Career Tacking

Whenever you move up to a new level of leadership, you will need to make adjustments.  The change you go through is similar to a skill used in sailing.  It’s typically not possible to sail directly to your goal in a straight line.  You have to sail in the direction the wind pushes you and change directions at strategic moments to move closer and closer to your final destination.  In effect, you surrender the wind that was carrying you in one direction and exchange it for a new wind that will carry you in a different one.  You end up making a zig-zag pattern across the body of water.  The skill is called “tacking,” and it requires a keen eye and knowledge of wind and water patterns.

Likewise in your career, it won’t be possible for you to reach your ultimate goal without making some strategic tacks.  But instead of exchanging one wind for another, you’ll be exchanging skills.  Old skills that made you effective in your previous role have to be surrendered for new, more effective skills.  Even though your old skills might carry you for awhile and help you to experience success, they will eventually carry you away from your ultimate goal.

The skills that you learned as an individual producer won’t get you very far when you start to manage others.  Those are the skills of the expert.  You need new skills – skills for leading people.  The old skills will only serve to make you a “micro-manager” and a “control freak” as you attempt to stay personally invested in everything your people do.

Then, as you move from leading individual producers to leading leaders, the winds change again.  Now you need a skill set that includes the ability to grow your leaders, to help them move away from being the expert.  You need the strategic focus to give your leaders a common vision behind which they can rally their teams.

And as you move from leading leaders to leading organizations, the winds change once more.  Your will need to focus less on getting things done through others as your leaders become more and more competent.  Instead, you will need to develop a global view of your organization that has a clear perspective on its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

As you progress through your career, you will find that the wind changes direction many times.  Each time, you will be challenged to do less of what you are good at and do more of what is out of your comfort zone.  Along the way, you are likely to pass many who aren’t going anywhere in their careers due to their inability to recognize when to tack.  They mistakenly thought that their old skills would work in their new roles.  They tried to continue toward their goal without being willing to change.  Don’t follow their example, or you might find your career dead in the water.

 

Spud-tacular and A-mash-ing!

The next time your team is faced with an “impossible” goal, try using this visual object lesson to help challenge their disbelief.  You will need a large potato (raw) and a sturdy straw (not the bendable kind) for every person on your team.  Once everyone has a potato and a straw, go through the following steps to impress and amaze:

• Tell your team that not everything that looks impossible really is.  For example, you hold that it is possible for every one of them to put a straw through a potato (gasps indicating shock and awe!).
• Ask each team member to stand and hold the potato at naval (that’s your bellybutton) level with their non-dominant hand.  (Fingers should go on the sides of the potato and not on the top or the bottom.  Neglecting this detail could result in an equally neat but somewhat messier object lesson.)
• Have them hold the straw with their dominant hand.
• Ask them to put their thumb over the top opening of the straw.
• Have them visualize the straw going through the potato in their mind’s eye.  (They may need to do this several times in order to squash all unbelief.)
• When they are ready, have them quickly thrust the straw through the potato.  It should go through cleanly.  (More gasps and some fainting.)
• Point out that just like they put the straw through the potato, they can accomplish the “impossible” goal.  However, it won’t work unless they believe they can do it and fully commit to making it happen.

I could explain the complex physics behind the demonstration, but why?  Isn’t it enough that it works and has the power to elevate you to legendary status among the dynamic leaders of the world?

 

Soft Hands

During a Monday night football game a few years ago, the Dallas Cowboy’s were defending at their own three-yard line.  The quarterback for the opposing team dropped back and fired a bullet…right to one of the Cowboy’s defensive linemen.  To my disgust, the lineman dropped the ball even though it was right between the numbers and even though he got both hands on the ball.

At the time, it seemed unthinkable that he would drop a sure interception, but I stopped yelling at the TV long enough to hear one of the commentators (a former lineman himself) explain why we should give the guy a break.  As he explained it, linemen spend their entire careers pushing against three-hundred-pound gorillas on the other side of the line of scrimmage.  Every muscle in their body is invested in the struggle to push past the opposing lineman to get at the quarterback.  When a ball is thrown their way, they don’t have the “soft hands” required to catch the ball.

