Second serving…

Yesterday, we held practice with another team that was getting their first taste.

We started with the proverbial question that starts every first practice.  We started with “why” are you here?  God, I LOVE the simplicity and nearly infinite complexity behind that baby.  We covered a bunch of great ground together.  We followed the BTL plan for practice ONE and, then again, we did not.  This team needed to get more clarity around their big “why,” so we took a slight detour and gave ’em a little bit more of what they needed.  This is the way we roll.  We always have a plan, we always follow our framework, we always have the first few plays scripted, and we always go with what the system were with, gives us.

We listened to some songs, and we watched a little history to give us a great model to build around.  We watched a little Chamberlain as he spoke and listened to his team of mutineers on the eve of the battle of Gettysburg.  We saw a great example of a “believer.”  Remember, leaders are believers.  They just are.

Would your team describe you as ONE?  ONE who believes in them, ONE who believes in their vision, ONE whose belief is contagious, liberating, energizing, and freakin’ from the heart?  Your answer lies in theirs.  All you’ve got to do is ask.  Moving on.

What was really cool about yesterday’s practice, at least to me, was that, once again, I was reminded of the value of the “second serving.”  Here’s what I mean.

After we watched the Gettysburg clip, I asked the team to play back what they saw.  I do this all the time.  I do this to make sure that what I want people to see, hear, sense, and take in, they actually do.  I want people to “get it.”

This drives people nuts, btw.

This particular team had great vision and recounted much of what had been shown.  However, they missed one of the main points that I desperately wanted them to see.  I could have simply given them the answer.  This would have been the most efficient use of time.  Most of them, however, would not retain when simply given the answer.  As a leader, remember this truth.  Instead of spoon feeding your team the answer, give them all the chance to see with their “second serving.”  Magic.

We rewound the tape, so to speak, and played the same scene again.  I primed them and then hit play.

Everybody “got it” with their “second serving.”  Many will retain and reuse this learning.  They just will.  Yea, Baby.

They saw Chamerlain begin his “I have a dream speech,” with some really bad news that was nothing but the unvarnished truth in
LOVE. Major MAGIC.

AND, they saw a team of mutineers, embrace the bad news and this bumbling, battlefield promoted man because he didn’t back away from the bad news, he didn’t spin some kinda’ shit, he didn’t  even try to force them forward with some FEAR based motivation.  He simply stood there and told them the unvarnished truth in LOVE and he breathed his vision, through his words, into life.  AND, they drank it in.  Very cool.

AND, this team is part of the reason “why” you are here.  You see, that very same team, just a few days later would follow that same leader down the hill at the battle of Little Roundtop and scare the Southern attackers into a quick surrender that, literally, saved the day.  Had they not “done their job” the Southern Army would have most certainly flanked the North on that day and won the battle of Gettsyburg.  Can you imagine a world with Lincoln’s Gettysburg address telling the world that we were “United States” no more?  Can you imagine living in OHIO and being bordered by another country in Kentucky?

Leaders, remember, ONE is the one you want.  Model the way forward.  Expect pain and suffering, lead anyway.  And, embody truth in LOVE. So simple and so rare.

Feel free to go back for another read of this rant.  Your “second serving” always brings clarity.  It just does…

God, help me take a stand, embrace more acute pain, and close my own integrity gaps with truth in LOVE.

God, help me.