Entitlement vs. Achievement

A few weeks ago, I was watching the Basketball Hall of Fame inductions. Jerry Sloan, the long-time coach of the Utah Jazz, was one of the inductees. He was talking about his earlier years and how he grew into the player and coach he became. He spoke of his high school basketball coach. This coach was also the track coach and the coach made it clear that if you wanted to play basketball, then you also had to run track.

Jerry joked how track wasn’t exactly his sport, but he really wanted to play basketball. He said something along this lines of: he had to do the unpleasant (track) if he wanted to do what he wanted.

I think this is vastly important. Too often, I see people who want a certain prize but who are completely unwilling to do the unpleasant: the work involved in achieving the prize. This attitude is entitlement driven; not performance or achievement driven.

Unfortunately, I have even recently seen this entitlement mind-set at school. There are actually students who complain about the reading and the work that we have to do. Granted, there is a lot of work and much of it is difficult. It’s grad school – and one of the top-ranked graduate programs in the world. It should be rigorous. It should be challenging. Yet, there are those students who lash out at the professors. There are those students who are a bit outraged that they actually have to work for the degree.

These are the same students who get mad at the professors when the professor has the audacity to not give them an “A” on a paper (as though an “A” is a right!). This amazes me! Aren’t we there to learn? Aren’t we there to grow?

I think that when we are pursuing our goals or our passion, there will likely be the unpleasant tasks; whether that’s reading difficult research, the repetition of countless free-throws, running track or whatever. Muhammad Ali once said that, “The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.”

What is your training gym? How do you frame it as, not something unpleasant, but as something that moves you closer to your ideal state and your future vision?

"Into Thin Air"

I read a book on Saturday called Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. The book is a firsthand account of the disaster that occurred on a mission to climb Mt. Everest. It is a fascinating and horrifying read. I read the book in preparation for one of my major class assignments for grad school. My team is analyzing team change and process. We are also going to be studying another team that has successfully climbed – and descended – Mt. Everest. Through analyzing the two teams, we will gain insight into many aspects of successful team change.

One of the many things that stood out to me in the book is that this particular team was more of a collection of individuals rather than a real team. Many climbing teams are carefully constructed; members are chosen for their expertise and experience. In the case of the team chronicled in Into Thin Air, the members were not selected; they paid to be part of the mission (approximately $65,000 per person).

There are many problems that can arise from this lack of a true team: communication issues, lack of knowledge about each other and each other’s skills, lack of trust, and lack of commitment to the team. Without commitment to the team, an individual will often put their own goals first. This is a critical distinction between a collection of individuals and a team. As I thought about this distinction, I thought about all the rather boring and lackluster All-Star and Pro-Bowl games that I have watched. There is this wonderful collection of talent that can’t seem to come together and function as a team to win the game!

I wonder how many organizations spend countless dollars and hours collecting talent without ever bothering to help them actually become a high-performing team?

What’s your experience? How have you helped your team come together and achieve something special? What’s been your frustration as a team member?

Leader as communicator

A couple of months ago, I was asked to speak at the University of Chicago for the Booth Leaders Group (the leadership group for their business school). Specifically, I talked about the leader as communicator and the role that communication plays in leadership. One of the discussions we had was that the leader doesn’t leave communication gaps; if it is relevant, it is communicated.

Several years ago, I worked with a woman, “Annie,” who consistently left people hanging. When the person would express frustration over not getting an answer or response, Annie would say, “Well, I know that I’m going to get to that next Tuesday so why should they care?” The problem is that Annie was the only person who knew her intent. Critical rule: when people feel like they are in the dark, they tend to assume negative intent.

What was the result for Annie? People didn’t trust her, they tried to go around her, and, whenever possible, they avoided her. This meant that she missed out on important information within her organization, and she missed out on important opportunities to strengthen relationships with those around her. It is very difficult to build a relationship with someone who you can’t communicate with!

As Jim Kouzes, a noted leadership expert, often says: leadership is relationships. How have you experienced this to be true?

Fear and Vision

Greetings from Ludington, Michigan, a beautiful town on Lake Michigan. It is also home to a few amazing Disc Golf courses, which are challenging, yet fun to play. There are certain parts of the course that are a bit overgrown. Because of my paralyzing fear of snakes, I am not fond of these patches. (The fear has its roots in childhood with several harrowing experiences, plus, a few years ago, I was caught in a snake migration; a truly creepy and frightful experience.)

While out on the course this week, I found myself looking down, scouring the nearby landscape for snakes, when for whatever reason, I looked up and out – out across a beautiful fairway, surrounded by majestic pines, with the beautiful shimmering blue of Lake Michigan as the backdrop. It was gorgeous. And, here I almost missed it.

I was reminded of the research by Barbara Fredrickson, Ph.D., on the effect that our emotions have on us; both the so-called positive emotions and the negative ones. I prefer to think of them as the comfortable and the uncomfortable emotions as each set has value to us, just in vastly different ways. For example, if I see a rabid dog racing towards me, I will likely feel fear (a negative emotion); however, in that moment, fear is not only not negative, but it is highly appropriate. The fear will trigger my sympathetic nervous system and will prepare me for fight or flight. In this manner, fear has what Fredrickson calls a “narrow and constrict” effect in that it narrows my focus. In the case of the rabid dog, this is a good thing as this would hardly be the time for me to be thinking about a homework assignment, for example. Positive emotions, on the other hand, have what Fredrickson calls a “broaden and build” effect in that they open our minds to new possibilities, opportunities, collaborative relationships, creativity, etc.

Out on the golf course, my fear clearly had a narrow and constricting result for me. I was literally missing the beauty and the opportunity to savor it. From that point on, I consciously balanced my sharp look out for snakes, with looking up and out to see the wonders of nature around me.

What are your examples of either “narrow and constrict” or “broaden and build”?