A pregnant tiger stumbles through the woods, desperately seeking its next meal.  With her unborn cub weighing her down, the tiger mama is nearing the end of her rope.  If she doesn’t find something to eat soon, she’ll most certainly die.   Crawling out to edge of a rocky promontory, she looks down greedily on a field populated by dozens of goats. Summoning up one last effort, the tiger mama throws herself into space – only to die of exhaustion before she even reaches the ground.  Miraculously her tiger cub not only survives the fall but is born fully awake and conscious.  Looking around, it spies a mother goat and proceeds to begin nursing from the goat’s teats.  In a strange case of nature’s born enemies defying their instincts, the mother goat allows the cub to feed, thereby adopting the cub into the herd.

For twelve months and a day, the cub lives the carefree life of a goat  — leaping and frolicking with its goat siblings, eating grass and berries (and the occasional tin can) – convinced that it is, in fact, an actual goat.   Then one day, a ferocious, fully-grown tiger rushes out of the nearby forest, eager for a meal.   Realizing that its very survival is in jeopardy, the herd scatters in all directions – all except for the tiny tiger cub, frozen in place by a mixture of fear and awe.  Certain that it will soon be one dead goat, the cub cowers in the shadow of the mighty tiger, awaiting its fate like the brave soul that it is.  Surprisingly, rather than attacking the cub, the tiger bends down, grabs the little goat/tiger by the scruff of the neck, and carries it over to a nearby river.  Beholding its reflection in the water for the first time, with the adult tiger behind it, the cub suddenly realizes who and what it is.   Letting out a mighty ROAR, the cub embraces it tiger-ness in every cell of its body.   Together  – cub and adult — the two tigers trot back into the forest, eager to rejoin the tiger family.

(with thanks to Michael Meade and his book “Fate and Destiny”)

Like the cub who became a goat, teams, too, can go astray, losing sight of their true nature and, most importantly, their true destiny.
What is your team’s purpose?   What great things is your team fated to achieve?   And how successfully are you realizing your potential?

Teams, like people, have a tendency to stay small and “goat-like”, finding it safer to under-achieve, safer to stay invisible and under the radar.  For with success comes heightened expectations — not to mention the jealous attacks from other teams, hungry for recognition.   And yet remaining small is even more dangerous than going large.  With each passing week, you feel something snarling inside of you – your true team self, perhaps, demanding authentic expression.

As a team leader, it’s up to you to hold up a mirror in front of your teammates – to show them what’s possible, to challenge them to put their goat selves behind them, to encourage them to ROAR.

The first game of the day is just getting started when my occasional nemesis, Rick from Ukraine, starts doing that controlling thing he does. You know – telling people where to position themselves, moving everyone around, and making sure his team is the strongest on the court. This drives me crazy! Where I come from, you always try to set up the teams as evenly as possible in order to maximize the chances of having the closest game possible. Sadly, hyper-competitive Rick (who does NOT like to lose) rarely sees it this way. Compounding things is Rick’s communication style which is, shall we say, blunt. It’s not unusual to hear him blurt out something like “You’re no good”, “You can’t hit” or “I no set for you.” Again, I come from a different school of thought – one that strives to build people up via encouragement and affirmation. I’m also an unrepentant advocate for the underdog. So when Rick starts laying into my friend, Steph, about her supposedly poor passing skills, I kind of snap. Soon I’m yelling at Rick, he’s yelling back at me, and before I know, I find myself storming off the court, declaring “I cannot play with this guy.”

Pretty immature stuff, huh? What was I thinking (or not thinking)?!!

And yet, what was I to do – just stand there and take it? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. In fact, there seems to be 5 distinct methods for managing toxic relationships, both at work and at play. They are:

Remain a victim to it

Change it

Change your perspective of it

Accept it

Leave it

Obviously in this particular scenario on the volleyball court, I chose method #5 – I left the situation, Although, in retrospect, I wish I could have handled things more calmly and reasonably, my choice was a valid solution. I couldn’t change Rick’s behavior and I couldn’t accept it, so I got out of there.
Let’s take a closer look at the five methods.

Remain a victim to the relationship: The most passive approach, playing the victim includes accepting a feeling of loss of control. It means reconciling yourself to powerlessness, uncontrolled anger, grief and sometimes depression. Remaining a victim is the path of least resistance, to be sure, but it also decreases our energy and drains us until we feel like nothing is left.

