The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 238 - Pass the Baton

Transcript:

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Hey, Pete.

Pete: So I'm going to say something that's going to sound casual, but like it was a big deal. Which was, I was at an event where Obama was speaking a couple of weeks ago.

Jen: As you do.

Pete: Casual. And obviously, when Obama speaks for over an hour, there is any number of topics and ideas that I could turn into episodes, I think. But there's one in particular that I really, really, really want to bounce off you because it was the one that made me pull out my phone, open up my notes app, and write it down. Because I was like, "I definitely don't want to forget this particular metaphor." And that is that leadership is like a relay race.

Jen: Leadership is like a relay race. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: Maybe you know this, Pete, but I'm a total Obama-stan. Like, I love Barack Obama.

Pete: My god, I mean, me too. He was in Melbourne, speaking. He was in Australia, he spoke in Sydney as well. And Tracey and I had bought tickets prior to us moving to Brisbane...which is a thing that's happened. And anyway, so we went back to Melbourne specifically to see Barack Obama speak. There was like fifteen thousand people there, all just sitting there with their notepads out on the edge of their seat, like, "Tell us all of the things."

Jen: He's so amazing.

Pete: It was literally a stadium, and he is casually sitting back on his lounge chair just kind of riffing and sharing stories.

Jen: Oh my gosh.

Pete: Yes. Yes. And this amazing lady, Julie Bishop, she interviewed him. She did a really, really great job. And anyway, leadership is like a relay. So this popped up somewhere during the conversation, and he was articulating it as it relates to politics but then it started to expand on, and I'd love for you to help me expand on, how this applies to not just politics. But basically, he was like, "One way to think about leadership is, it's a relay race. And you get given the baton," or baton, depending on how you pronounce that word. I shared this story yesterday and I realized I use both interchangeably, so I'm just getting them both out there. "You get given the baton, and everything that's happened prior to you receiving that baton has been totally outside your control."

Jen: Yep.

Pete: "And it is your job, in that moment, to choose how you're going to run that race and move that baton (slash baton) to the next stage." And maybe I'll just pause there. Like, I could go so far down the rabbit hole of how I've been thinking about this but like that was the general premise. Right? You get the baton that has a bunch of context, a bunch of information that you have no insight in to...you can see how this applies as a political leader...and then, it's your job for the next four years, if you're in America, to run with the baton and do whatever you can to help move that race forward, whatever that race means. So, that was the premise. What do you think, first and foremost?

Jen: I'm obsessed with it. And it has both ends, so you have to collect the baton (or the baton) from the person who was previously holding it, and then, you've got to be able to hand it off successfully to the next person. And I'm thinking about how thrilling those moments are when you watch a relay, because the person who is going to get the baton next has to start moving before the person gets to them, but they can't move so far that they're ahead of the game. And then, the handoff has to be so exquisitely executed, because it's easy in the handoff to have a fumble happen.

Pete: Oh, right. Exactly. Exactly. So these are the kinds of things I started to think about. One was, you know, if I'm Jen Waldman and maybe I'd begin with the end in mind, and I think about, "How do I want to be passing the baton on?" Like, for me, it's almost like, "What do I want my legacy to be, like for this particular leadership position or leadership role?" And starting to think about, yeah, "Is it going to be my left hand or my right hand? Are they going to be like five yards ahead of me or ten yards ahead of me when they start running?" You know, all of those things within the metaphor. "How do I want to be known and remembered when I've completed this job, task, leadership, position, life, (or whatever it is), race?" And I agree, that is like...you could nerd out on that for like twenty-five minutes.

Jen: Oh, yeah.

Pete: Or longer. The other thing that I've been thinking about a lot is, as it relates to a few of the leaders in particular that I'm coaching, so one is a senior leader who's just been put into this new role and has inherited a baton that contains within it or around it a really kind of difficult culture. There's a bunch of dysfunction in her team. And how she's sort of having to navigate the first few days, first few months in her role is really difficult because of the culture that she's inherited. And one of the things she's finding is that she's taking on the responsibility of like, "Oh, someone just resigned. This person is not happy about this," and all of these things that happened prior to her even being in this role in this company, she's starting to like take onboard as her own. And it's kind of...I've been like almost searching for the metaphor in coaching her, of like, "How do I help you see that you inherited that? That's not necessarily something you can control. What you can control is how you now react based on the situation you have." And then, of course, Obama came along with this relay metaphor, and I was like, "That's it. You got the baton. Now, you get to decide how you're going to run the race. What are you going to do? How are you going to show up? What conversations are you going to have with your team to help either shift that culture, or change that culture, or improve that culture or whatever it is you're seeking to change?" So that's just one example I've been thinking about, as it relates to leaders.

