I really hadn’t intended to land in Ops, and frankly thought my “career” was over. Pretty much everyone wanted the NeXT team to fail … hold your breath, and this will pass like the other “brands of the month” most organizations see come and go. What they didn’t know is I had already figured out my career was over, at Fannie at least. The only person they disliked more than us was the guy who hired me, so I was never going to make VP, a goal I thought I wanted. And I couldn’t leave, having Promised to hold still after moving the family 4 times in 3 years. So … you want us to make it work? I know how to do that, and I’ve played with much better players of this game, so here we go…
… the biggest shift was not being Tigger … unbounded energy, crashing through barriers, outhustling everyone, my normal role on teams. The team already had 1 of those. Looking around that table the first day I realized … “I am Christopher Robin” … as in:
“Christopher Robin is usually the voice of reason and the character who can be relied on to get the animals out of the predicaments they get themselves into.” A path I had never thought about. Sure, I can fake being a father while the kids are little, but could I actually be the calm adult, or here, the calm and present leader? This season would prove both out, and tell me if this role was even worth pursuing…
Ego and confidence are interesting partners for bands and Teams. You need the confidence to push through the barriers, and enough humbleness to pull in the supporters who sustain the Promise. Scott Avett says it like this: “Every album and every recording we’ve made from day one, even before the Avett Brothers when we’d record things on cassette tapes and 8-track, for us they were this explosive new thing that was going to open the world’s eyes to us.
“… we’d dream that this would be the thing that changed everything for us. The funny thing about that was that in hindsight we’ve always felt successful to ourselves, so we’ve never had to have that conventional appropriated reward of ‘Hey, you’ve made it.’ We went into it feeling that we were already stars, which we were not, and we also felt the need to make (something).”
Think about this … NeXT was founded out of ultimate failure and embarrassment. Jobs had been FIRED by HIS company, by the guy HE hired … and still stinging, went out and did this. You want to bet on a comeback? That type of bloody nose I have seen before, and I Promise you it breeds a fire that doesn’t go out. Ever. His magnetism was palpable, he knew how to attract the supporters he would need (see above), and that merry band was now seated at the table with me. They had been drawn into his technology, and were now looking for the Promise of management that “got them.”
I did. Really, it was that easy, and while empower would not become my brand for another 15 years, that was all I did. Each had a bloody nose of their own. I found some bandages, dusted them off, and smiled. They asked me to deal with the people above them, and they would handle the rest. Sure. Those guys were amateurs…
Simple… not easy. You get tired of me saying that, but there are similar people around you if you’re lucky … and I don’t believe in luck. You help them become successful by getting out of their way, and encouraging them to be the Promise you see in them. There is an Avett line that asks why you cannot see yourself as beautifully as the person singing sees you. That is the job.
Your “Simple… Not Easy” move: pick the 1 person on your team with a bloody nose right now. Find the bandage, and take 1 thing off their plate that lives above them.
Steve did that, and you are likely reading this on a device he dreamed up while licking his wounds. Scott and Seth put it in a line about the friends who never really knew him, and the couple who always did. Because what brought me here was … All My Mistakes.
