Learning From A Trip Down Memory Lane
January 5, 2017 at 5:09 p.m.
By Roger Grossman-
I was on other side of a high school sports broadcast.
We’re short-handed with our studio game board operators, so I was free and was glad to sit in as Wawasee traveled to DeKalb for a non-conference boys basketball game.
As I sat there waiting for the broadcast to begin, I tried to figure out how long it had been since I had been in the studio for a game. I never came up with a definite date, or even a year, but it had been at least 10.
While I was trying to figure it out, I realized that my career had circled back to where it started. I have more than 2,300 game broadcasts in the rear view mirror, and here I am back running the board for a game just like I did in 1991. Some people might feel offended by the thought of running the board like that because, let’s be honest, being in the studio is not as glamourous or fun as being the game broadcaster.
But I found the experience Tuesday extremely valuable. It reminded me of all of the things that the folks who are in the studio have to do to make the broadcast sound right. It should be impossible for us broadcasters to forget or even take for granted our studio staff, since we would never get on the air without them. They are the feet of the duck – working like crazy below the surface of the water while the main body seems graceful and effortless.
As I drove away from the studios having not messed up the broadcast beyond repair, it got me thinking that my experience as a board operator should help me do a better job when I am back behind the mic for the rest of the season and beyond.
Then I took that thought the next step. How many people in leadership positions, whether it’s in government or education or private sector business, could benefit from spending some time back at the base level.
An important part of being a good leader is having experience, because being able to relate to the people you are trying to lead is critical to connecting with them. If you have worked on a station or an assembly line, you probably have a good working knowledge of how that whole line works. That makes you a candidate to be a supervisor on that line. If you supervise an assembly line then you see the bigger picture of what the lines around you are doing, and you could become in charge of that whole series of lines. You see where that is heading.
That matches up with my longheld belief that leaders who are actively involved in the process a business, team or organization goes through provide a better work environment, which makes happier and more productive workers.
If a lower-level member of an organization knows that the person running the show has done that job before, it does two thing: 1) it provides credibility to the instructions the leader is giving, and 2) it eliminates most of the excuses when the job doesn’t get well or correctly.
And it should give a leader a good reminder, like the one I got this week, of what it’s like to be in the rank-and-file.
School superintendents need to spend time in their school buildings, and principals need to be in as many classrooms as possible. Sure, some teachers will be freaked out by it but that’s a better way to hold teachers and students accountable for the learning process. It’s a lot better way than results of test scores.
Business owners need to be down in the trenches with their work staff. Those people just might have thought of a better way to do something, and you are more likely to hear it when you are with them.
Pastors need to visit their church’s congregational members. People who are struggling are not likely to come forward to say they need help until it’s too late.
Politicians need to spend more time with their constituents, and not just at election time to make it “look” like they care.
Athletic directors need to attend team practices occasionally.
Dads need to spend time playing with their kids.
When you do those things, you prove you care about the people you are leading and how they go about what they do. And if you do it in such a way that you don’t make those underlings feel like underlings, you are on your way to being a really good leader and your project will have a great chance to reach its goals.
The best leaders and coaches I ever had were people who made me feel like I was working with them, not for them. It makes their words matter more when they speak, and I know what they are saying is genuinely intended to make me better and our team better.
Making things better is what leadership is all about.
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I was on other side of a high school sports broadcast.
We’re short-handed with our studio game board operators, so I was free and was glad to sit in as Wawasee traveled to DeKalb for a non-conference boys basketball game.
As I sat there waiting for the broadcast to begin, I tried to figure out how long it had been since I had been in the studio for a game. I never came up with a definite date, or even a year, but it had been at least 10.
While I was trying to figure it out, I realized that my career had circled back to where it started. I have more than 2,300 game broadcasts in the rear view mirror, and here I am back running the board for a game just like I did in 1991. Some people might feel offended by the thought of running the board like that because, let’s be honest, being in the studio is not as glamourous or fun as being the game broadcaster.
But I found the experience Tuesday extremely valuable. It reminded me of all of the things that the folks who are in the studio have to do to make the broadcast sound right. It should be impossible for us broadcasters to forget or even take for granted our studio staff, since we would never get on the air without them. They are the feet of the duck – working like crazy below the surface of the water while the main body seems graceful and effortless.
As I drove away from the studios having not messed up the broadcast beyond repair, it got me thinking that my experience as a board operator should help me do a better job when I am back behind the mic for the rest of the season and beyond.
Then I took that thought the next step. How many people in leadership positions, whether it’s in government or education or private sector business, could benefit from spending some time back at the base level.
An important part of being a good leader is having experience, because being able to relate to the people you are trying to lead is critical to connecting with them. If you have worked on a station or an assembly line, you probably have a good working knowledge of how that whole line works. That makes you a candidate to be a supervisor on that line. If you supervise an assembly line then you see the bigger picture of what the lines around you are doing, and you could become in charge of that whole series of lines. You see where that is heading.
That matches up with my longheld belief that leaders who are actively involved in the process a business, team or organization goes through provide a better work environment, which makes happier and more productive workers.
If a lower-level member of an organization knows that the person running the show has done that job before, it does two thing: 1) it provides credibility to the instructions the leader is giving, and 2) it eliminates most of the excuses when the job doesn’t get well or correctly.
And it should give a leader a good reminder, like the one I got this week, of what it’s like to be in the rank-and-file.
School superintendents need to spend time in their school buildings, and principals need to be in as many classrooms as possible. Sure, some teachers will be freaked out by it but that’s a better way to hold teachers and students accountable for the learning process. It’s a lot better way than results of test scores.
Business owners need to be down in the trenches with their work staff. Those people just might have thought of a better way to do something, and you are more likely to hear it when you are with them.
Pastors need to visit their church’s congregational members. People who are struggling are not likely to come forward to say they need help until it’s too late.
Politicians need to spend more time with their constituents, and not just at election time to make it “look” like they care.
Athletic directors need to attend team practices occasionally.
Dads need to spend time playing with their kids.
When you do those things, you prove you care about the people you are leading and how they go about what they do. And if you do it in such a way that you don’t make those underlings feel like underlings, you are on your way to being a really good leader and your project will have a great chance to reach its goals.
The best leaders and coaches I ever had were people who made me feel like I was working with them, not for them. It makes their words matter more when they speak, and I know what they are saying is genuinely intended to make me better and our team better.
Making things better is what leadership is all about.
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