Tag: team

Leadership is Key to Working with a Bad Apple

Several weeks ago, I kicked off a mini-series about Bad Apples. My blogging break notwithstanding, I aim to get back to it.

I’m involved in several different social groups, all of which seem to be going through changes. So I’m seeing new people enter new circles. Most are great, but some struggle to find their place. Even fewer seem to be officially Bad Apples. You know the type. Bad Apples seem to be disruptive for the sake of being disruptive, intent on pushing their way into the social fabric all the while alienating established members of the group. I used to think it was my personal job to bring these people back down to earth. Mostly these days I watch with interest. My primary interest is the impact on the people around them. The bad behavior of one Bad Apple seems to spread like a virus. In other words, one Bad Apple really does spoil the whole bunch.

Here’s what I mean: A new person enters a group. Maybe he was brought to the table by other members who didn’t know his… ahem… quirks. Then, New Guy starts exhibiting Bad Apple behavior: talking over top of people, making everything about himself, belittling other’s skills and contributions, and so on. A funny thing happens. Formerly happy and productive contributing members of the group start to react with Bad Apple behavior of their own. I recently watched a quite talented long term member of one of my groups vehemently defend a step in the process that she had championed changing one week earlier because this week, Bad Apple guy said it was dumb.

It brings to mind a quote that I’ve recently heard: “The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate.” I’ve seen this quote attributed to Gruenter and Whitaker, though I have no idea who they are. Origins aside, the quote illustrates the importance of leadership in creating an environment where everyone feels safe to contribute. If the uncertainty introduced by the behavior of a Bad Apple is not addressed by leadership, the performance of the group – and perhaps the longevity of the group itself – will be compromised.

Does One Bad Apple Really Spoil the Whole Bunch?

I’m currently fascinated by Bad Apples. Bad Apples the metaphor for people, not so much the fruit. But of course there are corollaries. So the first question at hand is, “does one bad apple really spoil the whole bunch? For fruit, the answer is yes. Because ethylene. But what about people? From my experience, the answer is also a resounding yes. But don’t take my word for it. Check out this University of Washington study overview, which defined Bad Apples as “negative people as those who don’t do their fair share of work, who are chronically unhappy and emotionally unstable, or who bully or attack others.” They found that Bad Apples elicited coping mechanisms in other employees such as “denial, social withdrawal, anger, anxiety and fear.”

I know, I know, this is not really new. The saying exists for a reason. However, it does set the stage for some further inquiries I’ve been making around Bad Apples. So stay tuned for the Bad Apple series as we explore Bad Apples in Sports, how to deal with Bad Apples in your circles, and how to avoid becoming a Bad Apple.

Haiku You

There are several forms of poetry that I truly enjoy. I don’t know where this comes from, as I essentially have no history with poetry. But, I think if you’re following my blog, we can agree that “eclectic” is a nice, agreeable term for my personality. So it probably comes as no surprise that I love the Haiku. I mean, what’s not to love? There are three lines with specific syllabic requirements; and the first two lines agree while the third line is juxtaposed against the first two. It is a challenge begging to be mastered.

The Assignment

Not long ago, I dreamed up this idea that I thought would be fun. Thankfully, I have a team at work that is willing to entertain my whims. Otherwise, I’d just be this weird dude with weird ideas that didn’t work out. So, I dreamed up this idea. What if we (my team) all took a couple of weeks and wrote our own personal Haiku? My team members got to choose how it represented them – whether it was past, present, or future. At about the midpoint of the assignment, we pondered whether or not our lives would fit into 17 syllables. So we decided to add a wrinkle. Everyone should send their Haiku poems to me. I would compile them and read them aloud while everyone else on the team voted on the author.

The Results

While I won’t type them all, my team did fantastic. Some of them were very specific and others were more metaphorical, but all of them represented their author in some specific way. I’ll lead off with mine. Not because its the best, but because I can most readily explain the story behind it. Here goes:

Roll the rock up, up
Roll it today and always
Everything changes

Those of you familiar with Greek mythology will already recognize the reference to Sisyphus. For those unfamiliar, Sisyphus was a world class smart aleck. In life, he outsmarted both man and god alike. So in his afterlife, his eternal task was to roll a boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down. Personally, I struggle with futility and anything that is circular. If there is a definition of hell for me, it would be to suffer the fate of Sisyphus. But alas, I identify with him as well. I readily recognize the folly in the mundane, everyday tasks that constitute my day-in, day-out routine; and yet at work I dutifully go about my tasks as if I had the short term memory of a gold fish.

As for the third line, it essentially means that over time, things do change although they often border on the imperceptible. It wasn’t until I accepted my mundane tasks and the duty with which I execute them that I recognized that change does happen. One day, I’m plugging away rolling the rock up the hill with a sense of duty and all of a sudden, it becomes trendy to roll the rock up the hill. The next thing I know, I’ve got a following. People want to know how they can roll their rocks up their hills as fast and as far as I do.

As a forty-something, I also identify with the book / movie Fight Club. I think this was the most pointed reference I had to identifying a Power or Spirit Animal. Since Fight Club, I have often joked that my spirit animal is a dung beetle (Seriously, check my Twitter feed). It doesn’t take a genius to associate Sisyphus and dung beetles, so I’ll leave it to you dear reader to pull it all together. Plus, I was in an office setting, so its much safer to talk about rocks and boulders than it is to talk about dung. I digress.