By that last comment, he meant that because the linemen were totally focused on the goal of overpowering their opponent, it was supremely difficult for them to switch goals in the middle of battle.  I can relate.  I remember countless times when I was insensitive to my wife when she called me at the office.  Her calls always seemed to come right in the middle of my battles with three-hundred-pound gorilla projects and three-hundred-pound gorilla deadlines.  Bruised from her own battles with the kids, all she wanted was a sympathetic ear.  What she typically got were short, curt responses indicating I had better things to do than to talk with her.

Because I was so focused on the battle, I didn’t have the soft hands necessary to respond to my wife appropriately, and I forgot we were playing for the same team.  Each time I dropped the ball, I regretted it the second I hung up the phone.  Realization of how important and unrecoverable the moment was always made me wish I had not been so single-focused.

If we are going to be effective leaders, we have to learn to develop the soft hands required when our team members come to us for help.  We have to be skilled at transitioning from driving the line, chasing down the goal, sacking the competition… to taking time out, being receptive and possibly moving in a whole new direction.

While success requires us to be totally invested in our work, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that teams are made of people, and we can’t play this game alone.

The Eye of the Fish

Once in ancient India there was a tournament held to test marksmanship in archery.  A wooden fish was set up on a high pole and the eye of the fish was the target.  One-by-one many valiant princes came and tried their skill, but in vain.  Before each one shot his arrow, the teacher asked him what he saw, and invariably all replied that they saw a fish on a pole at a great height with head, eyes, etc., but Arjuna, as he took his aim, said, “I see the eye of the fish,” and he was the only one who succeeded in hitting the mark.

We need incredible focus to hit some of our goals.  Believe it or not, the focus is created in the planning stages.  Before you begin working toward your goal, make sure you are absolutely clear about what it is.  Here are some questions to help gain that clarity:

• What exactly are we trying to accomplish?
• What does success look like?
• Will our current plan earn the result we are looking to achieve?
• What happens if we miss the mark?
• What is it going to cost us to reach this goal?
• Is it worth it?

When faced with an incredible challenge, seeing just “the fish” won’t cut it.  Make sure you can see the “eye of the fish,” and be sure to remind your team about it throughout the implementation of your plan.

(Story Source – Paramananda)

Harder Than It Has To Be

I went bowling a few days ago with my youngest son.  We played a tendon-stretching seven games before calling it quits and abandoning our last three paid-for games.

When we started, I asked my nine-year-old if he wanted me to have them put up the bumpers.  (No way!  Bumpers are for babies!) Game one – 34 points.  Game two – 26 points.  (Sure you don’t want the bumpers, son? – No, Dad.  Bumpers are for babies.) Game three – 22 points.  (How about those bumpers, buddy?  Nope.  Bumpers are for babies.) Game four – 7 points.  (I think the bumpers would be a good idea, son. – Uh uh….bumpers are for babies.)  Game 5 – 6 points, made in one, lucky roll sandwiched between 19 gutter balls.

His body language said it all.  Discouragement.  Frustration.  Defeat.  I tried my best to pep him out of it, to give him some pointers that would help – nothing did.  But sometimes it just takes a third party’s permission to help us see the alternative.  One of the bowling alley attendants saw my son’s struggles and offered to put up the bumpers.  (Sure, I guess…)

Game 6 – 100 points.  Game 7 – 96 points.

His body language said it all.  Excitement!  Enthusiasm!  New life!

Sometimes we make things harder than they have to be.  We set up “bumpers are for babies” rules and force ourselves to live by them, but they lead us into failure after failure.  A wife has a rule about having to be the house cleaner her mother was even though it’s not her strength.  A husband has a rule about being the handyman that his dad was even though it’s not his gift.

• “I must make straight A’s.”
• “I must do it all myself.”
• “We can’t ever have an argument.”
• “Our kids have to be perfect and impressive like the Johnson kids.”
• “I have to be a size 8.”
• “Everyone has to like me.”
• “I’ve got to live up to my brother’s reputation.”
• “I have to prove myself to them.”

All these rules make life so difficult and discouraging.  They define failure and success in unrealistic ways that ignore how we were created.  Everyone can be good at something, but it’s not necessarily what your parents or your neighbors or the world says it should be.  It would be so much easier if we could just come to terms with our weak areas and start investing more time into our strengths.  It’s no fun trying to measure up to someone else’s yardstick.

Why is it that bumpers are only for babies?  Who says?  Why do I care what they think anyway?  Am I “bowling” to earn their approval or to enjoy the game?  I only get one trip to this bowling alley.  Why should I waste even a minute of it trying to be something I’m not?

