Everyone is winging it (so you can, too!)

Did you know that everyone, even the top leaders at the top companies, is winging it?

To be clear, I don’t mean that everyone is faking it or that everyone is operating out of their depth - it just means that the higher up you get, your responsibilities will grow, and you’ll be asked to lead more and more - teams, departments, maybe eventually entire companies. As a leader, you’ll be asked to solve new problems or achieve new goals - nobody hires a smart, capable person just to maintain the status quo. 

But when you’re being asked to do something that your team/company/department hasn’t done before, that means that… well, nobody’s ever done it before. So there isn’t a clear roadmap or a guaranteed plan of action that will get you there (otherwise, it would have been done already). And in the absence of those things, what do you do? You have to wing it. 

The course of action you ultimately take will draw from valuable stores of knowledge, skills, and experience that you’ve gained in the past, so “winging it” is not equivalent to a blind guess. Smart leaders also know their strengths and weaknesses, so they know when to rely on their own expertise and when to get guidance and feedback from others around them. The step they take will be well-informed.

If you’re trying to build something new, if you’re trying to innovate, waiting for the absolute “right” next step to identify itself is an impossible task. Nobody, not even the smartest or most experienced person in the world, can tell you with 100% certainty what that is. The best you can expect of yourself is to do your research and your due diligence, gather all the information you can, and make your best guess as to what a good next step is. (note that I didn’t say the best or the right step - just a reasonably good one).

Sometimes your choice will bring you closer to your goal, and sometimes it won’t. But either way you’ll have taken a step forward, and a well-informed guess at the next best step is ALWAYS better than no step at all.