This snippet was prompted by a great article from This Is Going to be Big… called The Nature of Greatness.

The reason I’m so drawn to working with organizations is because there’s a huge opportunity to help people figure out their definition of greatness and then show them the tools and practices that will help them along that path. Making work great is a lot like making your health great — as much as we wish we could do it overnight or with one intense retreat it only ever works with consistent effort over time.

There aren’t many truly great athletes and there are even fewer truly great organizations. But every professional athlete, every professional sports team, and every organization should be on the path toward greatness. If you’re not — why are you even in the game (please note I’m not defining greatness for you)? Every decision, from mundane to monumental, is an opportunity to take a step on the path toward greatness or an opportunity to wander astray.

Good leaders, managers, and self-organizing groups setup guardrails, prompts and cues to encourage continued progress down the path of greatness. Bad ones either actively dissuade their employees from making the best decision or complicate matters to the point that the path toward greatness is diffused and impossible to detect.

What does greatness look like for your organization? For you? For your team? What’s one thing it seems like nobody else is doing that would set you on a path to be truly great?