Here are a couple of other notable Haiku poems from my team – without all the Greek mythology / Discovery Channel references.

Rough notes on a page
Melodies sad and hopeful
Heart sings with laughter

Music in my head
The wind and trees surround me
Living wild and free

And perhaps my personal favorite:

What comes after this?
Another year has gone by
Oh great, more traffic

In the end, my team loved this activity. They enjoyed the chance to be creative in an otherwise standard corporate office setting. We also enjoyed the guesswork of deciding who wrote what. What I find most interesting is that if we did it again in a few weeks time, the Haikus would be different. There is something very “here and now” about this activity. Which leads me to my closing questions:

What is your Haiku?

If you were to restrict “who you are” to the very short requirements of the Haiku, what would they be right here, right now?

I’d love to read yours.

150 Miles, 10 Runners, 24 Hours

This past weekend, I captained a team of 10 runners that ran 150 miles in just over 24 hours. When I tell people that, they usually say, “I don’t know how you do it.” But when you break it down, its actually not very tough. Each runner covers on average 15 miles, which is really nothing compared to a marathon. The toughest thing is finding a way to rest as you cycle in and out of a van and in and out of a camp site or hotel room. However, taking 24 hours out of my life and focusing on one goal instead of balancing work deadlines and automotive repairs and upcoming graduation ceremonies, etc. offered me a chance to pick up a couple of life lessons.

Lesson 1: Let go

Coming into this run, my training wasn’t perfect. Far from it. I didn’t get to the speed work I intended to accomplish. I also didn’t do the hill work that I knew I would need to charge up and down the Appalachian foothills of Ross County Ohio. Part of the reason for my training misses were injury related. I busted my foot playing soccer three weeks before the race. My own fault. Another part was illness, I came down with some mystery bug for about 48 hours that had me all out of whack 2 weeks before the race. The other part was just life – too many irons in the fire.

My team also wasn’t much for being a team. Out of 10 runners, I had six replacements; 4 in the four weeks running up to the race. I offered up team training runs and the occasional team outing. No one replied. My Van 2 driver offered up a plan to travel together to the race location. Everyone drove separately without responding. Without any sense of team or camaraderie, I wondered how we would handle the stresses of working together for 24 hours.

Here’s the funny thing: None of it mattered. I wound up turning in great times for my segments, so my busted training plan had little effect. Where I could find flat ground, I was running 2 minutes per mile faster than I had in months and my hill work was respectable. My team also came together on race day like a well oiled machine. People knew where they were going and got there on time. We didn’t have a wasted moment during race leg hand-offs, no one forgot any critical pieces of equipment, and we cheered each other on like we were one happy family. As our last runner crossed the finish line and we all cheered him on, I paused for a moment. All my concerns were for nothing. Sometimes the best thing to do is let go and let the chips fall where they may.

Lesson 2: Leadership is a journey

I’ve been a manager in my professional life on and off for 20 years. I’ve taken training galore and read all the right books. Leadership is practically a formula, right? Nope.

I came into this race with the baggage that I wasn’t as fit as last year with the knowledge that I had signed up to take on the toughest run of the race. I wound up letting that baggage through in some of my communications. I mentioned to one new runner that I “laid the hammer down” and was putting in some quick miles on one of my early runs in spite of my lack of training. I watched him glaze over and think about something else – probably how I sounded like a self-important peacock. I wasn’t inspiring him. I was stroking my own ego to feel better about my performance; and he wasn’t impressed. I had this malarky story in my head that to be captain, I had to demonstrate that I was among the best on the team. I later realized that this was my insecurities talking, which shines through for others to see like a broken bone in an X-ray machine.

I have this iceberg belief that if a leader isn’t where he or she needs to be (preparation, experience, whatever), that leader cannot possibly ask for more out of others. I call it an iceberg because it isn’t something that I outwardly communicate, but its there lurking under the surface and it can certainly sink my ship. This comes from my blue collar, Appalachian, Protestant, ultra-egalitarian, roots. If you’re going to tell me what to do, you damn-well better be standing on higher ground than me. So I hold myself to that standard. The reality is this: Life gets in the way for everyone. At no time in life is anything ever perfect – including for the person selected, volunteered, or otherwise promoted to leadership. But that can’t stop someone in a leadership position from asking of their team what they need. The leader’s role is to lead; to get the most out of the team, regardless of other limitations. Although I didn’t feel comfortable about it, I delivered some less than perfect news to the team late into the event and asked them to deal with it. They did it without question and it worked out nicely.

So, I lived and I learned, and that’s the good news. To quote the Dalai Lama, “If you lose, don’t lose the lesson.”

The satisfaction of accomplishment

At the end of the run, the whole team was there cheering on our last runner. The sense of accomplishment started to sink in for all of us. It was a bit rainy and the after party wasn’t as upbeat as the year before, but none of that mattered. As we stood around and shared stories and traded pictures that we took over the course of the run, our achievement took shape. We just ran 150 miles in 24 hours! All of us were operating on too little sleep. None of us trained as much as we wanted. Yet here we are. 150 miles later, injury free and smiling at our accomplishment. The fact that our team fees helped benefit drug prevention programs in the epicenter of the American opioid crisis certainly helped our feeling of purpose. In addition, I picked up a couple of lessons along the way. All in all, it was a good weekend.

If you’re interested in taking part in this run next year, please visit The Buck Fifty. Its a great cause and a great time. And like me, you might just learn something about yourself along the way.