Change the relationship: A more proactive approach, this method involves trying to find a common point of agreement with the other person that enables the relationship to continue on at an at least neutral level. If you can pull it off (through stellar communication), the relationship can often be shifted for the better. The key is for all parties involved to move from WIIFM (What’s in it for me?) to WIIFU (What’s in it for us?).

Change the relationship by changing one’s perspective of it: Rather than changing the relationship with actions and new behaviors, this approach asks you to modify and shift your own way of looking at things. How can you see the other person from a new vantage point? What qualities of him or her can you appreciate?

Accept the relationship: In this strategy, you suspend your judgment of the relationship, releasing all stress and burden. You accept the relationship as it is – as an experience that does not require anything. You’re simply at peace with where the situation is at the moment.

Leave the relationship: If you don’t like a relationship, and you can’t change it, remain in it, change the way you look at it, or accept it, you’re only remaining option is to leave/terminate it. Sometimes the individual chemistry and make up of two individuals is such that we simply cannot co-exist in a relationship. This is not good or bad, it just is.

After the volleyball game, I went up to Rick and let him know that I like and respect him off the court (which is true) but don’t share his values on the court. I then suggested that we don’t play together for a while. It didn’t feel great – in general, I’m a peace maker. In a perfect world, I would’ve found that common ground with Rick and we would’ve patched things up. But not everyone is ready or willing to change. Sometimes you just have to get out…to surround yourself with your peeps. Life is too short to swim in toxic waters.

Although my visit with the architect wasn’t long enough for me to receive an adequate explanation about the kitchen– remember, I was 25 years old with a girl on my mind – I’ve thought about this odd house many times over the years. Why did he do it? Why did this talented designer create a kitchen intended to torture its inhabitants? My theory, then and now, is that he must have been an advocate of the Japanese aesthetic of imperfection. To understand what I mean, try watching Japanese television sometime on cable, or go to your nearest Japantown and pick up a copy of one of those teenage fan magazines. You’ll find that half the young Japanese models and starlets, if not more, have these perfect faces, this perfect hair, this perfect skin, these perfect teeth, except for one slight flaw: one tooth is always crooked. Now, I’m no expert on Japanese art and pop culture, but it seems to me that the people over there admire this kind of thing — imperfection amidst perfection. Asymmetry within the symmetry. Can you imagine such an aesthetic choice taking hold here in the U.S., where movie stars seemingly start botoxing and photoshopping themselves in their teens! An American architect who incorporated a pint-sized kitchen into a modern suburban house would be run out of the industry on his apron strings.

I bring up the Nagasaki inconvenient kitchen today because it reminds me of something unusual Google has been doing for a while now in its lunch rooms. As you’re probably aware from all the publicity, Google is rated as one of the top organizations to work for. Applicants flock to their HR department in search of well-paying jobs, parental-leave benefits, child care, and more perks than you can shake a cursor at. According to a recent Fortune magazine article, Google is also famous (or infamous) for its non-stop, free buffet – with a twist. The author notes:

“Data-obsessed Google measures the length of its cafeteria lines to make sure people have to wait a while (optimally three to four minutes) and have time to talk. It makes people sit at long tables, where they’re likelier to be next to or across from someone they don’t know, and it puts those tables a little too close together so you might hit someone when you push your chair back and thus meet someone new.”

Employees call it “the Google bump”. Kind of sounds like the inconvenient kitchen all over again, doesn’t it?

The difference between Japan and Google has everything to do with culture, in this case corporate vs. national. Rather than adopting the Japanese aesthetic of imperfection, the lunch room architects at Google are all about social engineering. The inconvenience of long lunch lines and cramped tables serves a practical purpose at the company: namely, it forces people to get up and out of their cubicles, interacting and socializing (whether they like it or not). Even if your bonding is based on negativity (ie. complaining about the lunch room), you’re still out there bonding with new people. Misery truly loves company.

Google understands that strong work relationships lead to higher employee engagement…that encouraging a family-like corporate culture, rich in connection and relationships, is a competitive tool that leads to winning in the marketplace.

