Answer vs Reason
“Cutting edges are always a little rough.”
- Rosalie Maggio
When I was at the University of Southern California, I was talking on the phone to a fellow college strength coach. I had always considered this guy to be a solid strength coach.
This school had recruited and signed a linebacker that we really liked a few years before. The kid needed work on his strength and his lateral movement skills, but he was a really smart kid who loved the game and was willing to do anything to get better.
I asked the coach about this kid – now he had him for three seasons – he said, “He’s not that good, he lacks strength and doesn’t move laterally very well.” HUH?
WTF? As a senior in high school, he lacked these abilities. And in three years he still lacked them?
In your profession you are either the ANSWER to the problems or you are the REASON for the problems.
In this situation the strength coaches’ job was to improve the shortcomings of the athlete. If he wasn’t strong enough, get him stronger. If he didn’t move well laterally, then work on his movement skills. It literally is that simple.
If you are in charge of supply and three years later your supply chain is still the Achilles heel of your company then you might want to try another line of attack, because what you are doing is not making the difference you are hired for.
Instead of being the REASON for things not working become the ANSWER to what the problem is.
Hard Work
To become the ANSWER, you must outwork everyone else. You must research and experiment with new ideas. You may need to work longer hours. You may have to enlist other people to help. You might even need to ask a stupid question or two.
Making positive change will force you to do a deep reflection and really question if you can solve the problems. You might come up with same answer I did, “No, I do not.” That’s okay. You’re not stupid, you just don’t have enough information yet. Keep working and learning. You will soon have answers before you hear the question.
These answers don’t come easy. You will need to put the time in. Your day will not be run by a clock. Your week will not be run by a calendar. You will either be working or re-inventing how to do things better. There will be no time or space in your life except for finding the ANSWERS.
In time you will be so far ahead of everyone you won’t be able to find any articles or people to talk to that have pushed the envelope as far as you have. You will have then found “The Edge”.
The Edge
Too many people talk about being on the cutting edge, and act like they are doing things better because they bought the latest gimmicks. Beware of “the Edge”, the cutting edge is the edge because it is out in front of old thought. But it is untried and unproven. You are working with theory. In real life “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”. The rule of the edge is that it is dangerous and usually ends badly.
There is one caveat to the “Edge Rule”. If you are the one who has done all the background and have put in the hours of work and are out farther than everyone else, and it works, then by all means live on the edge. But make sure you don’t get so “drunk” on being out in front that you push your company off the edge of the possible.
There are limits to pushing the edge. When training athletes you are working with humans. They all have a breaking point. When you are pushing the edge make sure the Risk v Reward is always tilted to taking less risk and gaining the most reward possible.
It’s when we push the risk to get a little bit more, that we end up losing it all.
This happens in business too. If you push your industry so far that the supply overloads the demand, you will put you company out of business.
If you control the edge, control it, but know how much the market can bare. Let the other person push it off the edge. Since you are the Answer, you saw it coming and you will have made the changes in the course of your company to take advantage of the shift.
In today’s football it is the strength coach that moves back towards the hard work training and away from the sport science analytics run programs will be in front of the crash that is soon to come in the strength and conditioning world.
Those who don’t make the transition soon enough will begin to point fingers. And then you will know who they are.
Excuses
What usually happens is when things become challenging; people resort to excuses. It’s always someone else’s fault. “I’m doing things like I always have so it’s not my fault.” If you use this statement, you are the REASON that things are not working. The world is constantly changing. If you aren’t changing along with it, you are not prepared to conquer the issues that will take down your work.
Excuses are easy, they are cheap and they make us feel better. But they are short lived. They have no strength. And soon, people in power will get tired of your finger pointing.
Stay true to your plan. Know your answers. Before you start another training season set out the ramifications of what you will need in time and resources and then go to work.
If you come up short, eat the blame. If the dynamics get changed, you now have reasons for coming up short. Whatever you do stay on your course. Trust you. Trust your plans. And stay focused on the goals. Let the others make excuses for their failures and for your successes. You keep pushing the ball forward.
Your Choice
In the end it’s your choice. Do you want to work so hard that you become the Answer or do you want to follow the pack, accept average and be the Reason for your team, your business and your life not turning out to be all that you hoped they would.
It’s your choice. Will you work hard enough to come up with the Answers to the problems? Will you push your industry so far that you have the Answers to “The Edge”? When it comes to blame, will you be the Reason why people are pointing fingers or will you be the Answer to the problems?
It’s your choice.
