Availability Is The Best Ability.

It’s fantasy football season again, and I'm happy to be back to wheeling and dealing, trying to get that elusive win every Sunday. But this season hasn’t been without its curve balls.? I have been without my two top picks, CMC (Christian McCaffrey)?and Edwards-Helaire, for most of the season thanks to multi-week injuries. ? CMC’s injury was particularly painful because he had come into the season as the consensus #1 pick in fantasy football.? So much for that. ? As I was reflecting on my rather inauspicious start to what once promised to be a potentially epic season, I was reminded of this famous quote by the legendary football coach Bill Parcells:? “Availability is the best ability.” In football lingo, you could be the most talented cat in the game, but if you are not on the field on game day, you are less useful to the team than just about anyone who is available and shows up.

Now, I am not suggesting that availability means the same thing for everyone. ? For professional athletes, availability starts with staying in tiptop physical conditioning to minimize injuries and missed games.? And although the definition may change, there is something universally appealing about this notion of diminished returns from lack of availability in any line of work. ? So what is the right way to think about availability when we are talking about other professions...for instance technology? What does it really mean when we say we are available as engineers?

Being consistent. ? Consistency is about effectively managing risk by setting clear expectations early and often.? Making sure our peers know when we are working and when we are not, what we can get done by when are all examples of how we can eliminate some of the guess-work and allow them to operate with more confidence.? When people think we are consistent, they can depend on us more and that leads to better collaboration.? To quote Jeff Weiner, “Trust Is Consistency Over Time” so be someone your team can trust to be consistently available on the terms you have set for yourself.

Being Present.? Presence is not about never missing work because of illness or some other non-work related priorities we need to attend to.? In fact, it’s very important that we find the right work-life balance to be truly present at work. ? Presence is about being dialed in while on the job.? When was the last time we had to ask someone to repeat a question because we were distracted during a meeting? ? It happens to all of us. ? But locking in and making ourselves fully available in that moment can often be the difference between getting shit done or dropping the ball because we missed something. ? Being there is not enough.? Be present.

Being Ready.? Another important aspect of availability is having an appetite for more when the opportunity presents itself.? Are you the person who raises their hand when your manager or your peers ask for help? ? The individuals that do this consistently tend to develop a reputation for being available and a lot of times this will lead to even more opportunities down the road. With that said, remember that you should only do this within the confines of a healthy work-life balance or you could end up undermining your ability to be present and consistent.? So if you have a little extra bandwidth or don’t mind stretching yourself a bit, always be ready to raise your hand and declare yourself available.?

Being available starts before you even get to work and continues throughout the day in how you engage and interact with your co-workers. There are arguably even more elements to availability but if we can at least be consistent, present and ready to step up, we can show up strongly at work and make ourselves valuable assets to our teams.? And in the end, we would be wise to remember that regardless of how much talent we may possess, the same truth for CMC will likely hold for all of us too. Availability is often our best ability.

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