Sam and his team did some demolition and laid some new concrete for us on the weekend. Towards the end of the day I had two separate interactions that went very similarly;

“Do you like your driveway?”

“Yeah”, I say “It looks good”.

“It’s what we do (smiling with pride).”

You could tell they loved doing a good job. I stood on the road at one point with my neighbour Paul and we joked about how these blokes were the real deal … one of them had the trademark blue singlet and fag hanging out of his mouth. Lovely to watch.

Derek and I have agreed that this year, 2011, we will put some energy and resources into developing our strengths. In part that means sharpening the focus of what we offer to the market. Another dimension is fuelling the brain juices with the stuff that motivates us in that direction.

The first expression of that is a new offering we launched in January: the IT Team Health Check. The second, starts today, participating with a bunch of other likeminded people, in the Reos Partners Learning Festival. Adam Kahane’s work has been formative for us in the social innovation and facilitation work we do at Ergo so it will be good to see him and his associates host some discussion here in our home town.

There is something that moves deep inside when I come to the end of a complex or challenging facilitation assignment and have delivered over and above. I love the look in people’s eyes when they reflect back on what we have accomplished. Inside I say to myself, “It’s what I do.”

This year, even this week, I hope you find yourself doing lots of the stuff that, for you, is in the sweet spot. May there be plenty of opportunities to step back and say, “It’s what I do.”