Every Team Needs Somebody Who Goes First

That is not bossiness. That is a job.

There are five jobs on a team like this and going first is one of them. Somebody has to walk into the room nobody has been in yet and find out what is in there.

Here is the part people get wrong. Going first is not the best job. It is one of five, and a team with only first-goers falls apart by lunchtime.

Somebody has to see what is coming. Somebody has to get everyone else excited enough to move. Somebody has to make sure nobody gets left behind. Somebody has to remember how it worked so you can do it again next time.

Take any one of those five away and the team has a hole exactly that shape.

I build things for a living, and this is the truest thing I know about building anything with other people. You do not need everyone to be the same kind of good. You need to know which kind of good each person is, and then put them where that works.

You are one of the five. You have been one since you were small, and you have probably already been told off for it at least once.