If you’re rolling gutter ball after gutter ball in any area of your life, give yourself permission to throw up the bumpers.  Hire someone to clean your house or do your handywork.  Cross some unrealistic goals off your list.  Lower your expectations, and learn to like yourself exactly the way God made you.  Save your energy and your efforts for what you do best.  Your new motto is: Bumpers are Brilliant!

Marshmallow Gratification

Walter Mischel and researchers at Stanford University conducted a series of experiments by tempting four-year-olds with marshmallows.  They put a child in a room and placed a single marshmallow in front of him or her.  Then, they told the child that he or she could have the marshmallow right then, but if he or she could wait until the researcher returned, the child would get a second marshmallow.

Some of the pre-schoolers were able to wait for fifteen or twenty minutes for the researcher to return.  To distract themselves from the temptation of the marshmallow, they sang songs, covered their eyes, made up games to play with their hands or feet or even tried to make themselves go to sleep.  The more impulsive children grabbed the single marshmallow almost immediately after the researcher left the room.

In a follow-up study (Shoda, Mischel, & Peake, 1990), the same children were tested at 18 years of age.  The children who had resisted temptation in the experiments were found to be more assertive, self-reliant, trustworthy, eager to learn and academically competent.  They showed consistent ability to delay gratification in pursuit of their goals, control their temper and work under pressure.  They also had SAT scores (a test administered in the U.S. to assess students’ verbal and math skills for college admissions) that were 210 points higher than those who ate the marshmallows while the researchers were away.*

Our ability or inability to delay gratification is a major factor in the likelihood of our success.  Those who can wait patiently and deny themselves what they don’t absolutely have to have today win in the end.  Those who must satisfy every urge as soon as they have it end up exchanging the best for the adequate.  They chase after get-rich-quick schemes and shortcuts to the top, but seldom do they realize their ambitions.  When they finally give in to reality (if they ever do), they find they have to start back at the very beginning and put in the work that will prepare them for reaching their goals.

This is particularly relevant for us in Christian ministry.  God’s timing is never hurried.  His purposes are accomplished according to His schedule, not ours.  When we get God’s vision, our tendency may be to run ahead of Him to accomplish it.  Consider Abraham’s initial approach to becoming the father of many nations or King Saul’s approach to preparing his army to gain victory in battle.  Each had devastating consequences.  Through Hagar, Abraham fathered nations of people who are perpetually at war with the descendants of his son, Isaac.  And by administering the sacrifice himself instead of waiting for Samuel to arrive, King Saul lost his kingdom.

We should be more like David, who refused to raise his hand against God’s anointed even though he had also been anointed to be king over Israel.  For possibly seven years, David was a hunted man, hiding in caves in the wilderness of Ziph, but he waited on the Lord’s timing to ascend to the throne.  Then, he waited another seven years before becoming king of a united Israel.  That’s delayed gratification!

So practice saying, “No,” to yourself today.  The delayed marshmallow is sweeter and worth the wait.

* Impulsive students scored an average of 524 verbal and 528 math.  Non-impulsive students scored 610 verbal and 652 math.  800 is the top score for each part of the test, with a combined potential of 1600.

(S – Yuichi Shoda, W. Mischel, and P.K. Peake, “Predicting Adolescent Cognitive and Social Competence from Preschool Delay of Gratification: Identifying Diagnostic Conditions,” Developmental Psychology 26 (1990), 978-986.)

Yes, But…

For a kernel of wheat to produce more wheat, it has to fall to the ground and die.  If it doesn’t, it stays only a single seed.  But if it dies, it grows and produces many seeds.

For us to grow, there is often a stubborn part of us that must die first.  It’s that part of us that is constantly saying, “yes, but…”

• “Yes, I know I should stop that bad habit, but what you don’t understand is…”
• “Yes, I ought to take a step toward my goal, but I don’t have enough…”
• “Yes, I want to improve in that area, but I have to do (something else) first.”
• “Yes, I should do that, but no one else is doing it.”

While any of these excuses might be convincing reasons for not doing what you need to do, it’s still an excuse.  You might feel better about your inaction, but that won’t move you any closer to your goals.  Don’t give a stubborn excuse more influence than it deserves.  Put it to death quickly and get growing.