Sign me up for a strategic initiative

You’ve heard senior management talk about "strategic initiatives," and perhaps you’ve even seen your peers recruited to work on such projects.

Why not you?

Getting placed on task forces, or assigned to special projects is one of the best ways to grow your skillset.

Working on SIs will broaden your business perspective and aid your work on your accounts. You’ll gain a perspective to your company and selling that you can’t get otherwise.

Before texting your manager that you want to volunteer for a "side project," give it some thought:

1. What’s an obvious strategic initiative or project in your org that needs attention? Why?

2. Why are you qualified to work on it?

3. What’s the desired outcome of your contribution?

With those answers, you’re now ready to pitch your idea to your manager.

Even if you are stuffed to the gills with work and can’t imagine doing more, push yourself. It’s like ice cream after a big dinner, you can always find the room.

Strategic initiatives start when you see more in the business than others do—and decide to build around it.

That’s what you’ll see in this Short from The Founder when Ray Kroc/Michael Keaton gets a tour of the kitchen.

Ray’s lightbulb goes off: he sees a scalable opportunity that others are under-leveraging and reframes the business from burgers to a scalable system.