Things I Can’t Forget – Caring

“You can’t care about the result more than they do”

 

It often takes something or someone outside of yourself to get the right perspective.  Shelly Stotzer, a trusted advisor of mine, said this to me when helping with a colleague’s performance management issue. It stopped me in my tracks then, and ironically was the thing that moved me forward in what I knew I needed to do. I was deep in the weeds and she helped me gain focus.

 

And I was reminded of it a week ago at my kid’s youth sports event.  An old coach showed up. The kind that is gregarious, confident and kind of legendary – sadly to the detriment of the new coach.  So as the coach side picked conversations, it rattled the team and divided the parents. Folks, this is an 8th grade sport.  The palpable tension was not worth it. If you’re a parent, you know what I mean. As much as I wanted to call a time out to the old coach and say, “You see what your presence here is doing, right?”, I remembered that no amount of my energy could change the situation without making it worse, and no one invited me or any other parent to help the matter. So I went back to caring about my kid.  Right time, right place to influence the right thing.

 

I’ve recycled this advice beyond performance coaching. We use it on client engagements. I applied it to parenting my children. I share it often and freely with friends and family dealing with complex, emotional or time sensitive dilemmas. Maybe it will help you this week.