There's a compass on my right forearm. It's part of a larger piece — pines, a wolf, the kind of country I'd rather be in on a Saturday. I didn't put it there as a metaphor. But the older I get, the more it works as one.
A compass doesn't tell you where to go. It tells you which way is north, and then leaves the walking to you. That's most of leadership, honestly. You rarely get a map with the route already drawn. You get a direction, a rough sense of the terrain, and a lot of small decisions about where to put your next step.
I spend my workweeks in systems, strategy, and the steady work of keeping a technology operation trustworthy. I spend a fair amount of my non-work time outside — paying attention to weather, light, and animals that don't care about my calendar. Those two things feel separate, but they run on the same muscles: patience, observation, preparation, and a willingness to adjust when the conditions change.
So this section is called Bearings. Most of what I write here will be about leading technology and operations, because that's the work I think about most. But some of it won't be. Sometimes taking your bearings means stepping off the trail for a minute to figure out where you actually are.
That's the plan, anyway. Check back and we'll see where it heads.