So what are you doing in your workplace to encourage inconvenient socializing? Are your elevators too large and spacious? Narrow them! Oh, and make sure they take longer to move from floor to floor! Reduce those parking space sizes! Enforce a gym rule of two people to a treadmill! The sky’s the limit when it comes to productive imperfection. J

I will say this, cramped spaces have their benefits. If I had a time machine, the first place I’d send myself back to is that inconvenient house in Nagasaki. The kitchen would have been an awfully cozy place to bond with my girl crush.

If we’re talking about team-work, then sure, overall performance tends to rise when participants sublimate their own personal objectives for the sake of a collective outcome. A good example from the present day is the amazing phenomenon of the 2014-15 Golden State Warriors basketball team, currently maintaining the top record in the NBA. This is a team with two big-time all-stars, the sweet-shooting Klay Thompson and the transcendent Stephen Curry, a leading MVP candidate. So yes, they’ve got their hotshots. Nevertheless, what makes the Warriors great this year is their near total lack of ego, from the top down. Curry, for example, never asks his coach for more minutes so he can inflate his stats. Two former all-stars, veterans David Lee and Andre Iguodala, are happily coming off the bench every night, for the first time in their careers, willing to do whatever the coach asks for the benefit the team. Pretty much everyone on the Warriors realizes that the ultimate goal is a championship — not solo numbers, not individual fame and glory.

Clearly, excessive individual ego has little place on a successful team. But individuals do matter – most especially in regard to team-energy, where “I” (individualism) has a big role to play in productivity. Energy – both positive and negative — is contagious, like a virus. If, as an individual, you bring a bright, sunny, can-do attitude to the workplace, it can “infect” the whole team with positivity. And the opposite, of course, is true as well. One Debbie Downer can poison the conversation faster than the Roman Empress Agrippina could feed toxic mushrooms to her husband, Claudius.

So hopefully it’s agreed, then, that while there is no place for the individual “glory hog” in a successful team, individuals ARE important. Heck, a team without people is, well, an individual, right! Although our egos might need to be suppressed for the sake of the team, our positive energy needs to be expressed in order for the group to reach its ultimate performance level. WE have a responsibility to up our energetic games by working on ourselves.

No matter how you spell team, no matter what vowels (E, A, or I) exist at the center, teams matter greatly in our society. As individuals strengthen their communication skills and emotional intelligence, so does the team; as teams become smarter and more “functional”, so does the organization; as the organization becomes more enlightened, so does the entire industry; and with globalization, enlightened industries have the power to impact the country and therefore change the world.

So there you have it: world change starts with teams made up of individuals. The “I’s” do have it!

Today I asked Tim to share a few of his thoughts on team leadership ­ from a jazz improv perspective. Here are his insightful comments:

“What I’ve learned from leading jazz groups, and from being a sideman for that matter, is that a group functions best when the leader is strong, confident, and has a vision. Within the context of that, he must also give the members of the band the feeling that they are totally free to express themselves within the boundaries of what the leader is setting out to do. I often find myself describing an improvising quartet as an excellent example of living, dynamic democracy. The jazz group was born to express the American spirit, and it has evolved into a form that is capable of expressing the spirits of communities of musicians throughout the world.

“The leader needs to pick members who will be compatible, and create an environment of mutual respect. With this in place, the sidemen can relax into a feeling of safety, from which they can explore and take risks without being judged unfairly for mistakes. If the leader is too selfish or demanding, the band members start to see themselves as just being there to do a job and collect a paycheck, and they lose respect for the leader. But more importantly, they become detached from the music and go on autopilot, ceasing to be actively expressing their own true music. On the flip side, if the leader defers too much to others in the band, the sidemen lose respect for him because they expect to be led somewhere interesting. This situation can result in everyone acting like a leader to pick up the slack in the band, and arguments over decision making and the direction of the music inevitably ensue.

“Then there’s the issue of “swing”. There’s the fundamental level of swing where everyone is feeling the beat together, and the music has natural momentum. Then there’s the next level where four artists all hearing the music in its moment of creation together generate an incredible propulsion. The rush of that stream carries each individual and the group into a place where they are all playing in a way that no one imagined before or could possibly recreate. The music is not only in the moment, it is of the moment. That’s what I live for! Occasionally it happens, and I dream of the day when I can play enough and have enough work for my band to live in that place more.

“So I see the wisdom of team leadership lying in the ability to acknowledge and nurture each individual’s freedom and creativity while simultaneously having the vision to create a group dynamic that takes the individuals bound together to a new and unforeseen place.”

