Welcome to Dear HBR from Harvard Business Review.

I'm Dan McGinn.

And I'm Alison Beard.

Work can be frustrating, but it doesn't have to be.

We don't need to let the conflicts get us down.

That's where Dear HBR comes in.

We take your questions, look at the research, talk to the experts, and help you move forward.

Today we're talking about being sidelined with Bill Taylor.

He co-founded Fast Company and his latest business

book is Simply Brilliant. Bill, thanks for coming on the show. My great pleasure. Does this

happen more than people think? Have you seen this happen much in your career? I think it's pretty

unrealistic to think that from year to year, every assignment you get, every boss you work for

is going to be an ideal situation.

There won't be times where you're going to be sidelined, however you define that.

It's interesting. Being sidelined is an athletic metaphor. We think about the sidelines in the sporting field.

Almost no matter what sport you watch, look at the biggest star, there's going to be times when he or she comes out of the game. It's a normal part of basketball, football, hockey. In business, we think that everything has to be full speed all the time. Well, also, think about what happens on the sideline. You're looking at, you know, images of the game. You're strategizing with some of the other people who are also on the

sideline with you. There's a heck of a lot of stuff going on on the sidelines. And a lot of it's

learning, analyzing, problem solving, doing all sorts of things that are the necessary things to do

in order to once you get back into the action, you're ready to be successful. And so, again, so much of organizational life, obviously, is situations are what you make of them.

You've got to anticipate these kinds of situations, and then when they arrive, have some notion of how you're going to deal with them.

Let's go to the first question. Dear HBR, three years ago, I was a rising star.

I was selected by the CEO to run a special project.

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