In my last post, I talked about balancing the aspects of comfortability and striving for more.
My son, Jeremy, had an experience in high school around how we as individuals and as leaders can better recognize when we have pushed to a level of too much uncomfortability - and 'failure' -and how we can manage what we do afterwards.
My son played on an 11th grade Spring basketball team, competing against some of the top teams in the state and region. They were in the middle of 5 straight weekends of tournaments, with 4-5 games each weekend.
Each one of the players on the team, including my son, have not been the focal point of the opponent's efforts to stop them in high school. They became highly ranked in the state and teams were getting physical with them, especially my son, the top player.
On the last weekend of the 5 consecutive weekends, the team struggled under the pressure and cracked against a team they had beaten before. Our coach, other coaches and I could clearly see my son was wearing down. My son mentioned to me before that weekend he was really excited about the upcoming break so he could do NOTHING.
He was mentally and physically worn down. He had pushed himself to be the leader of the team and perform at a level he and others expected. He had reached his failure point, as had the team. They'd gotten too uncomfortable under the stress and were shutting down.
What Do We Do When We Face Trouble In Front of Us?
The team was facing issues they had little experience in managing. His coach - whom I talked with a lot about coaching - and I had a great conversation about this issue. He wanted to press through this tough time to get stronger. That's how he did it in the past and it worked. These boys were different than him, however. They needed a different approach. I suggested seeing this from their perspective and taking action from there - Respect it.
I set a picture of hiking a trail in the wilderness when you reach a large area that's worn down and very muddy from recent rains. That 'muck' signifies a barrier in front of your planned path, a stress point. As I described possible scenarios with encountering this muck, I came up with 9 likely resolutions:
- You make it to the other side unscathed, because you’ve been through something similar before and it isn’t difficult enough of an obstacle to worry about,
- You make it to the other side, scathed, but stronger (usually after a recovery period) from the struggle and the knowledge gained even though you may have spent more energy than you wanted,
- You make it to the other side, scathed and unable to move forward in the same way because the muck took too much out of you,
- You slog through a portion of the muck and find a way out of it that gets you back on the path after the slog allowing you to live to fight another day,
- You slog through a portion of the muck, find a safe place to stop and take a breath to assess what is in front of you and steel your resolve to move forward,
- You lay logs, rocks or some other bridge-like structures over the muck to get you, and those after you, over the muck quicker,
- You slog through the muck, find out it's going to be too much for you at some point (or see it is a dead end) and turn around to find another way around,
- You see the opportunity to find a different path before getting into the muck because you were aware of your surroundings and dangers; or
- You die before you get to the other side, your bones left for archaeologists to find 10,000 years later.
Coach/Lead towards a resolution that's right for them, not you
My son, and the rest of the team, were facing scenarios 4, 5 or 7. They've reached a point where they didn't have the strength or tools to continue the slog without a lot of trouble and with uncertainty of their state when they got to the other side. But, they were learning a great deal from the journey.
What did Coach do?
He settled in with resolution 5. He handled their first practice back differently than he usually did. He did three things, specifically:
- He took time to talk with the guys, acknowledge where they were at mentally and physically, and had a discussion about how they could move strongly forward through the muck to the other side,
- He allowed the players to construct the rest of practice as they wished, letting them just have fun and take a breath; and
- Cut practice short by 30 minutes to give them something tangible to grab onto and let them release stress.
See these situations as growth opportunities, not failures
Each of us are on a continuum of proficiency and capabilities with all of the things we do in our lives. As you first started a job, promotion or new event in your life, you were a novice. Things happened initially you may have believed you could never do. You likely got frustrated at times and didn't know how to proceed. But, you persevered and progressed, didn't you? How fast you progressed may have impacted by having a quality leader/mentor to guide you through the process.
Struggles such as my son's are opportunities to celebrate progress that's occurred while acknowledging the challenges in front of us. From the learning processes we've developed, experiences we've had and belief in our abilities to look at the end game, we can make appropriate decisions moving forward.
Love and Serve them and they'll run through walls for you
As a leader, you can give security, calmness and confidence to the teams you lead by helping them see where they're at, how far they've come and develop ways forward that will work for them and the team. As you acknowledge struggles without judgement and lead forward, your credibility goes up and the team's ability to do great things goes through the roof.
Leading is about others, NOT YOU. When people see that, they become more connected with purpose and you. Build that type of culture and they'll go to the moon and back for you.