Editor’s Note: I was fortunate enough to catch Tim in concert in San Francisco this past weekend. I was impressed with the way the musicians in his quartet listened intently to each other without trying to upstage one another. The goal was always to keep the music moving forward, and to make others look good. It reminded me of the way my favorite NBA team, the Golden State Warriors, have been playing basketball this year: without egos…completely oriented toward team performance rather than individual statistics.

Business leaders can learn much from the world of jazz improv. Before your next team meeting, consider asking yourself the following questions:

Do I have a strong, confident vision for my team, and if so, what is it and have I communicated it sufficiently?

Am I taking people somewhere “interesting”?

Do I provide my “sidemen” the freedom to express themselves within the boundaries of my vision?

On the other hand, am I providing so much freedom that my team members are left confused about the direction they’re being asked to take?

Do we “swing” as a team? Are we attaining that feeling of flow in which people are functioning at their highest performance level? If not, what aspects of my leadership style might be preventing this?

When it comes to teamwork, let the spirits of Miles Davis and Duke Ellington be your guide.

(Visit Tim Armacost on the web at www.timarmacost.com)

Given that over 120 million viewers were watching the end of Super Bowl XLIX this past Sunday, the chances are fairly good that at least some (if not most) of you witnessed the puzzling play calling from Seattle Seahawks’ coach, Pete Carroll. Here was the situation. Down by four points with less than a minute to play in the fourth quarter, the Seahawks have possession of the ball with one yard separating them from the end zone and, most likely, their second consecutive Super Bowl victory. The common-sense call is to run the ball with Marshawn Lynch, a bowling ball of a human being with the nickname “Beast Mode”. Lynch who, on the previous play, pounded ahead for four yards, has already run for over 100 yards in the game, demonstrating time and again that the Patriots can’t mount much resistance when a short gain is required of him. Everyone in the stadium (including this writer) is expecting a safe, off-tackle plunge from Lynch. But then something remarkable happens; the Seahawks’ brilliant young quarterback, Russell Wilson, unexpectedly drops back for a pass and slings the ball over the middle in the direction of wide receiver Ricardo Lockette, knifing towards the goal line. Against all odds, Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler steps in front of Lockette and intercepts the ball, essentially ending the game and handing New
England their 4th Super Bowl victory.

What could Pete Carroll have been thinking?

TV sportscaster Chris Collinsworth was obviously thinking the same thing when he exclaimed:

“I’m sorry, but I can’t believe the call. I cannot believe the call. You’ve got Marshawn Lynch in the backfield. You’ve got a guy that’s been border line unstoppable in this part of the field. I can’t believe the call… I don’t believe it. I’m sitting here and I absolutely cannot believe that play call. If I lose the Super Bowl because Marshawn Lynch can’t get in from the 1-yard line, so be it. So be it. But there is no way… I don’t believe the call.”

Like much of the sports media, I have to agree with Collinsworth’s assessment – ostensibly, Carroll’s call was a mistake. The odds certainly were strongly in favor of running the ball with Lynch. But Carroll apparently saw things differently. In a press conference after the game, Carroll calmly explained that for the play in question, New England had sent in their “goal-line package”, expressly designed to stop the run. Explains the coach:

“We easily could have gone otherwise. But when they sent their goal line guys in, I know that we have the advantage on the matchups in the passing game, so let’s throw it. It’s OK.”

If Carroll’s decision had worked out, great! The Seahawks pass for a touchdown and everyone calls it one of the gutsiest, out-of-the-box calls in Super Bowl history. And if it fails (as it did), Carroll and Wilson are goats of the highest order, those crazy gunslingers who cost an entire city a chance to celebrate.
What did you think of the call?

For me, the interesting question is not whether the play was a mistake or not, but rather, what Seattle is going to make of it going forward. It would be easy (and not unprecedented) for Seahawks owner Paul Allen to fire Carroll outright, laying all the blame on the coach’s shoulders. In the NFL in particular, winning is everything; coaches have a fairly short leash. It’s “win now or pack your bags.”

