Do The Things We Want To Do

My mom tells a story about how I came up to her when I was about 15 years old and asked her if they’d let me adopt when I got old enough. She said, “I don’t know. Why?” And I replied, “Well, I don’t want to get married, but I do want to have kids.” I don’t remember that exchange at all, but for as long as I can remember I wanted to have kids.

Well, I did get married a little over 23 years ago, and my wife and I have two boys – Tyler’s 18 and Sam is 15. Like most families, there have been rough spots here and there, but I can say I have enjoyed parenthood WAY more than I thought I would – and like I said, I was really looking forward to it.

One of the most frustrating things about parenting though is that your kids can’t learn from your mistakes; they have to make their own. The best we can hope for is that we raise them right, give them a good moral compass and hope they follow the right path. That sucks.

I remember when I was 18 (a looong time ago). It was great to know everything do only what I wanted to do (well, almost), and live the bullet-proof life that was my birthright. I also remember how much smarter I was than my parents. “No way that could happen.” Of course it usually did – I always learned things the hard way.

My 18-year old is still under the youthful illusion that he shouldn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to do, that any inquiry is an interrogation, and household rules are prison-like. I’m pretty confident that he’ll see the light eventually – most of us do.

So, Tyler’s getting ready to move out, Sam just had a birthday and I’m getting ready to have another birthday. They’re growing up – I didn’t want that to happen so quickly. But those three things got me thinking about what age does to our thought processes. (I haven’t had one of those birthdays that smacked me between the eyes, so this wasn’t like some “come to Jesus” revelation moment – just contemplative).

I thought especially about the idea that when we were young we oftentimes didn’t do things we didn’t want to do. Now we do things all the time that we don’t want to do – that’s part of being an adult and having responsibility.

What about doing the things we DO want to do? Why don’t we do more of those things? I’m not just talking about Bucket List-type stuff – although you should make time for those things too. I’m talking about personal stuff and even work stuff that we want to do but choose not do for one reason or another. Maybe it’s because even though you want to do something and know it’s the right thing to do, it’s a new direction or departure from the norm that might be a little uncomfortable.

Grey beards like me know that the only way to get comfortable with something uncomfortable is to do it. And it takes repetition to get comfortable doing new things.

We’ve been talking for the last 16 months about creating a culture of open communication, and I don’t recall anyone saying that it would be a bad thing. In fact, just about everyone seems to be in agreement that it’s a great ideal to shoot for. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be getting embraced the way you might think it be, and the only reason I can come up with is that it’s new, a little uncomfortable and maybe everyone’s waiting for someone else to go first.

Doing things we want to do is sometimes times harder than doing the things we don’t want to do. Open communication and the culture change that accompanies it is not easy, and there will inevitably be bumps along the way – there always is with change. Change is a dynamic evolution for an organization and it requires the participation of everyone to become reality.

A culture of open communication is an absolute necessity if organizations in today’s world are going to be successful. I read an article today that said by 2015 36% of the workforce is going to be comprised of millennials, and they are going to demand open communication in the workplace – and it won’t be long before they’re in a position to do just that.

I’m going to keep trying to coach my boys through the pitfalls and hoping they learn to do more of the things they don’t want to do. And I’ll keep trying to advance the culture of open communication. Experience tells me both of those things will lead to much smoother paths in the future.

Three Important Factors of Team Success

My 15U baseball team had a tournament last week in which we played pretty well through the first three games – we were 2-1, but really should’ve won the other one too. The temperatures in Nashville those days were 105 and 107 degrees! By the third day – the 109 degree day – we started to show some signs of wilting.

We had a manpower problem though – only nine of our 12 players were available for the tournament. And while that would normally be a challenge in a tournament anyway, it was especially challenging with those temperatures because we had no way of providing anyone downtime during the games.

Another problem that arises when you’re shorthanded is that you can’t always put your best people in their best positions – you have to do the best you can with the numbers you have. If you’re only playing a game or two, you can get by with a skeleton crew, but when your task is large, you need all hands on deck.

Needless to say, the combination of being shorthanded, ridiculous temperatures, and playing guys out of position was our undoing: We made it into tournament play, but then lost our first game. I think those things ultimately had an impact on our guys psyche too – when mistakes break your spirit early, it’s hard to recover.

It got me thinking about organizational teams and the importance of those three conditions in business:

• ·    Manpower: Proper staffing levels are critical. When people have more on their plates than they can handle, they tend to achieve acceptable, not excellent.
• ·    Good working conditions: This applies not only to workplace comfort and tools, but not having hostile working conditions either. As with team sports, encouragement oftentimes goes a lot farther that criticism, and having the necessary tools and conditions to perform is imperative.
• ·    Maximize talent: Let people do what they do best. I believe in a well-rounded player/worker who knows how the pieces work together to produce the whole. But I also believe everyone should play to their strengths – it benefits the team and the organization as a whole when well-rounded teams have experts doing what they do best.

These components are essential to success whether on the playing field or in the office. Teams and organizations can flourish or flounder in much the same way.

When you have a well-rounded, fully-staffed team, you get better input and therefore better output. You have the ability to give and get specialized thinking, unique perspectives, and hopefully more spirited discussion and better all-around group thinking.

More participation. More diversity. Better end results.