When Are You Going to Fix This?
Whenever we'd cross paths in San Francisco, Jim Jefferson would always ask me the same question: "When are you going to fix this?" By "this" he was referring to everything in a pretty dysfunctional organization, so I always laughed. I thought of it as just a joke. A rhetorical question shared between two people who knew how hard fixing all this would be. Hard as in, "impossible!"
While Jim is no longer with us, his question now haunts me. Suppose he wasn't being rhetorical? Suppose Jim saw me as someone who really could fix it? At least put a big dent in it? Could that be true? Have I been underperforming all these years? Not trying enough (or hard enough)? Biting off less than I can chew? And, if so, why exactly?
In a conversation a few weeks ago, a new colleague put a very different question to me: "What's holding you back?" she asked. "What's stopping you?"
Damn! That's a great question! A little more approachable than Jim's, perhaps. Not rhetorical. And without a hint of blame, just pure curiosity.
After our conversation, as I tried to come up with an answer, I thought of these words from the late Gil Scott-Heron's Don't Give Up:
I was obviously too blind and probably too weak
To see who was responsible for my losing streak
The best way to explain it is to say simply because
I was looking around outside, and the truth is,
I was the one.
It's clear now. I've been holding me back. I've been the one keeping me from doing what I know I should do! How? By focusing on me, worrying about what people will think. By not doing what I can do (and making up plenty of excuses along the way).
So, that's my story. Welcome to my world! Now the serious work begins. I've got to work on fixing this!
What's stopping you? What's holding you back?
Whatever you do, don't give up!
There's a lesson there…
Do you see how a well-placed question can get us thinking more deeply about things we've been ignoring? If you are ever asked such a question, don't try to answer too quickly. Let the question marinate. Take time to think about it, and maybe dig a little deeper. And if you're the one asking the question, don't worry about their answer. Let the other person wrestle with it in their own time.