I vividly remember my youthful struggles with tennis.
Throw me a baseball, and I could hit it a mile. Spin a tennis ball in my direction, and, well, it could go in any direction – if I hit it at all.
America was going through something of a tennis boom in the mid-1970s. For some reason, and yo.....
I vividly remember my youthful struggles with tennis.
Throw me a baseball, and I could hit it a mile. Spin a tennis ball in my direction, and, well, it could go in any direction – if I hit it at all.
America was going through something of a tennis boom in the mid-1970s. For some reason, and you probably can link it to the popularity of Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert at the time, it seemed as if everyone was playing tennis.
Even inner-city kids were playing the sport, and people such as the great U.S. Open, Wimbledon and Australian Open champion Arthur Ashe was giving his time and barnstorming the country to encourage kids to pick up a racket.
Armed with wooden rackets or the vaunted metal Wilson T2000 (Connors’ weapon of choice), kids by the thousands were launching tennis balls diagonally into parking lots, straight into the net and even occasionally onto the court surface.
The boom ended – mercifully for some, this guy included – and we all went back to playing epic Whiffle Ball games.
But in our brief dalliance with tennis, a great lesson was bestowed upon those kids of that era – again, this guy included. That lesson was to play opponents that were both better and worse than you as a means of improving.
You played the better players, of course, to challenge yourself to improve. Seeing someone across the net execute a technically correct forehand or backhand was a teaching moment. And when you played someone that wasn’t as skilled, they saw your technique and could learn from it. Simply by knocking the ball back and forth, you improved their game.
It was coaching without the feeling that you were being coached – a sensation that many human beings struggle to accept. Every point allowed for a skill to be developed without the need for a sideline chat or any “chalk talk” to occur.
That remains, in essence, a resonating metaphor for mentorship.
Learning anything new has its challenges, and can be difficult. Until you master a skill, the path to competency can be humiliating. The frustration of consistently pounding a tennis ball into the net, or out of bounds, or swinging and missing entirely can be humiliating – especially so if improvement doesn’t come quickly.
The same holds true in our workplaces, where less experienced associates and newcomers to our firms find it difficult to engage in the proper way – or the company’s chosen way – to execute tasks.
Regardless of where we may be in our current company’s organizational chart, each of us has the potential to be a mentor.
If we’ve been in the work environment longer than our coworkers and have a better grasp of the company’s approach to execution, we can model the way by reaching out to a struggling coworker and lend them a hand. It doesn’t need to be an overt or magnanimous gesture. In fact, if the help doesn’t resonate appropriately, it’s probably a bigger turn-off for the struggling associate.
Showing a co-worker how to execute by practicing it with them moves him or her up the number line, closer to competency. It also helps you, the person doing the mentoring, to actually think more deeply about the nuances of what you do and further refine the skills that you are trying to convey. Essentially, we are inviting them to play a few sets with us.
It often can be awkward to reach out to someone that is struggling, and some won’t accept your help even if you ask. And, to be fair, not every kid that “played up” against a better opponent became as skilled as the mentoring player. In fact, some just quit. Knowing that shouldn’t dissuade anyone from making the effort to reach out and make the offer.
Those who have some confidence and skills and that want to improve may be more likely to reach out to the better “players” in our workplaces. If they have a genuine interest in becoming a more competent associate and climbing the ladder, they’re more likely to be the one that initiates the contact with a more skilled associate – whether that is on their same line of the organization chart or a level or two ahead.
When someone wants to “play up” with us, we should see that as a genuine opportunity to improve our company and not as a threat against our position. Far too often, the people in our businesses that have the experience or the wherewithal to be consistently good at what they do have no time for those a peg or two lower in the organization.
But if a company has entrusted you with a position in leadership, it is both a moral and ethical responsibility to not only seek out those that you wish to bring under your wing but to share as much of your talent with as many people as possible. Leaders take this “risk.”
I am pretty sure that Ashe wasn’t talking about tennis when he said, “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
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As always, stay classy.
Chris Krug is president of the progressive media communications firm No Limit Agency* in Chicago. No Limit is a full-service agency whose practice focuses on strategy, brand management, creative campaigns and delivering unparalleled earned placement in the media. No Limit Agency works with some of the best-known and fastest-growing brands in North America, and that’s not a coincidence. Contact Krug by calling 312-526-3996 or via email at [email protected].*This brand is a paid partner of 1851 Franchise. For more information on paid partnerships please click here.