The invisible work
If you lead a team or a business in some capacity, and care about the people you work with, chances are you spend a good portion of your time removing obstacles, solving problems and generally making work smoother for others.
Things like:
putting thought, time & energy in clearly articulating (to yourself and others) where we're headed and why.
building the team habits, systems and policies that strike a good balance between too much and too little collaboration.
not hiring (or swiftly removing) the gal/guy who might perform, but makes a terrible culture fit.
figuring out when to schedule meetings / check-ins so they're not in the middle of a productive work spur, on different time zones.
deciding when it's best to use sync and async communication, so the team doesn't feel overwhelmed nor disconnected.
picking (and tinkering with) the tools that allow others to do their best work while having as few tensions as possible.
People always appreciate problems they struggled with for a while being solved. But they might not easily see the work that went in to tackle issues in their infancy, or to prevent them all together.
James Clear says: "Many problems are minor when you solve them right away, but grow into an enormous conflict when you let them linger. As a rule of thumb, fix it now."
To all the invisible work, and to the problems & screw-ups that never were!
