MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Don't Get Caught in the Middle

Sometimes things move so fast in our digitized world that it can feel as if there is no safe place to position yourself — or your organization. How do you anticipate where to go next — whether considering your company’s strategy or your own career — when the winds of change sweep from every direction? You simply can’t know the right move for certain. And even when you do make a good call, the clock is ticking; you’ll soon face a new threat of obsolescence. As I’ve written in the past, we all need to accept that change is continual; we must learn to embrace change rather than fight it. Similarly, we need to accept that there are no safe havens — for us or our companies. We simply must be prepared to stay on the move.

But whatever you do next, wherever you go, don’t head for the middle. Not the middle of a relationship, not the middle of an organization. It’s a bad time to be an intermediary — at least in the traditional sense of the word.