Vannoy & Ross
Imagine you are driving your car and in your rearview mirror you see flashing lights… your heart sinks… you pull over… the police officer walks toward you… you roll down your window… the officer looks at you with an angry face and says, “You were speeding! Are you nuts? What were you thinking?! How many times do we have to tell you people, DON’T SPEED! If you keep this up you’re going to put us all in the grave! I’ve had it. I’m sick and tired of your stupidity!”
Nope. This probably wouldn’t happen. Effective law enforcement officials don’t use this approach. (At least those who want to ‘serve the community’ and keep their job.) Rather, they approach you, ask for your identification, check your history, ask if you were aware you were speeding, often allow you to provide an explanation, and then they give you your consequence: a ticket.
Effective police officers deal with the facts and respond accordingly. They have the ability to manage what they do and say.
Great leaders don’t police their teams. And, you may have a few team members that could benefit from the analogy. Saying “no” to someone doesn’t need to be a traumatic, emotional event. And it should never be avoided.
As our friend, Shawn, shares, “Responsibility is response + ability = each one of us has the ability to control our response.”
When everone owns and understands the rules, and an expectation is not met, we can domonstrate our ‘ability’ to ‘respond’ in a way that allows us to move on down the road in a healthy, productive way.