Jen: You know, in my line of work, we're passing the baton all the time. Acting is like passing it back and forth over and over again, with each new piece of dialogue. But also, in the Broadway culture, people are inheriting roles all the time in these long-running shows. People, you know, leave. And then, someone else has to pick up. And the rest of the team stays the same. But this one new person comes in, they have to receive the baton from the person in front of them. So, I just see it all over my industry. But the thing that was just occurring to me when you were talking about your client...let's say that your personal best is (just to have an even number to work with) one minute. Which is not possible, but let's just say it takes you one minute to run around the track. And the person you're receiving the baton from has just had a really challenging, sloppy run, and they've added, you know, fifteen seconds of extra time. Even if you are the most gifted, skilled, amazing runner in the history of running, are you going to be able to shave fifteen seconds off your personal best to make up for what just happened? Like, I see this metaphor as so helpful in giving yourself a reality check about what you can actually do with your best work, and also giving yourself a break for what you can actually do with your best work.

Pete: Yes. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. And I guess another way of looking at that is, I could run the best PB that I could possibly run when I get the baton. I could break my personal best...and the person next to me could break the world record.

Jen: Right. That's right.

Pete: And so, I do everything in my power to deliver the best possible result that I could deliver, and yet, there's someone else who was even better and even faster. And one way of looking at that could be like, "Oh, I wasn't good enough. You know, I came second. That sucks. I'm not enough." And actually, I think the more healthy way to look at it is, "Well, I controlled everything that I could control. I ran literally the best race I could possibly have run. The fact that the person next to me got a world record, like, what can you do? I can't control that. It's so out of my control." And so, that is like another tool of, "Did I show up in the way that I'm most proud? Did I run the race the best that I possibly could have? If so, everything else is almost redundant or outside of my control, and I have to try and be comfortable with that."

Jen: Yeah. Ooh, that resonates. That hits me, the exercise in releasing control of what is out of one's control. I want to look at this from a slightly different angle, which is the angle of transparency. I recently saw a job listing. I belong to this...it doesn't matter. I get emails about theaters that are looking to hire people. So an extremely prestigious, very well-known, probably one of the most well-resourced theaters in the States is currently looking for new artistic director. And rather than singing its own praises in the description of the job, when it said, you know, "This is what we expect in a qualified candidate," it said something to the effect of, "An understanding that you are inheriting a pandemic-riddled financial situation where our audience attendance is the lowest it's ever been in our history, and we need someone who's going to come in understanding that that's what we are dealing with."

Pete: Oh my gosh.

Jen: And I was like, "I don't think I've ever seen anything like that in writing." Most of the time, it's like, "We are an amazing, you know, gift to the American theatre landscape, and like, you should be privileged that we would even look at you." But instead, this was like, "You need to understand what the baton looks like."

Pete: Right. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. It's not like, "Yeah, I'm going to hand you this beautiful, shiny baton. And guess what? We're a hundred meters ahead in this race already, so like, just cruise through and you'll nail it." It's like, "Here's the reality of what we're dealing with."

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: I like that. I like that a lot. I like that, especially from the perspective of, if I'm the person now running the race with the baton and I'm thinking about, "How do I want to pass it on? What do I want my legacy to look like?" For me personally, I want it to look like something that is transparent, something that is honest, something that is still hopeful and purposeful and with possibility in mind as to how we could improve. But I don't want to pretend like things are perfect when I hand the baton, only to have that person then go, "What? What's this? This isn't a baton, this is a mango. Why did you give me a mango?" I have no idea why I thought of mango, but there we go.

Jen: Delicious.

Pete: Delicious.

Jen: Okay, can we also look at this from the coaching perspective?

Pete: Please, please, please.

