Book 296 - A Year of Magical Learning

Reflection Title: Catch somebody doing something approximately right!

Book – The New One Minute Manager by Spencer Johnson and Ken Blanchard

Book Description:

Now Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson have updated The One Minute Manger to introduce the book's powerful, important lessons to a new generation. In their concise, easy-to-understand story, they teach listeners three very practical secrets about leading others and explain why these techniques continue to work so well.

As compelling today as it was 30 years ago, this classic parable of a young man looking for an effective manager is more relevant and useful than ever.

Reflection:

Thinking back to reflection 39 from the book Beginners this morning to remind myself that learning is a lifetime sport.

Monotony compresses time while novelty unfolds it. When we keep our focus on learning something new every day, life is so much more fun, exciting, fresh, different, engaging, and dare I say addicting. Learning makes feel like time is flying by, and is the best part about being a human in my opinion.

That is the upside to learning, the downside is that you constantly are reminding yourself that you suck at so many things and that you don’t know anything. That can be hard, humbling, and sometimes downright deflating.

I’ll give you an example.

Integrity is one of my newest core values that I’ve added to my list since this journey began. I put it there to remind myself to always strive to do my best to remain true to who I say I want to be and to honor my promise to my daughter.

My integrity core value was put to the test this past weekend during a tennis match, and I failed miserably.

I was playing in a competitive league match against a solid opponent. In this league we use rally scoring and it is a timed 1:30 hour match. So, you play for 1:30 and whoever has won the most total games wins once the clock runs out. It is an interesting format.

I was beating my opponent 7-2 in the game score and we were about 45 minutes into the match. The score may have looked lopsided, but I knew that was a bit of smoke and mirrors as he was making a lot of unforced errors and was a solid player. I knew if he turned it around, this match could be competitive in an instant. Sure enough, about 20 minutes later we were at 8-7 and he was serving to tie the match. He was up 40-30 and hit a blistering forehand down the line. I called it out, but it was close. He politely challenged me, and I decided to keep the call as is even though it was really close and I knew it.

That point would have won him the game and tied the match, but that isn’t what happened. I went on to win that game, break his serve, and the won the next 2 games to pull away 11-7 as the time expired to secure the win for my team.

After the match, we shook hands, exchanged numbers to play again sometime as we had a competitive match, and then went our separate ways. As I drove home, I couldn’t get that call out of my mind. I hated that I made that call. Yes, I thought it was out, but it was such a tight call. When he challenged it, I wish I would have said, “You had a better view than I did, so if you think it was in…it was in”. I didn’t.

When I got home, it was still eating me up inside as I knew that I had probably just violated one of my core values, and for what? Yes, I won the match, but who cares? I know I didn’t. I don’t play tennis to win, I play to express my values and I failed miserably at it on this particular day.

I talked to my wife, Felicia, about how I was feeling. She agreed that I probably screwed up. I went and sat down on a chair and couldn’t stop thinking about this. I wanted to punish myself in some way because I let myself and Emilia down.

Then, I remembered something I had just learned from the book The New One Minute Manager that I wrote in my notes, “Punishment doesn’t work when you use it with somebody learning”.

Look, I’m still a work in progress and will be for the rest of my life. I won’t ever be perfect, and I know it. At least I recognized the situation, and immediately began to think about how I can change that in the future. I came up with the idea to tell any opponent before any match that if they feel I made a bad call and they were adamant I was wrong that I would change it, no questions asked. I feel like if I set that as the upfront contract, then neither of us would feel bad after a match.

I’m not trying to cheat anyone, but we all make bad calls sometimes. Hell, even professional line judges staring straight at the line make mistakes. It is only human to think that I will as well running around a court.

After that tiny little action toward how I can do things differently in the future, I immediately felt better! Then, I took it a step further and I decided to text an apology to my opponent, who I didn’t know really at all before playing on this day. I said that I was sorry, and that I felt bad about that questionable call in such a pivotal moment. He responded that he appreciated me sending that, that it wasn’t a big deal at all, and that he was probably wrong himself.

After that, I felt free of my mistake. Whether I was right or wrong, I felt that I had tried my best to uphold my values, learn from my mistakes, and live to try again another day. Instead of punishing myself the rest of the day, I was able to move on and enjoy the rest of my Saturday and not look bad…I felt purged.

The thing I’ve learned about living a value driven life is that you will never get it fully right all the time, but that getting it right isn’t the point at all. The point is to keep learning and striving to get just a little bit better each and every day.

As they say in the One Minute Manager, focus on catching somebody doing something approximately right. I think you could that same logic works well on yourself. Punishing yourself when you fail will get you nowhere fast. I may not have gotten the whole thing integrity thing right the first time on that particular day, but I kind of figured it out and tried my best which felt like progress. I’m glad I caught it on this reflection as this gives me motivation that I’m on the right path.

Question: When was the last time you caught someone learning and gave them some encouragement to keep trying?

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Links:

What is The Year of Magical Learning? An Introduction

YOML Podcast Discussion - Coming Soon

YOML Bookstore - The One Minute Manager