On Saturday, soccer season kicked off for my middle son and the family staked out our usual seats up close on the sideline. We are blessed that our son is a naturally gifted athlete and were excited as we cheered him on to score the first goal of the season for his team. The pure joy for the game at this age (7 years old) is exciting to watch, especially when one of them is lucky enough to score a goal! My son has a a post-goal celebration that begins with raising his hands in the air and then proceeding to run down the sideline giving everyone who stretches out their arms a high-five along the way.
In watching their game, it got me thinking about our goals at the hospital and how much similarity can be drawn to watching a youth soccer game. There are a few key steps that the team goes through each game and then they repeat, over and over.Achieving our goals at the hospital doesn't seem all that different in retrospect.
1. Planning: Before the play begins, the team huddles and discuss their goal and how to position themselves around the field to be ready to score.
2. Execution: As the play begins, the players are communicating with each other and are constantly re-aligning themselves to be in position to make or receive a pass from a teammate as they move the ball down the field.
3. Persistence: Many shots are taken at the goal for every one goal that is scored. For every missed shot at the goal, the team doesn't give up, but instead regroups, reposition themselves, and they try again to take closer aim at the target. With enough practice, patience, and persistence, they eventually score and achieve their goal.
4. Celebration: While not all celebrations are as elaborate as my son's, the team take a moment to congratulate each other on getting the ball down the field and scoring a goal. They recognize, even at a young age, that it takes the whole team to score a goal and they celebrate together briefly, before getting lined up again to make another score.
And then the cycle repeats. Again and again.
While our goals in the hospital may be more complex, or at times may seem more daunting, the steps to achieving them are really not all that different. However, it never fails to amaze me that when we come up short on achieving a goal how many of those steps we failed to take or failed to take seriously. We set high goals for ourselves, but then fail to devise a realistic plan on how to achieve them. Instead of taking responsibility for executing against our plans, we expect someone else to make the effort to cause things to happen. Sometimes, even with great planning and execution, we still sometimes come up short and instead of regrouping and learning from a missed attempt, we simply give up. And when we do achieve our goals, we all too often fail to stop and take a moment to celebrate with each other on a job well done.
As we look forward on the rest of this year, and the goals we have set but have yet to achieve, I hope that we can all take a moment to go back to the lessons taught by watching a group of 7 year-old kids playing soccer. I'm certain we will be successful and just maybe have a bit of fun while doing it!
In watching their game, it got me thinking about our goals at the hospital and how much similarity can be drawn to watching a youth soccer game. There are a few key steps that the team goes through each game and then they repeat, over and over.Achieving our goals at the hospital doesn't seem all that different in retrospect.1. Planning: Before the play begins, the team huddles and discuss their goal and how to position themselves around the field to be ready to score.
2. Execution: As the play begins, the players are communicating with each other and are constantly re-aligning themselves to be in position to make or receive a pass from a teammate as they move the ball down the field.
3. Persistence: Many shots are taken at the goal for every one goal that is scored. For every missed shot at the goal, the team doesn't give up, but instead regroups, reposition themselves, and they try again to take closer aim at the target. With enough practice, patience, and persistence, they eventually score and achieve their goal.
4. Celebration: While not all celebrations are as elaborate as my son's, the team take a moment to congratulate each other on getting the ball down the field and scoring a goal. They recognize, even at a young age, that it takes the whole team to score a goal and they celebrate together briefly, before getting lined up again to make another score.
And then the cycle repeats. Again and again.
While our goals in the hospital may be more complex, or at times may seem more daunting, the steps to achieving them are really not all that different. However, it never fails to amaze me that when we come up short on achieving a goal how many of those steps we failed to take or failed to take seriously. We set high goals for ourselves, but then fail to devise a realistic plan on how to achieve them. Instead of taking responsibility for executing against our plans, we expect someone else to make the effort to cause things to happen. Sometimes, even with great planning and execution, we still sometimes come up short and instead of regrouping and learning from a missed attempt, we simply give up. And when we do achieve our goals, we all too often fail to stop and take a moment to celebrate with each other on a job well done.
As we look forward on the rest of this year, and the goals we have set but have yet to achieve, I hope that we can all take a moment to go back to the lessons taught by watching a group of 7 year-old kids playing soccer. I'm certain we will be successful and just maybe have a bit of fun while doing it!
2 comments:
Great post, and we can learn a lot about our organization by just observing the life around us.
One interesting thing about the soccer example is that the players are always in adaptation mode.
Which leads me to wonder, how often do organizations have a clear picture of their goal, develop good plans that should lead them toward their goal, but then focus so heavily on the x-y-z's of the plan that they lose sight of the goal and don't adapt?
Your son understood that more important than any single plan was the objective of getting the ball in the back of the net. Imagine how dissapointing it would have been if he had passed up his shot in order to follow the "game plan."
be nice if we could have celebrated w a raise to help support our families
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