Choose the Work Where Your Delta Matters


Every year there is a new plan. Goals appear at every level. Team goals. Director goals. VP goals. Early in my career I learned to attach myself to the largest goals. Cross-director work felt important. It had urgency. It had visibility. It helped measure impact clearly. Features launched. Millions saved. Customers served. It worked. It helped me earn my senior promotion. It helped me reach principal. It helped the people I mentored grow too.

But over time something changed. I realized those goals would be met even if I was not there. The teams were capable. The managers knew how to deliver. Execution was not the differentiator anymore. The difference was in how the solution evolved. Without intervention, the outcome would still ship. It would just be slightly worse. Slightly more complex. Slightly slower. Slightly harder to extend.

That is when my rubric changed. I stopped asking where the biggest goal was. I started asking where my delta mattered most. Where I could see something others did not yet see. Long-term viability. Simplification. Acceleration. Patterns hidden in the symptoms. When that delta is large, the work becomes interesting. Tenet #5 — Think 10×, Build 1× at a Time. The best place to work is where your perspective changes the trajectory, not just the execution.

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