For years Paul Harvey hosted a radio spot where he would share a short tale that revolved around little known facts and a key element being revealed at the end. The ending was usually the revelation of a name of a famous person or event, and Harvey would close with the familiar phrase, “and now you know the rest of the story”.
A friend of mine is a personal trainer and he passed along the following story from a client of his. This client “runs mountains” as a part of his fitness routine and on one particular day he ran up and down four different mountains with a total elevation gain of approximately 5000 meters. (For those of you who hike or climb let that number sink in for a moment; for those of you who do not hike or climb regularly – that is a significant number of meters for one day!). On his way up his fourth mountain he had to really push to make it. He was relying on his climbing poles a little more and was struggling to keep going. Another hiker on the trail passed him and said something to the effect of, “C’mon, it’s not that hard!” Now I will give the passer-by the benefit of the doubt and believe that he was just trying to be encouraging, but in reality, because he did not know the rest of the story, his words were rather insensitive or even harsh.
In the work that I do we talk a fair bit about accountability and professionalism – establishing and holding to clear expectations, standards of conduct, and goals that serve to elevate the performance and success of the individual and team. But there is much that goes in to this. To do all of this well it is important to realize that there may be more to the story than we know at that particular moment.
Not everyone is at the same place in their professional lives. Not everyone functions in the same way on a team. What might be easy for you could be a significant challenge for me. I just may not be there yet, or perhaps it has taken a great deal for me just to get to where I am now. I am not suggesting that we should not hold each other to the expectations, standards, and goals we have agreed upon; what I am suggesting is that to do that effectively we may need to realize that each of us has had a different journey to this point. There can be a fine line between offering necessary encouragement and accountability, and giving someone space to be where they are. A consistent emphasis on personal and professional development while allowing each other to grow at a pace that best suits the individual can pay significant dividends to all of those involved and contribute to a great place to work.
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The Rest of The Story
A friend of mine is a personal trainer and he passed along the following story from a client of his. This client “runs mountains” as a part of his fitness routine and on one particular day he ran up and down four different mountains with a total elevation gain of approximately 5000 meters. (For those of you who hike or climb let that number sink in for a moment; for those of you who do not hike or climb regularly – that is a significant number of meters for one day!). On his way up his fourth mountain he had to really push to make it. He was relying on his climbing poles a little more and was struggling to keep going. Another hiker on the trail passed him and said something to the effect of, “C’mon, it’s not that hard!” Now I will give the passer-by the benefit of the doubt and believe that he was just trying to be encouraging, but in reality, because he did not know the rest of the story, his words were rather insensitive or even harsh.
In the work that I do we talk a fair bit about accountability and professionalism – establishing and holding to clear expectations, standards of conduct, and goals that serve to elevate the performance and success of the individual and team. But there is much that goes in to this. To do all of this well it is important to realize that there may be more to the story than we know at that particular moment.
Not everyone is at the same place in their professional lives. Not everyone functions in the same way on a team. What might be easy for you could be a significant challenge for me. I just may not be there yet, or perhaps it has taken a great deal for me just to get to where I am now. I am not suggesting that we should not hold each other to the expectations, standards, and goals we have agreed upon; what I am suggesting is that to do that effectively we may need to realize that each of us has had a different journey to this point. There can be a fine line between offering necessary encouragement and accountability, and giving someone space to be where they are. A consistent emphasis on personal and professional development while allowing each other to grow at a pace that best suits the individual can pay significant dividends to all of those involved and contribute to a great place to work.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 11th, 2017 at 9:51 pm and is filed under Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.