Do you make a difference ?

A Software professional may not have a mission like a doctor or a country's leader. So what can inspire him to do his best?

You may feel like just a cog in a machinery. How can you feel valued and driven to excellence? You still can, if your colleagues can look to you and say "You made a difference" . . . if you can identify your legacy -- the difference or added value that should result from your tenure in a team. To leave a team no better than when you came in, does not count as success. It will be natural for you one day to look back in hindsight and say to yourself "I made a difference there in these specific ways . . ." Or, to put it slightly differently, "Had I not been there such-and-such would not have happened."

Actually, it doesn't matter too much if others recognize that difference, still less that it is acknowledged in public. Often you are the only person who knows the full story. What stays with you forever is the knowledge of how you did make a difference. It may or may not have led on to other things - who can follow all the threads of destiny? - but YOU played your part effectively and creatively.

Do you see yourself as part of the head-count, that is available as means at the Organization's disposal, to achieve strategic ends. You could have been misled by the phrase 'Human Resource' - now used as a substitute for the older (military) term personnel - that appears to classify people as if they were economic resources, along with finance, machinery and energy. Will you unlock the inner or hidden reserve of energy, life or sprit that lies within you that is really described by the phrase 'Human Resource'? Resource really indicates a new source of supply or support, one that may be hidden from view. Let each crisis and opportunity that come your way unlock the spirit that lies within you, and lead you to make a difference.

( Inspired by 'Effective Strategic Leadership - John Adair' )