Initiator Or Finisher?

A discussion I enjoyed the other day was with a chap holding a doctorate in public administration.

He described someone as having a reputation for being a project initiator rather than project finisher. Nothing wrong in that at all, except that the person in question erroneously thought of themselves as a project finisher.

This got me thinking though. I wondered if these traits were actually mutually exclusive, opposing poles on a scale where it’d be virtually impossible to find someone that majored in both?

Almost simultaneously, a friend of mine who set up an artificial grass business a couple of years ago is now successful enough to merit taking on extra sales resource.

In our chat on the subject it was clear that he was torn by the classic quandary of what the new sales person would do. Should they go out and create their own leads or pursue his web and press ad generated ones?

My hunch is that although renowned sales operations separate initiation from finishing, most of us need to do both. The starting point is to put in place a disciplined process that allows for sufficient initiation to take place.