Let Go Of The Rope

"It feels like I'm dragging everyone behind me, and it's exhausting."

I recently heard this from a new client, let's call her Susan.

"I get everyone on board, they say they're with me, and then I start hearing a list of excuses."

Susan is a charismatic visionary who craves progress and thrives on experiments. To Susan, failures are points of interest and opportunities to learn, but her team sees it all differently.

While the team values her energy and confidence, they don’ t think she understands what’s really involved with executing her plans. Now, Susan and her team are exhausted from the constant pushing and pulling on every project, every time.

Everyone has a well-honed system to make sense of the world. Strength Finders, Benchmarks, Tilt 365 and hundreds of other assessments exist to shed light on work styles. All of these systems highlight the challenge of understanding others’ perception of the world. It can be difficult to believe the legitimacy, value and validity of others’ perspectives.

Susan understood that her innovative, action-oriented style was only one approach. She also intellectually understood that others styles are valuable to the team's success, her gut didn't agree. Her team preferred to think through the details, check the data, and make note of all possible issues. In fact, she thought of the team as obstructionist. Susan went so far as to dismiss their concerns as excuses. Did her teammates even have the stomach to participate in a fast-paced environment? Susan was frustrated and weary from pulling everyone along.

She soon realized that she was judging her teammates’ actions through her own lens. Susan decided to lean into curiosity to counteract her tendency to judge by actively questioning how the the team was responding to her vision.

• What could she learn from them?

• What did they see that she was missing?

• What did they need before taking the next step?

Susan hadn't asked these questions before, or shown genuine curiosity in her teammates' thinking. Maybe they weren't dragging their heels; maybe checking their data before taking action would be more efficient.

Now Susan is working on learning from her team and tempering her judgments with genuine curiosity. Her team is skilled, talented and rich with alternative perspectives. She now appreciates the value of learning more from her team. Susan can stop dragging the team behind her and join them in a better way forward.