Tennis lesson

I was playing tennis with a friend recently. There was a family of four playing doubles on the court next to us: father, mother, and two sons. It quickly became apparent that it was not a fun time for any of them. The father was a grim and silent presence, saying little other than occasional short, harsh criticisms of his sons' errors. The expression on his face was stuck somewhere between a scowl and sneer. The sons were tense. They bitterly criticized themselves and each other for mis-hit shots and quarreled over line calls. The mother gamely tried to salvage the outing, at one point noting that she was the only one paying anyone any compliments. The other three pointedly ignored her suggestion that a few positive comments might be in order.

This foursome generated an almost palpable zone of tension that took a lot of the fun out of the game for my friend and me. And that takes some doing. We take a very light-hearted approach to the game. We do our best to play well and on our good days play some pretty fine tennis. However, we have at least as much fun when we play poorly. One day we were tied 6-6 in a set that had featured a tragically impressive parade of creative unforced errors. Neither of us had won a single service game. As we prepared to begin the tie-breaker, my buddy intoned, with the dramatic seriousness of a sports announcer, "Now it all comes down to one question: Who wants it less?" I laughed so hard I could barely stand up.

But on this day, we were just hitting the ball back and forth and suffering from the grim tableau being enacted on the next court, serving as unwilling witnesses to a little slice of a family dynamic in which the father was systematically grinding his sons into grim anxiety, the sons were turning into younger versions of their wretched father, and the mother was being dragged along for the ride, her protests going for naught. When they left we experienced a great sense of relief and were able to enjoy the rest of our game.

In that family, the father was playing the role of manager. His intentions, I suspect, were good: he was attempting to make his sons into better tennis players. Unfortunately, he was doing so by adopting a harsh demeanor and attacking them for every error they made. This did motivate them to try to avoid errors but it also made them tense and miserable, and it is hard to play any sport well when you are tense and miserable. Plus, it sucks all the joy out of what should be a pleasurable experience.

Too many managers take this same approach. They create an atmosphere of anxiety and oppression that permeates their organization, seeking to gain efficiency by keeping everyone on edge. What an awful way to manage. Even when this approach to management is performed skillfully it can only generate moderately good results in terms of productivity and quality. People can perform competently when they are tense and fearful, but they cannot perform brilliantly. Brilliant work is generated only by enthusiasm and joy.

You can get decent results being a jerk boss but you can get even better results being a good boss. So why not shoot for generating brilliant success and creating a little corner of happiness and fulfillment in the world at the same time? Sounds like a good idea to me, and sharing ideas on how to do it is one of the goals of this blog.

Comments

[Sarah]

"People can perform competently when they are tense and fearful, but they cannot perform brilliantly." This is so true. Who wants to go out on a limb for a boss who scares them?

When I start thinking about the bosses I've had who have managed by fear, I wonder what they would think if they read this post.

[Beulah]

How about so called 'team leader(s)' who do nothing but manage your "PTO" and bring up a few "issues" from time to time but other than that do not acknowledge their employees or play any active role in the training of a new employee. Hmmm.