America certainly venerates its winners and vilifies its losers. Consider the case of poor Bill Buckner, a star baseball player whose error in game six of the 1986 World Series cost the Red Sox a championship. The city of Boston has never forgiven Buckner for his mistake, essentially running him out town — completely forgetting the player’s hall of fame statistics earned over a long, distinguished career. One wonders how the city of Seattle will treat Carroll and staff over the next few weeks and months.

As mentioned, Carroll hasn’t really apologized for his mistake. He’s sticking with the argument that “doing the predictable thing” didn’t get his team to the Super Bowl. The Seahawks live by the unexpected and die by the unexpected. I get it. What interests me is how Carroll is spinning things with his players. After all, once a coach has lost the locker room, his days as the team leader are over. If the Seahawks, in their disappointment, rise up as one against Carroll and his coaching staff, pointing fingers at the men responsible for their Super loss, it could be a slippery slope for Seattle back to mediocrity.

As a leader, Carroll’s task is to remind people that there are no mistakes; there are only learning opportunities. So what work (and life) lessons can the coach and his team harvest from this year’s Super Bowl loss? How about:

• Whether you win or you lose, you have an opportunity to display class and character.

• When you have a philosophy you believe in (in this case, unpredictability), you stick with it, whatever the consequences.

• As good as it feels to be on top, you often learn more about yourselves when you’re dropped down to the bottom. We certainly feel more compassion and empathy for the world’s down-trodden masses when we’ve taken a hit ourselves.

You get the idea. In the short term, the Seahawks are undoubtedly feeling sad and disappointed this week. After all, they’ve been deprived of their much-anticipated winner’s high. But in the long term, losing DOES build character and engender insight. The most successful people on the planet see opportunity in all experience, enjoying the process no matter what happens. In fact, true visionaries often enjoy when things don’t go exactly as planned; they love serendipity, as it usually opens the door to a new options and possibilities.

Can Pete Carroll successfully convey this message to the Seattle Seahawks? Given what I know about his established rapport with his team, I’m guessing yes. It probably doesn’t hurt, as well, that each player on the losing squad of the Super Bowl gets a $49,000 bonus for simply appearing in the big game. So much for the “downtrodden masses”.

Over my 20 years of v-ball Sundays, I’ve been repeatedly astonished by how uncannily the game parallels life and, most particularly, the psycho-social dynamics in the workplace. Take for example the topic of motivation. As I see it, there are three types of players on the volleyball court at any one time, namely:

The Recreationist

The Competitor

The Glory Hog

The Recreationist’s motivation is merely to get outside, grab a little exercise and enjoy socializing with other players. Improving her skills or achieving the “thrill of victory” is of relatively low priority for this kind of person: just being out in the park, running around and shooting the breeze with folks is more than enough to satisfy a Recreationist.

The Competitor’s goal is more aggressive, ie. “Just win baby!” A successful day for a Competitor is comprised of a series of winning matches, all of them delivering a delicious release of adrenaline. Losing is simply an unacceptable outcome – just a bad, bad day in the park.

The Glory Hog cares little about socializing, getting in shape, or even winning. His aim is basically to be the star player, the hero. In volleyball, that often translates to hitting lots of un-returnable spikes. Unlike the Competitor, who knows his winning high is dependent on his whole team playing together as one, the Glory Hog is mainly concerned with his own, individual ego boost. As long as he hits his shots and secures his moments of heroism, who cares if the team wins or loses?

Does this any of this sound familiar to you? Who in your office is just happy to be hanging out and socializing? Who is the hyper-competitive team member, the one who sees life as a battle to win? And who is the prima donna, caring only about increasing his own status? My guess is that you could peg all three personality types in your office after only one game of watching your co-workers behave on a volleyball court. (Hmm, what a good interview practice that might be!)

My point is that at work and at play, people show up with agendas. Of the three “volleyball personalities” mentioned above, only the Recreationist has control of her own experience. As long as people are willing to talk with her (not always a given, but usually so), she can enjoy her afternoon. By contrast, the Competitor needs participation and effort from the whole team in order to get that winner’s high. And the Glory Hog has it worse; if people don’t set him well, he can’t hit his spikes and grab the hero’s medal.

