to them. My fellow-managers' minds were fully engaged but I’m not certain about their energy. Their managers should be worried.

I’m going to make a comparision now. It will sound melodramatic but I'm making it anyway because I think it fits. In war, a commander has an undeclared compact with his troops. He identifies objectives worth securing. His troops trust his judgment and do their best to secure those objectives. But if the troops believe that their commander is asking them to fight for objectives that are not worth fighting for, their morale breaks down and turns into cynicism. They stop fighting and they start losing. Or they simply desert.

I don’t work in the army and the products my company deals in are clearly not a matter of life and death. Nor do my colleagues and I risk our lives selling them. But we do spend massive amounts of our time and energy at work. We need to know that when our managers ask us for that time and energy, it is for a legitimate purpose. Right now, some of us have managers who don't do that.

Likewise, the people who report to us need to be able to trust us to do the same with them. After all, even though we’re not asking for their lives, we are asking for a part of their life. And they know it.

It’s sobering to consider that this is what my team expects me to do for them. It’s intimidating to think of what would happen if I got it wrong. (And what will they think of me if I do?) But it is also really cool. Because if I can master the art of only asking them to sweat the stuff that is really worth sweating, then I can make it worth their while. That, I think, is a responsibility worth having.