Ideas

Question:

"After 15 years working as an engineer at my company, including the last eight as a manager, I find myself wondering more and more about the direction of the company, the impact I have, the issues I have to deal with, etc. I sometimes feel like I'm living the same day over and over again with the same problems and the same status quo thinking about how to solve them. I've always thought of myself as someone who challenges the status quo, not someone who reinforces it. Increasingly, I find myself as the odd man out in conversations. I am the one who talks about process improvements. I am the one who challenges the group to think outside the box. While I don't get much blowback when I do so because I think people respect my skills and what I have to say, I can tell some of them are getting tired of my nagging – which is how I've begun to feel, like I'm a nag, an irritant, etc. Why do I have to be the one to encourage the group to see the big picture? Why does my interest in moving ahead to better our efforts leave me talking to myself?"