Business Savvy Software

My third son was a week ago, Benjamin Micah Butel.  Benjamin means ’son of my right hand’ – and I have no idea what the person who made that up was thinking, but I know what it means to me.  It means my ceiling is your floor.  I don’t want my boys to repeat my footsteps, but to take what I’m capable of and go far beyond.  Its like a relay race where I pass the baton on (with my right hand) and they run the next leg.

As leaders, we establish innovative and creative ways of doing things, then formalise it so we can train other people to do them.  So often, this becomes a constraint when it should just be the starting point.  My ceiling is your floor.  We should be empowering people to start with what we’ve learned and go further than us with their own creative ideas.  Instead of expecting them to run the same race as you (ie do it this way because that worked really well 5 years ago), instead pass the baton so they can run the next leg of the race starting with your best and then creating their own.