Whenever you come into a situation with an agenda that relies on the performance of others, you’re putting yourself into a difficult spot; with other people involved, there’s simply no way to assure that you’re going to get what you came for. But what if you shifted your perspective, from outside to inside? What if you treated each volleyball afternoon, each day at work, each 24 hours on the planet as a series of self-determined opportunities? Here’s how this might work:

Opportunity #1: No matter what happens today, I can always work on something new …whether it’s a new skill, a new technique, or a new way of talking/listening to people

Opportunity #2: No matter what happens today, I can always practice and improve on an existing skill or ability.

Opportunity #3: No matter what happens today, I can always learn something about myself and the world.

The beauty of the “Three Opportunities” is their flexibility.

Let’s say you’re on the volleyball court and your team is continually losing. No problem –you shift your attention to that new spiking motion you saw on YouTube.

Or let’s say you’re not getting set consistently for spikes. Not a big deal; you focus, instead, on improving your current footwork and passing, or perhaps your communication and leadership skills.

Or how about if you’re just having one of those uncoordinated, two-left-feet sort of days, and nothing is going right. Easy. You transfer you attention away from physical performance to emotional mastery, learning more about the nature of your own negative self talk, and how you might counter it.

How might your life be different if you said to yourself every morning:

“Today I refuse to dwell on my mistakes, errors, or frustrated ambitions. No matter what life throws at me, today I will see only opportunities and celebration. The goal for today is to try new things, refine old skills, and learn as much as I can about myself, others and the world. And that will be a great day guaranteed.”

That sounds like a big volleyball spike of a day to me, something you can control no matter what happens. Give it a try! It may just change your life.

Luke Skywalker: I can’t keep the vision out of my head. They’re my friends. I’ve gotta help them.

Yoda: You must not go!

…

Obi-Wan: Patience!

Luke: And sacrifice Han and Leia?

Yoda: If you honor what they fight for, yes!

Obi-Wan: If you choose to face Vader, you will do it alone. I cannot interfere.

Luke: I understand. R2, fire up the converters.

Obi-Wan: Luke. Don’t give in to hate. That leads to the Dark Side.

Yoda: Strong is Vader. Mind what you have learned. Save you it can.

Luke: I will and I’ll return. I promise. [flies off with X-Wing]

—————————————

Do you remember this scene from the second Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back? (1980) The young Luke Skywalker finds himself at a crossroads, faced with the hero’s eternal dilemma: stay and complete his training, or rush off (before his education is complete) to try and save his friends. As you can see above, Luke chooses to leave Master Yoda’s tutelage well before fully mastering his Jedi skills, hurrying off to battle with Darth Vader before he’s actually up to the challenge. As a result, let’s just say that Luke has his lunch (and his hand) handed to him on a platter.

Although we have no Death Stars to destroy back here on planet Earth, no black-clad, heavy-breathing villains to vanquish, we nevertheless find ourselves continually in predicaments similar to that of Luke’s. Time and again, we hurdle ourselves into competition prematurely, often well before acquiring full proficiency at our desired skill, technique or art. And what happens? Repeatedly, we fail to achieve our greatest potential, our highest level of excellence.

I recall a similar situation a few years back when I first took up volleyball. On my first day out there, an experienced player took me aside and helped me learn the basics of bumping and setting. Looking back, I wish I had insisted on my friend giving me even more drills and skills practice before ever letting me set foot on the court. But that’s not how it worked out, of course. I insisted on jumping right into a game, anticipating the giddy, competitive high, the adrenaline rush that I’d always felt when playing other ball sports. The result, of course, was that I never completely learned how to play the game of volleyball—at least not properly. Not only did my less-than-optimal form eventually lead to shoulder and back issues, but I experienced a high degree of emotional stress and anxiety along the way. After all, my perfectly-understandable rookie mistakes were costing my team points, and my hyper-competitive teammates weren’t appreciating it! The shame…the humiliation. Not only were my muscles mis-learning the basic skills of the game but my cellular memory was absorbing the negative, self-directed, catabolic feelings and emotions associated with my mistakes. And here’s the scary thing: whenever I’ve made similar mistakes again – often years later — those same unhappy, stressed-out emotions have come right back to me. Seemingly the body remembers everything—feelings and all!

So what to do about this? I suggest 3 easy steps to increase overall excellence and performance in nearly every endeavor, both at home and at work, namely:

Patiently hone your skills before jumping into competition. As enticing as it may seem to leap right into the fray, resist the temptation. Lay down your base skills first. Learn as much as you can at the feet of your Yoda while the opportunity presents itself. Take your time and learn each step completely before moving on to the next.

