These past few months, I've been asked to let go of some of the more tactical day-to-day work; delegate this and take on a more strategical role.
This sounds like a pretty common situation if you are in an environment were the people over you can see your outcome as too little compared to what you could be doing. I don't necessarily disagree with this thought. As a matter of fact, I completely agree with it.
But the issue is that for the type of person that I am, my outcomes are usually a reflection of what I perceive lacking or needed on my environment that needs the most attention right now. This has a pretty annoying side-effect which is that most people will think that because of this, then that is what I'm good at or - Lord help me - I actually enjoy doing.
I've received through my life so much feedback about how oriented to detail I am. The reality is that I am not. At all. My attention to feedback usually is fueled by anxiety cause by the rest of the environment paying close to 0 attention to the details. It's not in me to be attentive to details, but my brain can see that unless someone gives that to the environment, the environment will fail.
So I pay attention to the details. This is a very costly task, it's very time consuming and it's very draining to the brain. But someone has to do it. So I do it. This comes at a price, not just the ones mentioned just now but also when you face it against *the things that you didn't do because you were, instead, doing this one.
And things work, obviously. Paying attention to details isn't difficult, it's hard. Anyone can do it. It's not a mater of talent, it's a matter of understanding that it has to be done. It has to be on everything that we do, so that it's not all dumped on the “this person is very good at paying attention to details” person. It's a group responsibility and when we allow people to break it, either someone else has to do it for them,or we will all pay the price for it.
So, as much as I am looking forward to increasing my strategic outcomes, which is what I actually enjoy doing and I'm good at, I can't but feel the details will be lost on the way. Like they always are.
P.S. Fika team, if you read this, writing (at least on Firefox) is quite annoying, I have to keep scrolling down or the bottom bar blocks over what I'm writing. Could you pad it up a little bit? Thank you for the recommended articles on the email (do more of that and also, let me see my subscription on a feed on the site, please).