One of the greatest skills in sports is the ability to hit the curveball in the sport of baseball. Those in the know say it can transform average players to All-Stars for those few who can master it even for a short time.
I was thinking about the challenges of the curves, opr the things that don’t appear on your dance card quite a lot the last few weeks, as the unique and challenging times we are in have thrown more than a few colleagues and friends for a loop as they get unexpeted pitches trying to figure out how to respond.
Some of the curves that have arisen including things like…
“Our lead actor is currently dealing with wildfires in his neighborhood, so let’s put a puase on plans.”
“Our celebration boat was raided by the Coast Guard.”
“We have to postpone our call today because our office in Tel Aviv had all the windows blown out by the blast wave last night.”
They are all very real, part of emails and calls in the past few weeks. Reality sets in, empathy takes place and you can be placed in situations not predicted, but ones that call for key skills, human skills, to solve issues, convey messages and stay engaged while not creating drama for those directly affected.
How do we literally stay ahead of the curve or focus through the chaos of the fluid times we were in, times where many thought sport might provide a respite but sometimes doesn’t?
Some thoughts.
Listening and time management.
The ability to listen, not just hear the noise, but listen for relevance is a skill we can never get enough of. Being able to sift through all the noise we have to make sure we are able to assimilate information into a cohesive and important narrative is so key to success as we move back to being challenged with every second for relevance. Especially when we are still in a world where loudest voices seem to resonate much more than quality ones in almost every area of life and business.
Listening, and sifting, is so important, because if you can listen well, its amazing what people will tell you, and if you do listen well, you are able to piece together the important pieces into a narrative of storytelling than can be very impactful and relevant to everything you do and to those who are dealing with real crisis in real time.
Along with listening comes time management, a skill which we talk about with students that is so vital. How do we use our 24 hours of our day best? It again comes back to those curveballs, and knowing when to swing, when to listen, and when to strike efficiently, and also taking the experience we have had, even if it seems not a perfect fit to what is going on, and help to calmly think through answers, alternatives, and a path forward in the direst of circumstances.
It is also in our nature to want to engage and strike back…we get caught in the moment and hear the cheers and the jeers, and get sucked into a narrative where pausing, hearing the yelling and the venting and waiting to respond can make a big difference, and in many cases shorten or diffuse a troubled situation.
None of that of course is easy, as we get emotional and angry and fearful and disappointed, but holding on to the cognitive while doing our best to weed through the emotion, or to let others fully go through their emotions while we wait and listen…both to the affected and to other instances in the world around us that can signal a trend or a one off, can be invaluable.
Another area of leaning in is the ability to look beyond the moment to see what could lie ahead, or in some cases what others in like-minded situations have done to diffuse a situation or solve a crisis. Thinking and being proactive in planning can also help lessen the load of those dealing with the immediate, and can sometimes help avoid a growing crisis down the road.
In the movie, “Trouble with the Curve,” Gus, the scout played by Clint Eastwood, sees through all the hype and the buzz of a prospect, but getting people of value to listen and engage is not easy. We all want to be aware and engaged in the trend worthy vs the long term fix. Also like in baseball, success in staying on top of the curve is a big challenge, with limited success always being an issue. However, what do we learn from the misses or the near misses that gets us to stay on top of the next move, the one that brings us success and satisfaction when we do connect. Ironically what led to Gus’ success was not something as much he saw, but it was what he heard, and once again listening played a key role in success.
Listening, learning, managing time and staying on top of the curves are so important, and it was nice to be reminded by a decade old movie. Time well spent as we continue to take big swings, sometimes at pitches we never thought could be coming.
