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The Difference Between Managing a Process and Understanding a System.
What a decade of organizational change taught me about ownership, leadership, and the work we are expected to do without always understanding why.
I have spent much of my career being good at my job.
I learn the responsibilities, understand the expectations placed on me, and work to deliver what is required. I take pride in doing things correctly, keeping work moving, and making sure the details do not fall through the cracks. When I am responsible for something, I want it to function as efficiently and effectively as possible.
But over the last decade, I have come to recognize a distinction that has changed how I think about my work: there is a difference between being good at managing a process and understanding the system in which that process exists.
I have performed well in roles where I understood my immediate responsibilities but did not always have visibility into the broader purpose of the work, how it connected to other functions, or why the overall process operated as it did. Then the organization would change. A manager would leave or a team would be reorganized. Responsibilities would shift, expectations would evolve, and the process I had learned to manage would become something different.
