Saturday, January 13, 2007

Getting dressed in the dark

What with the short winter days and getting up early to go swimming, I have been getting dressed in the dark frequently. So there I am, with minimal lights so I don’t wake anyone, trying to figure out whether my pants will match my shirt when everything looks grey. Mostly I go by texture and after fumbling for awhile just make my best guess.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have started as CEO of ActiveGrid. Again, I find myself with partial information, trying to make important decisions without too much time. I have met 1 on 1 with each employee, trying to understand everyone’s skills, how they look at their job and what they think could be done to make the team more effective.

With limited information and limited time, I am trying to make decisions about how to get everything working well together. The more I see of management, the more I believe that it is often important to trust your gut and move forward even if you don’t have the full picture.

Thus it was a bit disconcerting to get to work last Wednesday and discover that I had picked out navy blue pants to go with my brown shirt.