Develop perseverance. Sometimes you’re just not “feeling the joy”, especially when progress is slow. Nevertheless, keep on “going through the motions.” Each time you go out and practice, you etch and integrate new knowledge and abilities into your cellular memory.

Love your game. Whether its volleyball, Jedi training or the latest version of PowerPoint, develop a passion for what you’re doing. Be intensely curious about your practice. With love, passion and curiosity comes self-motivation. And with increasing mastery comes joy, satisfaction and self-esteem — completely independent of competition.

We all crave immediate gratification. Of course we do. We can’t help it. Our fast-paced, competitive culture urges us to buy that new, tasty candy bar at the grocery check-out counter…purchase that new, flashy iPOD with all the bells and whistles. Jump into the game before you’re ready. Move quick! Don’t wait! Imagine, however, what might be possible in life if we just slowed down and concentrated on becoming a master at something …anything…with no rush to compete, no urgency to strut our stuff for extrinsic rewards. How would this attitude transform your workplace productivity? Your hobbies? Your relationships? Everything!

————————————–

Luke: You want the impossible.

[Yoda uses the Force to levitate Luke’s X-Wing out of the bog.]

Luke: I don’t… I don’t believe it!

Yoda: That is why you fail.

With thanks to Brett Zeller, author of Evolutionary Education: Moving Beyond Our Competitive Compulsion, Wingspan Press, 2009

Nonplussed, I respond: “Give me a break! Can’t you see I’m struggling to keep up?”

Silence ensues, followed by a hurt: “I was just trying to help!”

What in the world has just happened here? One second we’re jogging along together in nature, the next we’re at each others’ throats.

Needless to say, few of us are not at our best when we’re in pain or discomfort, and I’m certainly no exception. During yesterday’s run, I was clearly not on my game. My chest was aching, my legs felt like lead, and my pace was glacial at best. Perhaps I hadn’t had enough sleep, or maybe I wasn’t yet accustomed to the arrival of the 80-degree F, springtime weather. Who knows? By contrast, my girlfriend – eternally fit –was having her usual strong day on the trails, often sprinting ahead to do push ups or sit ups while waiting for me to catch up with her. Ordinarily I would have celebrated her fantastic conditioning – heck, many times her loving prodding is what gets me out on the trails in the first place. But not yesterday. When she asked me if I was “ready to step up the pace”, all I could think of was, “Obviously I’m not going fast enough for her. She must be bored by this run and, by corollary, with me as a running mate in general. And what’s worse, now she’s trying to control me, to get HER needs met for a faster run, when obviously I’m struggling. How selfish can you get?!!”

Doesn’t this sound familiar? Don’t we all exhibit this kind of reflexive, critical behavior when we’re under stress and “running” a negative story about ourselves? After all, why point the finger at yourself when it’s so much easier to lay the blame on someone else – to “kill the messenger”, as it were?

As our run continued yesterday — in a now uncomfortable silence – I found myself afforded a few minutes to reflect on the conflict and, most importantly, on my primary role in the interaction. Gradually it dawned on me that I’d allowed myself to fall into role of the “victim”, simultaneously casting my girlfriend as the “villain”. Inevitably, when you start seeing yourself as the good guy and your “opponent” as the bad guy, the situation just escalates and escalates, into what Gary Harper calls “The Drama Triangle”. The only way out of this dead end street is to get some distance from event, to look at things from the other person’s perspective. So okay, let’s consider the possibility that maybe my girlfriend is not the villain here, concocting her own evil designs to do me wrong. What, then, might she have really been saying when she suggested we speed up? Maybe it was something like: “You’ve been telling me how you want to get in better running shape. That won’t happen if we don’t increase the intensity a bit. Let me help you achieve your stated goal.” Or perhaps: “I heard you say you’re worried about us running late for dinner with your mom this evening. Since I care about you and don’t want you to worry about tardiness, how about we jog a little faster to create some buffer time?” You get the idea. By stepping into my girlfriend’s shoes and remembering her overall best intentions towards me, I was able to start counteracting my own negative, self-focused story.

And what about my hot buttons? Surely those play into this scenario as well. Which of my old emotional wounds and injuries might my girlfriend have accidentally triggered? Well, to name just one, during my childhood my parents (in their own imperfection) didn’t always notice when I was struggling (either emotionally or physically) and lagging behind. It’s understandable, then, that I would have feelings come up if my partner failed to notice my suffering, here in the present.