Jen: So one of the things that you don't do when you hand someone the baton is then grab it back. And sometimes when I'm coaching, you know, I hand someone the baton in the form of a question. And then, there is that moment of silence. Sometimes that impulse kicks in where it's like, "Let me ask the question a second time or a different way, or let me like give some extra context," but that is grabbing the baton back. So I like this idea that as a coach, you are handing the baton to the person, and then, you let them run with it.

Pete: Oh, that's good. That's really good. So even if you were Usain Bolt, the fastest 100-meter runner of all time...and I think possibly the fastest 200-meter runner of all time, feel free to fact check me listens. But he doesn't run two legs of the 100 when he's doing the 4x100 relay. He recognizes that he's just going to run the 100, even though he's probably quicker than the other three guys. He has to, yeah, you have to relinquish control of the baton and not grab it back. Now, he wasn't necessarily a coach, but I was just thinking about that idea, that metaphor. That is so true, especially if you hand the baton in the form of a question, as a coach, and you see them like just stumble a little bit or just slip a little bit or maybe like shift hands with the baton which slows them down a second, and you're like, "Ah, don't do that!"

Jen: "Don't drop it!"

Pete: "Don't drop it!" There's a tension there. Like, there's tension that you and I have spoken about, lots and lots of like the healthy tension of, "Here it is, over to you." And that, as the person saying, "Here it is, over to you," feels so uncomfortable.

Jen: Mmm-hmm.

Pete: Which is, you used the example of like a coach, but it's actually also a leader acting as a coach, as well. It's, "Can I guide my team, support my team, give my team ideas and batons and questions, and then be comfortable letting them run?"

Jen: Right.

Pete: And not going, "Left foot, next! Right foot, next! Left foot, next! Just give it here, I'll do it!"

Jen: Yep. I've been the person in that position, as an actor, where you get handed an inspiration baton by a director and you feel like you're running with it. And then, all of a sudden, it's like they grab it back out of your hands. And you're like, "I didn't even get to try. Like, I didn't even get halfway around the track before you grabbed my baton back. Rats!" And it feels very disempowering.

Pete: Ooh, it really does. This is a slight tangent, but one way I think about leadership and coaching in particular, that I think speaks to what you just described, is (and bear with me here) like an algebra equation. So, when I was in high school and primary school, I was like a nerd. Shocker. I was a nerd.

Jen: Yeah, real shocker.

Pete: Real shocker. Listeners are like, "Oh my god, I thought you were the cool kid." I wasn't. And I loved maths. In particular, I loved algebra. And I loved the process of getting a ridiculous, stupid, long equation that had letters and numbers in it, and it was like, "Solve for X." And you're like, "How do you even go about that?" And so, I like follow the step by step by step by step process, you do half a page of working out, all of a sudden I get, "X = 17." And I'm like, "Wild. X = 17. Let me check if that's accurate." I go to the back of the textbook, it says, "X = 17." And I'm like, "Holy shit. That's awesome. I did that whole process, and I got it right." Versus if the person next to me, said to me when I wrote the question down, "Hey, Pete. X = 17," I'd be like, "Oh. Okay. Thanks, I guess? I'll go on to the next one." Like, to me, that's like you've stolen the baton back.

Jen: Yes.

Pete: I haven't even had a chance to try. I haven't even had a chance to, you know, figure something out and get that learning moment. And even if I got it wrong, I'd go back and I'd fix my workings. And then, I'd eventually get it right. Like, you've taken the baton straight off me.

Jen: "Give it back. Give me back my baton,"...which is so fun to say, because we don't say it that way here. But I'm enjoying saying it.

Pete: So, wait, baton...maybe baton is the Australian version. I get so confused now.

Jen: Yeah. We say "baton".

Pete: "Baton". So, you know, sports, batons, maths, it's all related, apparently. It's all related...and leadership.

Jen: Well, I think we've really let this metaphor run its course, Pete.

Pete: Oh my god.

Jen: And thank you, former President Barack Obama, for such a useful metaphor. And I actually have this feeling, Pete, that as soon as we get off of this call, we're going to think of a million different angles that we didn't discuss here, where this would be really useful. And I'll just put out a challenge to the listeners...if you think of other ways where passing the baton can be used, write to us at hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.com. As always, we would love to hear from you. We pass the baton to you now, listeners.

Pete: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.