Self Reflection

What I do… I don’t know what you call it, or what the title is, but this is what I do.

I am the one willing to ask the hard question.  Or the obvious one.  I am going to look at a problem from angles others will not.  I am going to ask why are even looking at the problem?  Is it even the right one?

I am not going to tell you how it has to be.  I am always going to give you options, my best analysis and recommendation.

When a decision is made, I am going to support it, even if I do not agree with it.  You may even believe I love a project when really I believe it is not the best thing to do. I am simply professional: a job is to be done, and I am going to do it the best way possible.

I am going to put the company and its customers first.  This sometimes means unpopular opinions, hard truths, tough conversations.

I am good at taking ideas and information from various sources and bringing it together into something new.  At the same time, it is important to me to give credit where it is due.  I encourage others, I am candid, and my greatest successes are often visible in others, not in myself.  The limelight is not for me.

I will never take “because that is just the way it is” for an answer.

I treasure learning.  I am naturally inquisitive, curious, probing.  Some mistake my critical questioning as disdain for an idea.  They are often surprised that, after I am satisfied, I become the idea’s greatest champion.

I am a natural skeptic, but not a cynic.

I like to write and to teach.  I am good at communicating with both highly technical people and executives.  I have been told, I just “get it.”

I lead others through questions – this way, they often discover the truth for themselves.  It ‘sticks’ better when people learn for themselves rather than being told.

I do not know what that makes me, what title exists for “someone who just makes things better.”  But this is what I am.