In the movie, “First Knight,” Richard Gere’s Lancelot explains to a young man the secrets of becoming a master swordsman: study your opponent, know how to recognize the moment of victory or defeat and wait for it, and not care whether you live or die. At the last, the young man stares at Lancelot in shock. In the modern sport of fencing, a master fencer will say almost the same thing: the secret to winning is to learn how, and when, to not care.
This is doubtless counter-intuitive: the key to living is to not care if you live or die? The key to winning is to not care if you win or lose? Paradoxically, when an athlete cares too deeply about the outcome, they start to judge each action. In combat or competition, that judgment can lead to doubt or fear of failure. Doubt or fear lead to mistakes which lead to defeat. Only be developing his skill and confidence to the point that he believes the outcome is not in doubt can the swordsman successfully not care. However, the swordsman who never doubts himself will never develop that level of skill. When preparing, the swordsman must care deeply and passionately; once swords are drawn, it is time to not care. He must have the patience to create the moment of victory, recognize it when it comes, and then strike without fear or hesitation.
Oddly enough, a leader is in the same position as the master swordsman: the leader who cares too much chokes his team; the leader who cares too little does not prepare. Like the swordsman, to maximize his chances of success, the leader must learn how, and when, to not care whether they succeed or fail. This is no easy task. Teams regularly suffer from leaders who allow the fear of failure to guide their actions and who, therefore, never allow the team to operate at its highest levels. Recently, I heard a leader state that he would not provide his team with clear guidelines for a project, preferring that they check with him at each step, “to avoid problems.” He couldn’t understand why they were so “unmotivated.” In fact, they were highly motivated: motivated to avoid the constant stream of criticism they received. And the leader? His primary motivation appeared to be fear of losing status if things weren’t perfect.
Unlike a swordfight, however, the team’s project is not over within minutes. Instead, a project can last weeks, months, or even years. It is neither possible, nor feasible, for a leader to not care about the team’s progress during that entire period. Instead, the leader must learn to constantly shift from caring to not caring: she must understand her team, know how they work, and understand which role to take to best enable the team to operate at peak performance.
So how does a leader learn to not care? Here are some tips:
· Clearly define the team’s objectives and communicate those objectives as vividly as you can. Make sure everyone knows what victory looks like. Get people excited.
· Provide people with the information they need to evaluate their own progress. Get out of the loop.
· Encourage constructive argument. No conflict is as bad as too much conflict. Team members must be able to question and disagree with one another or work quality suffers.
· Understand what victory and defeat look like, and how you’ll know if you’re in danger.
· Make providing feedback and progress reports to you as easy and unobtrusive as possible. Minimize things that interrupt people’s daily routines.
· Work with the team to establish regular checkpoints or milestones that will enable you to detect problems early. Build in room for errors or unexpected problems. Don’t worry if you don’t know what’s going on every minute or even every day.
· Analyze, evaluate, and adjust, not judge and punish. Understand why a milestone wasn’t met and adjust resources accordingly. If people are afraid to make mistakes, they won’t be creative.
· Revise the vision as you progress and more details come into focus.
· Give up power. As your team matures, they’ll want to do more. Delegate whatever you can. If you’ve prepared correctly, the more you demonstrate trust, the more they will live up to it.
Build your team. Make them worthy of your trust and you worthy of theirs. Know what victory and defeat look like. Turn the team loose. Don’t care if you succeed or fail.
The results just may surprise you.
Stephen Balzac is an expert on leadership and organizational development. A consultant, author, and professional speaker, he is president of 7 Steps Ahead, an organizational development firm focused on helping businesses get unstuck. Steve is the author of “The 36-Hour Course in Organizational Development,” published by McGraw-Hill, and a contributing author to volume one of “Ethics and Game Design: Teaching Values Through Play.” For more information, or to sign up for Steve’s monthly newsletter, visit www.7stepsahead.com. You can also contact Steve at 978-298-5189 or steve@7stepsahead.com.
