What’s your name?
What time is it?
Where are you?
What just happened?
These are the four questions that Terry asked me on the side of Breckenridge Mountain Eight, this past summer. The ambulance sirens were blaring, the sun was shining, and my brain was refusing to cooperate. Just moments earlier, I had been enjoying a mountain bike ride with my son Jordan and then I rounded the last switchback and saw an obstacle in my path. Another rider. My last memory, that morning, was my feet leaving the pedals.
When Terry arrived and started in with the questions, I could only remember my name. I was Alert & Oriented times one. Not good. I wrote a blog about this earlier and continue to tell this story to my clients. Here’s why. Do NOT miss this. This is HUGE.
All of us would benefit from being “knocked out,” from losing consciousness for a brief period, and from observing the mind “rebooting” itself. This would be especially beneficial to us as leaders…
As leaders we are most focused on moving the team forward. We are “oriented” toward progress. We want to see “up and to the right” in a big way. We want the team to perform incrementally better and better and, in the process, exceed the goals we’ve established. Most leaders just want their team members to grab their bike and get on with it. Too many leaders fail to realize that, like me, these “riders” are alert and oriented times one or times NONE. Here’s the problem. Individuals, teams, and leaders will NOT make much consistent progress forward without being collectively A & O times FOUR.
Collectively and CLEARLY Four…
What’s your name? Most leaders tell me with crystal clarity who they are as a company. They started the place, or crafted the vision, or invented the hot selling widget, so why wouldn’t they? Remember, once we know something, we cannot imagine what it’s like not to. Most of your workforce does NOT know who you are…as a company.
What time is it? Again, as leaders we know that it’s time to act. Sell something, deliver something, manage something, or at least do something. The team is usually very busy but lacks a sense of what is the best use of their time. They don’t know what is most important. They’re in a dazed and confused state. They don’t have time to think they tell me. Picture them pedaling their mountain bike on a perpetual switchback. They don’t appear to be going up or down but my gosh are they working their butt’s off.
Where are you? Stuck in the middle is what I hear the most. Not high enough to make real decisions, not low enough to understand our customers, our position, or our value proposition. Stuck with teammates that are just as disoriented too. All busy. Always in meeting. Always behind schedule.
What just happened? No time to question the pain we’re in collectively. Just get up. Dust yourself off, and get back in the fight, as one of my clients recently recalled. This seems to be the prevailing answer to said question. It doesn’t matter the pain. Just “deal with it.”
Do you see the problem?
We all want teams that know who they are. Teams that know their identity and orient around living it. Teams that are passionately pursuing this vision through adversity and over time. Teams that understand what IS most important. Teams that know where they are, how they got there, and, most importantly, where they are going. Teams that ride through their pain and help their teammates ride through theirs. Teams that help their fellow riders up, dust them off, and stand with them in their fight.
Teams like this are alert and oriented times four.
They have answered the big questions and know that these answers are always under construction and getting CLEARER. AND, teams like this are BUILT TO LEAD, and know that deliberate practice is the only way back on the bike, back down the mountain, and back at it tomorrow.
Because tomorrow is another day to get after it. To gain clarity. To get tired with your team. To live out your collective OPUS.
Get up.
Dust yourself off.
Get back in the fight.
AND, help your team do the same.
BUILT TO LEAD 