Another answer for 'what leaders should be doing all day?' 💎 Issue #74
Plus: why write a little, a thought-provoking way to decide for parents and a great a comedian.
Hi there👋
What’s up?
I talked about Bill Walsh before and this week, as I was reading ‘The Score Takes Care of Itself’ one of the more elusive pieces of the leadership puzzle fell into place.
I see leadership as getting two things right:
Achieving the objective with your team;
Getting your team into a better version of themselves.
The problem is number 2. It always comes second, even in this list where it had a 50% chance of coming first. I have a feeling that coming second is the best-case scenario, and in the majority of contexts winning is all that matters with people being just resources to achieve that. If they get worse, stagnate, or even burn out that’s just a consequence of how competitive or objective-oriented we say we are.
That’s where Bill comes in.
To be a coach on the NFL you have to like to win a LOT, but for Bill Walsh, the process was the most important thing you could use your neurons on. You know, the act of focusing on the things you can control, improving on them, while you don’t have 125kg guys running at you at the speed of a freight train.
So, how did he approach the problem of getting his team to improve continuously no matter the results? Simply by improving and teaching everyone he could (he went as far as redefining the way people answered the phones when you called the offices of the 49ers!). Especially the ones in charge of improving the players.
That makes all the difference. It was not enough to know about football, tactics, strategy, training methodology, and formations. To be a truly great coach you also need to know how the best way to make that knowledge be absorbed by the players.
He knew that as a coach you could fake your way out of a problem with a player, either by using complex language or by the natural instinct players would suffer from leading them to trust everything the coach would say. So, naturally, he placed his coaches practicing giving feedback and having teaching conversations with each other, as if they were talking to players (but these would not be easy to fool if you were making up stuff). Bill would watch these conversations and teach his staff how to approach different topics, how to better communicate, and give feedback so players would learn.
This is a leader's job. Giving feedback to your people is just half the way there. Actually being there on the road, helping them use feedback, teaching them if needed, is what will get you to where you need to go. It’s just the process.
New to me 💡
Write 5x more but write 5x less | 1 min read
✍ This article is almost as long as the title, so I won't spoil here anything, but it manages to pack a punch. I think that's what I sometimes try to achieve with this newsletter without verbalizing it as the author did. I still write, but the pressure is way less.
A Smarter Way to Make Decisions About Your Kids | 10 min read
🌭 This title fits right into the type of content I share in this newsletter, but I'm glad I checked the comments. Must have been my sixth sense. You see, this article is like mustard: it doesn't shine by itself. You really need to pair with the comments from readers who offer contrasting, less “spreadsheet”, views of parenting. This makes me wonder what other comments am I missing to condiment past articles I've shared.
🤱 “When we become parents, we expect to be many things: someone who wakes in the middle of the night and who cleans up food from the floor; someone who comforts, who loves, who disciplines, who celebrates. What we perhaps did not expect is to take on the job of logistics manager.”
How does a comedy outsider make sense of Norm Macdonald? | 7 min read
🦋 I’m no insider, but I’m with those that find this funny.
🧠 “Last week, when the comedian Norm Macdonald died, one person after another stood up to say what a comic genius he was. I have a confession to make. I never found him funny at all. Now, I’m aware of the famous instruction in these moments—de mortuis nil nisi bonum—about the dead nothing except good. But bear with me. I think this is a good opportunity to touch on something important in the way we think and talk about art.”
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Until next week,
Filipe