I’m Proud of Your Failure?!?

We were down by a goal in the waning moments of our last soccer game.  My son, who is one of the youngest players on the team (and therefore one of the least developed skill-wise) was playing forward.

He took up an intelligent position in the center of the penalty area, just as we’d been working on in practice.

And then it happened.

The perfect cross.

One of his teammates sent a terrific ball right into his path, and he was alone in front of goal.  It was exactly as we’d been rehearsing in the weeks leading up to the game.  Now all he had to do was kick it in, and we’d be tied.

The ball arrived, right at his feet.

He swung his leg back…

…and missed.  Whiffed.  No contact with the ball, and the moment was lost.

We lost the game 3-2.

Afterward, I called him over, picked him up to give him a big hug, and told him, “I’m proud of you; do you know why?”

“Why?” he said, still a little disappointed.

“Because you did exactly what we practiced,” I said.  ”You went to the exact right spot for the cross, and you tried to kick it in with your first touch instead of controlling it, which is the right thing to do.  And I’d rather have you do the right thing, and have the right idea, even if you miss, than to see you score but develop habits that you’ll have to change later.”

He wasn’t totally convinced, but it made him feel a bit better.

I was being completely honest with him, both as a coach, and as his dad.  I was very proud of him.  He’ll score a lot of goals later because he’s doing things the right way–trying to do what is difficult instead of doing it the easy way and then not being able to do it at a more advanced level later.  It won’t be long before his coordination and skill level catch up to what his mind is trying to do, and when that happens, he’ll score every time that cross is played to him.

And I’ll be proud of him then, too.

What are you doing to encourage people who follow you to try difficult things?  Even to fail?  If you are not, chances are they are taking the easy way, and that you might have to change some habits later.

You Get What You…

How would you finish that sentence?

Most people say “pay for.”

But as leaders, we need to think about it differently. “You get what you measure,” is a good start, but that can lead to transactional leadership, which, while sometimes appropriate, doesn’t usually result in meaningful change.

Today, I am reminded that as leaders, we get what we encourage. That is, we get what we invest in. And this, wielded well, means that we get what we expect.

Pause with me for a minute. If we get what we expect as leaders, we are, in some way, able to predict the future, to know in advance what will transpire because of our actions, which can be very powerful indeed.

I read regularly with my 7 year old son. We read aloud. He reads a page, then I read a page, and so on. 2 days ago, I encouraged him because he pronounced the word “inquisitive” perfectly, and, when asked, knew exactly what it meant.

I returned home today and he greeted me with, “Dad, today I read the word ‘unauthorized.’”

“Do you know what that means?” I asked.

“It means when you don’t have permission,” he responded, “but I don’t know what ‘authorized’ means.”

“Well, if ‘unauthorized’ means you don’t have permission, what do you think?”

“It must mean when you do have permission,” he concluded.

He wants to learn; moreover, he wants to demonstrate what he has learned. In part, this is because we have invested in this together, and I have encouraged it over time.

And, incidentally, I’m getting exactly what I expected, and I couldn’t be happier.

‘Have to’ and ‘Want to’

My children are old enough to perform certain tasks, assisting with the keeping of our household.  One of them is walking the dog.  Both my daughter and my son do this faithfully most of the time, but on occasion, complaining accompanies cooperation.

Given this background, something ironic has been happening lately.  Every time I walk the dog, my daughter creeps out the door a minute or two after I have gone, and tries to sneak up on me.  Sometimes she is successful; other times I see her coming.  In either case, though, we end up finishing the walk together, talking and holding hands.

She doesn’t always like to walk the dog on her own, but most of the time when I walk the dog, she wants to join me.

What’s the difference? 

“Have to” versus “Want to.”

She follows me because she wants to, because she likes being outside, and because she likes our dog.  (It probably helps that I pick up his mess when we’re together also…)

What do your followers “want to” do?  What do they “have to” do?  More importantly, how can you help them do more of the “want to” even in the midst of the “have to?”  What would that take? 

Important caveat: we’re not talking about getting people to do things they don’t want to do because we, their leaders, want them to do it.  There’s a definition of leadership out there that goes something like: “leadership is getting people to do things they didn’t want to do, and making them feel like they want to do it.”  Total myth.  Leadership is not about persuading, or worse, manipulating, people to do things they didn’t want to do.  It is, however, about finding out what they do, in fact, want to do, and helping them to do more of that.  It is also about helping them to see connections between what they “have to” do, and what they “want to” do, so that the “have tos” become more bearable.

