Coach Dan's Blog

Somehow in the workplace we've equated being a good leader with being infallible... with never making a mistake or a misstep.  I gotta be honest, that sounds EXHAUSTING to me!  I would argue that one of the most important characteristics of being a great leader, is showing that it's ok to make mistakes.  That it's ok to be wrong.  To take risks that didn't work out the way we hoped.  To give us permission to be human as we strive to serve our customers and our users. Consider this During an Australian Open tennis match in March of 2020, star player Rafael Nadal returned an out-of-bounds serve and absolutely (and quite accidentally) CLOBBERED ball-girl, Anita Birchall in the head.  Now mind you, Rafael did nothing WRONG.  It just happened. but it impacted poor Anita. The referee checked in to make Anita was OK, even as clearly shook Anita (who is definitely a boss-girl) scanned her zone to see if the ball (that had just bounced off the side of her face...

 We've all heard that question (or some variant) in our head - often delivered in that ominous tone that our brain reserves for occasions when it truly wants to undercut our self-confidence - "OMG - what if I screw this up?"  "What if what I say falls flat?"  "What if this doesn't work?"  "What if I don't achieve my goal?"  Even the most confident of individuals can have those unsettling moments of fear when taking steps into an unknown situation.  It's completely natural of course - fear is a hard-wired mechanism that starts in the part of the brain called the amygdala which is designed to keep us alive (yes, I googled it.)   It also doesn't help that our work environment doesn't always look at failure as a benefit to the individual, team or organization as a whole. Wait - what?  Failure as a benefit?  Coach Dan has completely flipped his lid this time!  Maybe, but not because of this line of thinking.   Companies innovat...

So first and foremost - kudos if you got past that horrible pun of a title.  I'm (obviously?) thinking about the concept of  command and control , and how as agile managers we can sometimes struggle with the voices in our head.  You know what I'm talking about - the ones that say "Failure is not an option!" or "It has to be perfect!" or "You can't manage without hard deadlines!"....  You know... those voices that try to convince us that we as managers know best and our job is to tell our people what to do!  Maybe you don't struggle with this, but I know I sure do sometimes.   It can be challenging to transition from a "command and control" structure (where orders come from on high, and we all flawlessly execute them, like a well-oiled machine) to a more agile, nimble, responsive environment where decision making is pushed closer to the data, and the customer.  Where we replace the desire for flawless execution with short feedback ...