Enough of Them: The You Differential

Doing everything can sometimes be the same as doing nothing at all- nothing of value that is. At the same time, you can add broad, incremental value that mounts substantially over time (think: index fund). You can be doing a lot of things well, but is that what you should be doing? Just because you can do it does not mean you should be dedicating time towards that it.

Recently, I have gotten the joy of watching men and women operate in their gifting: a chorus of harmonizers covering rhythm and blues hits. Tennis pros outrallying one another to their physical and mental limits. A graphic artist tuning a key visual to unveil just the right perspective and awe. Comparatively speaking, there are few that can operate in these spaces and these individuals shine. The true greats in each of these areas holds a competitive performance differential in their respective spheres of influence. Hopefully, when you look around, you see these too.

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What happens when you see a high concentration of gifted individuals in one area? Do some need to quit? Do the less talented need to give up some of their roles and responsibility? How do the equally multi-talented decide? Forget the great resignation- what about the great calibration? While there are many fields like academia, research, and technology where the saturation is generally accepted, some fields that is not the case. In some fields, like engineering and skilled trades, there appear to be well-defined shortages. There are just not enough entering into and staying in these professions. And in some career fields, there may just be a perceived shortage. In medicine, some have argued that we have an artificial shortage. It is not that there are not enough qualified and gifted folks, the structure and perception are artificially constrained to prevent more volume. And in some instances, jealousy and lack of mentorship choke and ax the pipeline for filling in these gaps.

I wonder how many times we have missed out on an individual contribution or somebody has had to step up because the person originally assigned was too busy doing or being encouraged to do something else "well enough" like all the other Hoos in Hooville. Or, whatever it was did not get done because the person assigned was too tired or just not feeling like being the one called for such a time as this (believe me, I have been here). What does this mean for our careers? I think we grasp the gravity of this and understand this vantage point better and deeper with age as we grapple with purpose. Think about the next great __________ struggling within their calling or cut off altogether? And it is not just one person impacted- livelihoods and generations are changed. With these questions in mind, YOLO (You Only Live Once) takes on a whole different meaning.

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Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash