I once watched a critical project stall for three months because everyone was waiting for a person who didn't exist.
That's the pattern I call Waiting for Godot.
A problem shows up. Everyone agrees it matters. But instead of stepping in, people wait. They wait for the new hire who is supposed to own it. They wait for the specialist who has not been recruited yet. They wait for permission, for clarity, for someone else to walk in and lift the thing off the table.
The work sits there. The empty chair stays empty. And slowly, waiting becomes the default.
Here is the uncomfortable truth I learned the hard way: the team you have is the team you have. There is no cavalry coming over the hill. There is no future version of the org chart that will make the hard problem easy. There is no magical hire who will absorb all the ambiguity so you do not have to.
The people in the room today are the team. And the question is not who should own this. It is how do we figure this out together, right now, with what we have.
Most of the time it is not heroic. It is small. Raising your hand in a meeting. Saying you will take a first pass. Sending the rough draft before it is ready. Asking the dumb question that unlocks the conversation. Choosing action over the comfort of someone else's eventual arrival.
I think about that empty chair sometimes. The one we keep open for the person who is supposed to solve the problem. The imaginary teammate who will finally have the bandwidth or the expertise or the mandate.
But empty chairs stay empty until someone decides to sit down. And the people who sit first, imperfect and unsure, are the ones who end up shaping what gets built.
Do not wait for Godot.
The team you have is the team you have.
Start anyway.