“I thought my promotion to manager was to become better at directing people to get work done,” Roberta said. “You make it seem like there should be more focus on the team than on me. I thought I had to have the answers, the solutions?”

“You might have answers and your answers may be the most coherent. You might have solutions and your solutions may be the ones that save the day,” I replied. “But, it is not your answers, your solutions, your planning, your bright ideas that make the difference. It’s execution. I am also certain that you have high performance standards, and you would meet those performance standards if you could self-perform each step in the process. Yet, you have come to realize that successful initiatives are seldom accomplished by a single person, it takes a team. It’s not the idea harbored by a single individual, it’s the coordinated execution that transforms a dispirited group into a cohesive team.”