The Importance of Preparation

The Importance of Preparation

"Failing to prepare, is preparing to fail." John Wooden

When I coach and train managers, I tend to use a lot of sports analogies, and I reference John Wooden whenever I can. This quote came to me today as I was in my garage engaged in that annual ritual of getting the snow blower out of the back of the garage, checking my supply of ice melt, gathering up my shovels, and moving all of that to the front of the garage. We are expecting some snow later this week so it was good that I took care of this today. I also recently purchased a generator and I started that up for two reasons, to let the engine run and to make sure I remembered how to turn it on.

In thinking about this, I also thought about how Coach Wooden's adage very much applies to us as leaders,  not only in us being fully prepared for what we do, but also, preparing our people for what they need to do. This applies to most things that we do from on-boarding people, to creating that climate to allow our people to motivate themselves to superior performance, to orienting new managers, and many other aspects of how we manage and lead our people.

Serving as an example of being prepared is important for any leader. As leaders, the importance you place on preparation, will set that standard for your people that you, personally, place a high priority on preparation. Holding your people accountable for not only being prepared, but having that desire to be prepared, will build in them a commitment to preparation. Coach Wooden planned all of his practices down to the minute, even planning where the ball rack should be placed during drills, in order not to waste the time that players would waste if the balls were placed in a location that would have the players take extra time to retrieve and put back the balls after use.

Preparation also helps alleviate the stress of your people because being prepared for situations builds their confidence in themselves to face those situations and take confident action. So, how as a leader, can you assure that your people will place the necessary importance on preparation? Here are some things you can do:

1. Set the example. You as a leader need to emphasize the importance of preparation and walk the preparation walk.
2. Coach your people. People prepare differently. Some use lists, others use different tools and methods. Also, some have no clue on how to prepare. Your job as a leader is to coach your people and help them find the method that work best for them. Also, allowing them that freedom to prepare their own way, provided their way gives the needed results, empowers them and enables them to hold themselves personally accountable for their preparation.
3. Reward those who prepare well. Deliver positive feedback to those who excel at preparation. Also, have those who excel at preparation help those members of your team who are not as strong at preparation. By having your people who excel, help you "coach up" your people who need help, is a potential double positive outcome. The person giving the help has an opportunity to develop his or her own leadership skills, and the person receiving the help has the opportunity to improve his or her skill at preparation. 

Thank you for reading, and I look forward to reading your comments.

Be well.

Here I Am - Value your Victories

Here I Am

Well, after about a year of thinking about writing a blog, I finally decided to do it. I hope that you find what I have to share with you interesting and maybe makes you think a little bit. I will be respectful of my readers and I hope that you get some value out of what I have to say. I will be drawing on my experience being in HR for over 25 years and my life experience in bringing you my thoughts. I will also be drawing on my experience as a Little League coach where I coached Minor and Junior Girls Softball, hence the title of the Blog.

Thanks for reading.

Value your Victories

My experience as a Little League coach has been valuable to me giving me lessons that I have used in my Leadership and Managerial coaching.  One story I recently told a group of our Doctor and Nurse Practitioner leaders was about my last year in coaching. We started our season off well being 3-1. But, due to rain outs and needing to make up some games, we came upon having to play 5 games in 8 days. Also, if you have ever coached Little League, one of the challenges you face is planning out your pitching. During this stretch of games, I was going to have to have kids pitch who had not pitched all season. So, in our last practice before this stretch of games, I channeled my inner Vince Lombardi, and I told the girls, "We have 5 games, in 8 days. This is our season. If we win 2, we'll have some work to do to make the playoffs. If we win 3, we'll be ok. If we win 4, we'll be in really good shape to win the Pennant. We win 5, we clinch the Pennant!"

As I am giving this speech, I was getting more excited, and the girls were feeding off of my positive energy. I was thinking to myself, "I wish we could play the first game, now." So, sure enough, two days later, we win the first game, and then two days after that we win the second game. Then two days later, when I had two girls pitching who had not pitched all year, we won again. I'm thinking This is great! Then we had to play again the next day, but I had my two best pitchers pitching and we won again! Four wins in a row! This is awesome! I was excited, the girls were excited, this was great. 

Now, we play again two days later, and we lost that game. Also, not only did we lose, we lost playing sloppy softball and the team had no energy or enthusiasm. So, I would really like to say that after the game, I comforted the team, and told them that winning 4 out of the last 5 games was great and they deserved the next few days off and they should be proud of how they played during this stretch of games. But that's not what I did.

What I did was give my team a stern "talking to" about everything they did wrong during that game, instead of focusing on the truly great achievements they made over the past 8 days. It was one of the worst mistakes that I ever made in coaching. Afterward, I felt really bad and at our next practice, I apologized to my team, because they truly were owed an apology for how I behaved. Thank goodness my girls, including my daughter Alie, forgave me.

So, why did I tell my managers this story?

When coaching and managing people, we need to value the strides they make in their performance. Also, if you make a mistake in managing and leading your people, it's ok to apologize for it. Holding people accountable for their performance, or at times the lack of it, is important. However, it is also important that we, as managers and leaders, deliver that positive feedback and recognize the good performance that our people provide, when they provide it.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to your comments.