So maybe the better question is, “What do your followers ‘want to’ do?”

“We could do this every week or something.”

My son and I were playing with Nerf guns–shooting foam darts at a target he’d made. When that lost its appeal, we started to invent games: see who could hit the doorknob first; turn out the lights and shine a flashlight on the wall, then shoot the light; see how many darts we could get to stick to the wall; shoot darts sticking on the wall and try to knock them down…

We stood up and shot; we laid down and shot; we shared darts; we competed with each other and against each other.

Then, tentatively, my son said, “We could do this every week or something.”

He didn’t want it to end.

“Yeah,” I said. (I was having fun too.)

It takes me by surprise sometimes, how much he wants to be with me. It hardly matters what we do; he just wants to be where I am, do what I’m doing, watch how I act, have my approval.

That it takes me by surprise betrays how much time I spend thinking about it. But he thinks about it often; much more than I do. It isn’t that I don’t look forward to spending time with him, but that I am taking for granted, even overlooking, what happens during that time.

It is that time that develops attributes in my son, and shapes how he thinks I perceive him.

What attributes are we developing in others as leaders? How do they think we perceive them? How do we know?

Or does it come as a surprise to us that they want to be with us “every week or something”?

When Fishing Isn’t About Catching Fish

My son wanted to go fishing. We’d postponed it a day, but today was the day. He could barely wait, but several things had to be done first. I had work to do and so did the rest of the family.

But by late afternoon, we were on our way. The first thing I said to him was, “I’m sorry it took so long, but I’m glad we’re going.”

“That’s OK,” he replied cheerfully.

We talked as we walked to the pier.

“You can fish too if you want,” he said, offering to sacrifice his own enjoyment for mine, as we have only one rod–a batman kid’s rod.

“I’ll help you cast if you want, but I’ll probably just watch and talk to you,” I offered.

We arrived at the pier and I prepared the bait (a lump of wheat bread formed into a ball). After several failed attempts, we tried a new strategy: simply lowering the hook and bobber into the water where we could see it, and trying to get the small bluegill to bite.

It worked! Not more than 5 minutes after employing our new strategy, my son had caught a fish about the size of my hand. I removed the hook and released the fish. “Let’s try to catch another,” I said.

“I doubt we will,” came the reply.

“Don’t doubt yourself–you just caught one, and I’m sure you can do it again!” I encouraged. “Always believe in yourself; I believe in you,” I told him.

“Do you have your phone?” he asked.

“Yes, why?”

“Can I call Mom and tell her we caught a fish?”

“Sure,” I smiled.

He made the call, and left a message when Mom didn’t answer. I prepared the line for another attempt, and we tried to lower the bait a little further, thinking there might be some larger fish deeper in the water.

We were right. Not long after, we watched our bobber disappear, and my son yelled, “Reel it in, Dad!”

I couldn’t. The fish was too large for the meager strength of the rod we were using. I had to grab the line and pull it in hand over hand. It was a 14″ bass, probably about 4 pounds. We were both pretty surprised.

I released the fish, at the cost of cutting the line, which meant our fishing trip was over.

“That’s OK,” my son said. “I’ve caught 3 fish in my life now, and that last one we caught was the biggest of all! I’ve never seen a fish that big so close! And I helped you catch it by telling you when to reel it in.”

“That’s right.”

And next time, he will believe in himself even more.

“I Don’t Need a Mentor.”

“I don’t have a mentor, and at this point in my career, I don’t think I need one.”

Professional decorum kept me from saying what I thought as I listened to a senior executive from a well known company talk about how dedicated he was to developing others and helping them be successful, but in the very next sentence spoke about how he’d accomplished enough to arrive in his dream position, and therefore no longer needed such help from others.

In truth, I hear this often. It always goes something like this: “I can be a mentor, but I don’t need one.”

But it doesn’t work that way. Knowingly or unknowingly, these individuals are taking the position that they have arrived, that they have nothing left to learn–a mistake both in practice and in perception.

Done being mentored=done learning, done growing, content to stay the same.

I concede the point that the higher level one attains, the more difficult it is to find adequate mentors, but is not having one what’s best for any leader, or any organization?

A Tale of Two Players

Soccer has always been my favorite sport.  I follow the English Premier League, as well as international teams.

