Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

We aren’t as smart as we assume. Sometimes we need to do the simple things first before we move forward.

“Can we introduce ourselves before we start?” I asked at a meeting.

“No, we know each other here,” said the person presiding.

We introduced ourselves first. The person presiding was thrilled to know that I was Dwayne Phillips. He had been trying for weeks to contact me.

We introduced ourselves first. We didn’t know as much as we thought we knew. Learning what we didn’t know was a major breakthrough.

Sometimes we need to:

• introduce ourselves
• draw something on the white board
• hand out paper materials
• use name placards on the table
• give each other business cards with contact information
• explain the obvious things

The list could go on. “We’ve got this, we don’t need to…” Perhaps that list of things we don’t need to do are the things that we absolutely must do.