THE GUT CHECK SERIES · Success · No. 2
One leadership question, examined. A new one every Tuesday.
Are you successful on purpose (or by accident)?
My daughter, Brooklynn, is amazing. She can solve a standard 3×3 Rubik’s Cube, after just a few seconds of looking at it, in around 12 seconds, consistently. I have solved a Rubik’s Cube a handful of times, in around 12 minutes, and only once without removing the stickers.
So what is the difference between her success and mine? In an after-action review, on an evaluation report, or on a resume, they look identical. Solved the cube. Check.
Look underneath the label and you find that her success came on the other side of hours, and hours, and hours of studying the dozens and dozens of algorithms that move a color from one side to another. It came from hours, and hours, and hours of practice, for pleasure and under pressure. Her success transfers to 2×2 cubes, 5×5 cubes, pyramids, and the “fancy” cubes with irregular joints and relationships. My success made me feel good once, and then made me panic any time someone tossed me a child’s toy.
She is successful on purpose. I got lucky once.
A win you can’t explain is a win you can’t repeat, and here is the leader’s problem with that. Every instrument we use to record success records the label. The after-action review, the evaluation report, the resume: each one says “solved the cube,” and none of them says how long it took, how often it happens, or whether the stickers stayed on. One solved face tells you nothing about the other five. The system cannot tell purpose from accident. So you have to, first in the mirror, then in the people whose wins you are about to reward, promote, and build the next plan around.
Now, success at a Rubik’s Cube may sound trivial. It is a toy. The principle is serious. Brooklynn is an eminently confident young lady because she is a competent young lady, and her competence and confidence in one area transfer, not only to other cubes and toys, but to the cello, to math, to a foreign language, and to just about anything else she puts her mind to. She has tasted the sweetness of success on the other side of sweat, and now she is unsatisfied with just being lucky.
Gut check: take your last real win. Could you do it again tomorrow, on demand, with the stickers on? And the person you’re about to reward for theirs: could they?
Row Well and Live.
Next in the series: A Win You Share Compounds, arriving next Tuesday. The Gut Check series runs every Tuesday. See every question so far, or start at the beginning with Nobody Meets a Standard They Can’t See.
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