The past few weeks have been full of drama in England, notably around 2 players who briefly played for the same club: Emmanuel Adebayor (formerly of Arsenal and now of Manchester City), and Richard Dunne (former Manchester City captain and now of Aston Villa).

In any sport, it is always a story when a player comes up against his former club.  Both Adebayor and Dunne experienced this within the last month.  In the Manchester City vs. Arsenal match, Adebayor, a forward, courted controversy by stomping on an Arsenal player, cutting his face.  Additionally, he scored a goal and ran the length of the field to celebrate in front of the Arsenal supporters, who had been vocal in their disappointment with him.  He received a suspension for his actions and resumed playing against Aston Villa this week.

In the game in which Adebayor returned, another subplot existed in that former Manchester City captain Richard Dunne was playing against his former team.  Ironically, Dunne, a defender, scored a headed goal from a corner kick in the first half.  But, in contrast to Adebayor, Dunne did not so much as raise a hand in celebration, even though Aston Villa were playing at home.  Instead, he simply trotted back to his own end of the field and play resumed.

While I certainly would not judge any player, or any person, on the merits of one action or one match, it is easy to see why Dunne is a former captain, and Adebayor, at least to this point in his career, has been branded a great talent with an attitude problem.

The leadership lesson here is simple: act like a captain.  People are watching whether you intended for them to see or not.

Leadership and Bird Watching

OK, so you are already wondering what the birds in my yard have to do with leadership, but hear me out on this.

We have a bay window in our kitchen that looks out into our backyard, where we have a bird feeder frequented by several varieties of fowl.

As I looked out today, I saw 3 different birds at a glance: sparrows, a cardinal, and several robins.

All of a sudden, it began to rain–heavy rain–the kind of rain that makes people stay inside or not want to go to their cars in the parking lot.  When it did, an interesting thing happened: birds scattered for cover, just like people do.

Except for the robins.

Not only did the robins not scatter, but more came.

Why?

Because robins eat worms, and worms come to the surface when it rains.  The robins were willing to endure a heavy rain to gain the reward of a meal.  None of the other birds did this.

And the leadership payoff?  Endured trials yield outcomes.  Endured trials attract followers.  Shared experiences make us stronger, and add to our collective wisdom.

What is your heavy rain?

And what is your promised worm?

Motive

“Let’s run; c’mon!” my daughter said, breaking into a stride through the parking lot.

I pressed the remote button to open the van door for her as I walked quickly through the rain.

She reached the car well ahead of me, and went into the front seat.

“Don’t!” I said in vain as she put her wet foot on my seat.

But she was only trying to reciprocate–trying to open the door for me so that I wouldn’t get wet; just like I had done for her.

I was more concerned, though, about her getting in the front seat, and subsequently about my seat getting wet, than I was about her motive.

And, unfortunately, her great motive was trumped by my bad assumption, and by my greater concern for what was happening than for what she was trying to do.

Suspend judgment; discern motive.

I made a mental note of that today–next time I’ll react less to what is happening and more to motive.

Boundaries and Cultures

We’ve all heard that leaders should have boundaries, even distance, between themselves and their followers.

Total myth.

But as our influence grows, it is likely that we will have followers with whom we interact only occasionally, perhaps only indirectly.  As a result, distance exists, or can develop, even when we intentionally try to eliminate it (and we should).

But here’s a buoying thought: that distance can be closed by the culture we create.  It doesn’t have to close as a direct result of some overture we make one person at a time, though of course that is sometimes necessary.

I went to a Christian school when I was younger, and we would often have times where teachers would solicit prayer requests from students.  I remember very vividly the most popular prayer request when I was a young teen: “Unspoken,” which basically meant that the person had something about which they wanted prayer, but weren’t willing to expose the topic in the presence of others.

Some of this, of course, was the natural angst of adolescence.  But some of it was the environment, the culture.

And cultures are created by leaders.

And cultures always win.

Most leaders claim to have an “open door policy.”  So much so that the term has very little meaning anymore.  The question is not “Do you have an open door policy?”  The question is, “What are you doing, intentionally and consistently, to create a culture in which people feel that there is less and less distance between themselves and others (including you as a leader)?”

If we can act on that, the culture we create will do some of the work for us–people will feel comfortable going to each other, and coming to us.

How much “unspoken” exists between you and your followers?  Between your followers and others?  Within your organization?

How do you know? 

More importantly, when was the last time you did something intentional to eliminate boundaries and create a “spoken” culture?