Dear CEO,
Can I think out loud for a second? An opportunity showed up this week - a good, meaty, complicated one. And by the end of the conversation, somehow it was mine. This just kind of keeps happening: I see everything the thing could be, I figure no one's going to see it the way I do, and I pick it up.
I don't think my team's dropping the ball - I hope they're out finding the work that fits them perfectly. It's more that the big, tangled ones keep ending up mine by default.
What gnaws at me is a question I can't shake: what do I do when "Do-It-Myself" is starting to get in everyone's way?
— In the Driver's Seat (Again)
Dear Driver,
First, something I want you to know: I've been exactly where you are. An opportunity shows up, and right there in the conversation I feel it - the whole shape of the thing snaps into focus, every moving part, how it all connects - and suddenly my hands are on the wheel. I've watched myself do it more times than I'd like to admit.
Recently I got a great referral from a CEO client who I've supported at multiple companies. I set up a meeting to see what kind of challenge the referral was experiencing, and by the end of the call we had desired outcomes, dates that would work best for everyone involved, and I left with the task of finalizing the plan to be implemented in just weeks. While my colleagues have bandwidth and could use the work - here I am, tempted to just do it all myself.
So please take the rest of this as someone who's been there, and is thinking out loud alongside you.
Here's what I finally had to notice: I never actually was deciding to drive. The seeing and the reaching for the wheel arrive as one motion - by the time a real decision could happen, it already has. That's where I started realizing I needed to slow down. Because the real question was never should I take this? The one I've learned to ask - sometimes still after the fact - is:
What can only I do here?
Not whether I can. I can see it whole; that's exactly the problem. Seeing it whole makes it feel like mine by default. The real question is what's genuinely mine in this moment, and what only looks like mine because I got there first.
And here's the trap inside the trap. One of the reasons no one else sees it the way I do is that the seeing lives in my head. The whole tangled picture - the stakes, the connections, what "good" even looks like here - I'm holding all of it, and I've rarely set it down where anyone else could pick it up. So of course it stays mine. The thing only I can do isn't driving. It's taking the time to make the complexity visible - saying out loud what I see, slowly enough that someone else can start to see it too. Less doing, more sharing.
There's a sneakier version of this which I catch myself in all the time:
Sometimes I take the wheel less because the work needs me and more because driving feels good. The whole picture is mine, the result is mine, and right then I know I mattered. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting that - it feels good to make a difference. And it's worth one honest question: how much am I doing this because it's what the business needs, or how much because it's easier than the slow work of helping someone else learn to see?
When I can't tell, I ask someone outside myself. Not to be reassured - to be reflected back to myself. A peer, a coach, a group that will ask the questions I'd rather skip. I can't be the person at the wheel and the person watching from the curb at the same time. Almost no one can.
So here's where I start when I feel the pull coming to Do-It-All-Myself:
Pause in the moment. When the whole picture snaps into focus, don't let my hands go straight to the wheel. One breath, and one two-part question: how much of this has to be mine, and how much just feels that way because I got there first?
Keep score on myself. When my answer keeps coming back "this has to be mine," I ask the bigger questions: if I keep doing what I'm doing, what does the business look like in twelve months - and how okay is that for me, my colleagues, the business?
Find an outside mirror - before a crisis forces one. Even as this is literally what I do for others, I need it just as much for myself.
None of this is about removing ourselves. It's about showing up where we're truly needed and stepping out of the places where our staying has quietly become the thing in everyone's way.
And what's truly mine usually isn't the hardest piece of the work - it's the picture I've been carrying in my head and never set down where anyone else could hold it. That's where I'm learning to start.
And if you're sitting with this - or maybe you already know the answer and keep talking yourself out of it - I'd be glad to think it through with you. It's the kind of conversation we do best. Use this form to get started.
Chris
