How to Face Big Challenges and Successfully Climb Steep Hills
The Little Blue Engine begins,
The little blue engine looked up at the hill.
His light was weak, his whistle was shrill.
He was tired and small, and the hill was tall,
And his face blushed red as he softly said,
“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”
The Little Blue Engine ends,
He was almost there, when — CRASH! SMASH! BASH!
He slid down and mashed into engine hash
On the rocks below… which goes to show
If the track is tough and the hill is rough,
THINKING you can just ain’t enough!
Read all four verses of Shel Silverstein’s poem.
Warning:
Difficulty and disruption teach you that self-sufficiency is a dangerous myth.
Don’t climb steep hills by yourself.
A with:
Three questions for steep hills:
- How might your team feel you pulling WITH them?
- How might you let others pull WITH you?
- How might you create environments where people pull WITH each other?
If you feel alone when climbing big hills:
- Assess your perception. Perhaps people are helping, and you don’t notice.
- Confess the truth to yourself. You’ve chosen to climb on your own because you lack humility.
- Don’t be a whiner. Don’t complain that people aren’t helping. “Woe is me” is a plea for validation and sympathy.
Practices for climbing big hills:
- Use “we.” Ask, “How can WE get this done?”
- Invite suggestions. “What do you think?”
- Assign tasks based on strengths and passions.
- Find a friend that affirms AND challenges. Affirmation is only half the formula for success. The other half is a swift kick in the pants.
The answer to steep hills isn’t thinking you can’t.
The answer to climbing steep hills is knowing you need others.
The skill of climbing steep hills is teaching others how to help others.
How might leaders build organizations with a “how can I help” approach to steep hills?
Bonus material:
Where Grit Really Comes From (Leadership Freak)
My father had a saying “If you think you can or if you think you can’t, you are right.” Thinking alone is not enough but it can set perspective on the task.
Thanks Steve. Yes, perspective matters. Today’s post began as a “perspective” post and ended in a different form.
Your dad sounds a lot like Henry Ford. 🙂
This is a great reminder. Teams are much more than their numbers alone.
An especially good post today, Dan. Focusing on how we help others pull together is leadership. I’ve been mentoring someone who struggles to let others help until he feels more comfortable about a topic. I haven’t been able to understand the real roadblock…..until I read your line about lacking humility. That will be perfect for my next coaching session.
Thanks Susan. Embracing a lack of humility might be the first step in the practice of humility. It’s not an easy step.
How might you create environments where people pull WITH each other? First of all I do believe one has to start out oneself being positive (+) in all that we do. Then attempt to be more compassionate, more friendly, more understanding and lastly the hardest (for me) be more patient with others. Understand that a team has many parts and those parts change in impact and in contribution all the time so the “team” has to be flexible where one picks up for others and helps others up that hill. In these times it tough when the team is scattered remotely.
Thank Roger. The greatest challenge of leadership is leading yourself. It’s easy to expect others to do things you aren’t doing.
Thanks for your post Dan. This was very helpful.
Working as a team to confront difficulty and climb big hills is paramount. However, it is challenging at times to allow for others to be able to contribute. Personally, I am guilty of going into takeover mode at times with my team. These times are usually when I am not at my best as a leader. Wow, humility is such an important thing. I think your first question about how the team might feel you pulling with them is insightful. I think it can help one avoid the tendency to take over if you think about how others on the team can feel you helping them.
Leaders can build organizations with a “how can I help” approach to steep hills by making the trek into small steps. Breaking things up into small, more achievable tasks that can be allocated to team members helps them feel included and accomplished. Another approach would be to make sure everyone has the right gear. Sometimes “how can I help” should be rephrased as “what do you need to climb the mountain?”
In the end, working together as a team to overcome challenges is more rewarding than climbing the hill alone. A commitment to this form of teamwork as a leader should hopefully create a work environment that promotes pulling together by all members of the team.
I was recently on a project team at work that, intentionally or not, allowed my leadership to naturally organize the team and the work. It was great at first, being able to understand, to teach my team, and to make assignments of best fit. But halfway through the project the team meetings were dominated by me alone answering questions from our leadership. While I knew the answers, I wasn’t always the one that worked on that particular piece of the project. The senior manager would ask a question and the team would remain silent until I chimed in. It happened on every call. So I talked to my senior manager about it and explained to him that I was happy to answer questions but I’d be happier if the team spoke to their own work (which was amazing work, by the way). We agreed that at least once a week, I would be “unavailable” to make the daily call so that my team would be more-or-less forced to answer questions about the work in my absence. For the calls I attended, I would be silent for as long as it took for another team member to respond first to the question. This second approach was a little more painful for me because I am not used to remaining quiet when I know the answer and the silence was sometimes uncomfortably long. I didn’t want my senior manager or the team to think I didn’t know the answer. Sometimes leadership means staying quiet even when you know the answer. I use this an example for the “How do WE get something done?” because I didn’t complete this project by myself. We climbed the steep hill together.