False Hero Worship
Our Michigan Facilities Manager, Joe Yahner, calls the celebration of work and projects done at the last-minute, false hero-worship. He mentioned it in an impromptu conversation he, our Retreats Manager Eric Woods and I were having about Winter Teen Retreats preparation.It’s a great description of an all too often occurrence in organizations large and small, including, in times past, at SpringHill.
False hero-worship happens when organizations confuse procrastination, the lack of planning and the accompanying last-minute scramble to get work done, with good planning and execution. When organizations and leaders make this mistake they reinforce the wrong behaviors in their teams. Instead of encouraging great planning and execution, leaders send a message that they value being behind with two minutes to go, and the lack of planning and procrastination which causes it.
It’s like making heroes of fire fighters who start their own fires, and then celebrating their great fire fighting. We become so addicted to the adrenaline rush of fire fighting (or watching fire fighting) that we inadvertently encourage fire starting (lack of planning and preparation).
And if adrenaline highs is your goal then good, thoughtful and intentional planning followed by calm and professional execution of the plan, offers very little excitement. It only offers great, sustainable results at lower organizational and personal costs.
Great planning and execution also offers the deep satisfaction of knowing a job, the entire job, from beginning to the end, has been well done – so well done that the work looked easy (even if we know it wasn’t).
So Eric, Joe and I had our own brief “celebration” in the Trading Post of the good planning and great work done by our team. And based on the first two retreats, we’ll also be celebrating another winter of great ministry.
Submitting to the Mission
I’m reading Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen’s new book Great by Choice where, for illustrative purposes, they compare the leadership styles of the two Antarctic explorers, the well-known Robert Scott and the lesser known Roald Amundsen, who raced each other to the South Pole. In particular, Collins and Hansen references Roland Huntford’s fantastic book The Last Place on Earth – Scott and Amundsen’s Race to the South Pole.
I read The Last Place on Earth in 2009 and immediately appreciated it as both an important historic account as well as a great study in leadership. It combines the two types of books I love to read – history books and in particular biographies of historic characters and books about real life adventure. The Last Place on Earth takes a historic look at one of the great adventures of all time – the story of the two men who raced to be the first to reach the South Pole.
I won’t repeat Collins and Hansen’s leadership lessons (you can read their book) but instead share one leadership observation and one conclusion I drew from The Last Place on Earth.
The observation – Scott ended up being the more celebrated of the two explorers though he failed in his mission which ended in his and his team’s death while Amundsen, the first man to the South Pole, is largely unknown outside of historical and exploration circles.
The conclusion – if a leader submits all, including their own personal ambitions and recognition, to the fulfillment of the team’s mission they’re more likely to be successful. At the same time they’re more likely to be unknown or forgotten because they made accomplishing the mission look easy while doing it with less drama than those who failed.
Keeping Your Eye on the Ball
I grew up playing baseball, basketball and football (in which for many years I was a receiver). One of the most common instructions I’d heard from my coaches, regardless of the sport, was “Perry, keep your eye on the ball.” This meant, whether playing third base or wide receiver, to focus entirely on the ball until I had it completely in my control.This instruction, on the surface, seems to be easy enough to follow, except for that linebacker ready to put a hit on me the moment I touch the ball, or the man on second base waiting to advance to third as soon as I made a throw to first. Then what became easy was to “take my eye of the ball” and try to see, at the same time, more than just that ball coming my way. When I did this it almost always led to me missing that ball and still getting hit or the guy still advancing to third.
Keeping my eye on the ball required discipline, focus and courage. It’s probably why I heard so often my coaches yell “Perry, keep your eye on the ball” and why it’s now burned forever into my consciousness.
Looking back I’m thankful for my coaches’ consistent instruction and the fact that their words continue to be front of mind now that the “sports” I’m participating in have changed and become more significant. Mishandling the ball, be it SpringHill’s mission, vision and values, the stewardship of my health, my role as father and husband or my relationship with Christ, has significantly more serious consequences than that ground ball that went through my legs.
And it requires even more discipline, focus and courage, three qualities I continue to ask God to provide so I will never take my eye off these important balls.
The Underappreciated Work of Making Vision a Reality
We’re enamored with strategic thinking and vision casting. Most leaders want to be seen as strategic and visionary thinkers who cruise around at 30,000 feet. We value this skill set so much that we make heroes out of these same leaders.
But I’m convinced that being just a visionary leader isn’t nearly enough. Now don’t get me wrong I’m not minimizing the importance of these skills – creating strategy and vision need to be a part of any leaders work. Too often, though, leaders spend too much energy on vision and strategy and too little energy on tactics and execution.
We often look down on tactical work and the execution of strategy because we misread people like Steve Jobs and credit Apple’s success to his vision and strategic thinking.
But if you’ve read any of the 100’s of recent articles and blogs about Jobs after the announcement of his retirement as CEO you see a different picture. What you find is a leader who spent much of his time in the “trenches” working on the details of new products – in other words doing the tactical work. This is what made Jobs truly visionary. It was his willingness to do the hard, everyday work required to assure that his vision and strategy succeeded.
So as a leader my goal’s to spend only a small percentage of my time on vision while spending most of my time working side by side with our staff, board, supporters and volunteers in the hard work of making our vision reality. Because at the end of my time at SpringHill, if anything’s written about me, I want it to be said, not that I was just a visionary, but that I led an organization that turned its vision into a world transforming reality.