Self-empowerment guru Tony Robbins once said, “All pain comes from stories that are selfishly viewed.” In other words, when you’re looking at life exclusively from your own story, your own ego, you’ll most certainly have pain and suffering. As adults, then, our job is both to notice our old hot buttons — our out-dated assumptions, interpretations and limiting beliefs — and to ask ourselves, “Is this way of thinking really serving me? Do I need to hold onto a belief system laid down when I was kid, back when I didn’t have all the resources and experience I have today?”

Happily, my jog in the park yesterday ended successfully, in the sense that 1) I ran all the way to the finish line (however slowly) and 2) my girlfriend and I hashed everything out quickly and amicably, averting much additional drama. The trick: looking at things from the other person’s perspective, acknowledging positive intentions, and taking responsibility for our own “stuff”. Conflicts rarely disappear just by ignoring them. Happily, resolution is almost always just one loving, honest conversation away.

It’s funny how the things we learn in elementary school stick in our heads and take on an element of “truth” as we get older. As far back as I can remember, for example, my teachers told me that I should *never* talk to other students while taking a test, for that would be *cheating*.

They had a point, of course. At that time in our lives, we all needed to learn how to do things ourselves; we needed to test our own limits, develop self-discipline, work independently, and discover of what we were capable.

For many (if not most) of us, however, this message has carried over into our adulthood – and most especially into the workplace. It continues to be highly appropriate to do your work alone; talking to others is somehow breaking the rules … a demonstration of weakness.

This is hardly surprising when you stop to consider that back in the day, teachers often graded on a curve. In a very real sense, your classmates were your competition. If you tried to help another student during a test, not only might you get busted for cheating, but their success would bring down your score. In the “arena” of the public school system, then, it was a dog-eat-dog world; if your classmates won, you lost.

Although old habits die hard, they don’t have to rule your behavior–especially as an adult in the workplace. We can choose to view others and ourselves in a different, more productive, dare I say more enlightened manner. Consider these 7 Attitudes Towards Competition, namely:

1) I lose

2) You lose

3) I win

4) You win

5) We win

6) We all win or no one wins

7) There is no winning or losing

At level one, you’re a victim weighted by apathy; you see the world as asserting its influence on you, rather than the other way around. No matter what happens, you’re going to lose; the deck is stacked against you. Why even bother trying? Life is a losing hand.

At level two – one slight step higher on the energy ladder – you’ve now at least got your boxing gloves on. In a world of conflict, anger and defiance, resources are always scarce, but you’re ready to fight for them. Although you may not win all the time, by golly you’re going to make sure that the other sucker loses. Anyone who spends a lot of time driving on the freeway at rush hour knows intimately what level-two behavior looks like.

At level three, cooperation has finally emerged as a viable option. With more self-awareness, you begin to comprehend that winning is at least possible without other people losing. Oh sure, you definitely still want to come out on top, but you don’t mind if other folks do okay as well.

At level four, you’ve risen energetically to the point where you recognize the pleasure and worth in seeing others succeed. Core values like concern, compassion and service rise to the fore, but with a blind spot. If others don’t recognize and appreciate your efforts, you might drop back down to level two and become angry and resentful at those awful “ingrates”.

At level five, you’re feeling a much higher degree of peace, acceptance and reconciliation. Your ego has reduced to the point where you find yourself actively seeking win-win situations, collaborating and cooperating with others for mutual benefit.

At level six, you’ve run with this idea a step further. You now recognize that there is no winning unless everybody wins.

And at level seven – well, I like to think of this as the Matrix (“There is no spoon”) level. You’ve completely seen through the illusion that people are separated and disconnected. Winning and losing are just convenient fictions, easily dispelled. Competition has gone out the window. We are all one.

So where do you fall on the competition spectrum? How about your co-workers? Your organization as a whole? What mental adjustments can you start making today to begin boosting your attitude to higher and higher energetic levels? Imagine a world where you get compensated not for beating out the competition, but for helping others achieve co-prosperity. No win, no lose, all thrive. What a joy that would be–and it’s possible!

(with thanks to Bruce D. Schneider, Energy Leadership, 2008)