We Can’t Always Do the Hard Things. What Then?
This blog is part of Renee’s Loving Leaders email series, where she shares insights and strategies for Leading with Love every week. To receive these reflections directly in your inbox, sign up for the series here.
******************
I love the sayings, “We can do hard things!” and “Yes we can!”
These beliefs carried me through some really challenging times to get to a better future. In fact, my family has drawn on a legacy of doing hard things to get to a better future. I’ll share more about that sometime, but today I have a different kind of story to share.
We might call this story, “Trying to move the rhododendron.”
Did you note the word “trying”? Yes, good catch.
At least 20 years ago, five rhododendrons were planted in a row along the fence next to our patio. Now, they are more than seven feet tall, and we enjoy their shady evergreen softening of the garden and huge pink and white blossoms each spring. But after living here for two years, we decided to expand our outdoor living area and create a wrap-around garden space on the other side of the patio for privacy. This meant removing one of the rhodies (a local abbreviation for our state flower.)
But then my husband Jim had an idea: Let’s move it instead of removing it.
He’d moved large rhodies three other times so had experience to build on. We loved the idea of having an immediate seven-foot privacy screen on that side of the yard. And we like a good challenge, after all, “we can do hard things” – “yes we can!”
Jim grew up watching his physician mom solve problems and make ground-breaking innovations in radiology – another leadership story for another time. And I love problem solving too, so it seemed worth a try. Surely, we could figure it out!
But after research, planning, collaboration with his brother, borrowing numerous tools from our local tool library, and after prepping, digging, strapping, lifting, pulling, and trying again and again, the rhododendron would not budge. So, we removed it.
Sometimes, we can’t do the hard thing. No we can’t!
But a bunch of other good things happened… and these are not just consolation prizes or wishful positivity. These are tangible benefits we reaped:
Jim with his brother, Joe
Jim and his brother Joe, who just moved here, spent some quality time together. I am not sure how Joe would feel about this characterization! But I’m going with it! 😉
We now have a new small retaining wall and tree-ready hole where the rhody was to go.
We gained important insights into the layout of the sprinkler system and how to optimize it.
We expanded another flower bed that is ready for planting.
We salvaged turf and moved it to the cleared area.
We opened the fence up for improvements.
And, the rhododendron is gone and our outdoor living area is opened up.
Why am I telling you this?
Sometimes even with our best efforts as leaders and on our teams, things don’t work out the way we envision. In fact, often they don’t!
If our standard of success is things going exactly as planned, then we would be paralyzed with inaction. We wouldn’t try new things. We wouldn’t tinker and puzzle and bounce ideas. We wouldn’t innovate or learn. We’d be stuck and stagnant. In a climate of threat, fear, and worry about perfection this is exactly what happens.
But with Loving Leadership and Loving relationships at work based on respect and trust we can venture a suggestion, risk testing an unlikely option, and discover what’s possible. In the process, the thing might work, or might not. But we are sure to learn, build relationships, and make progress in other ways we didn’t anticipate.
This is true for Jim and me. Jim was safe to try because he knew I wouldn’t shame him if it didn’t work out. He had my support to take a risk. And I knew he would respect the agreed upon boundaries we had on the project. We operate with trust and mutual respect, both forms of love.
The same can be true on our teams too. As Loving Leaders, we can create a trusting, respectful, supportive environment with boundaries to try, to learn, and to improve in unexpected ways. We can be flexible to accept both the things that work out and those that don’t, and to welcome the unexpected benefits when we fail to do hard things.
Yes we can!
Is there anything that has not gone as planned for your team recently?
Here's a way to love and support them. Host a session to enumerate the benefits gained through the failure. Acknowledge what was intended and the good efforts. And then, together build a list of things like:
What else did they do?
What else was built?
What was learned?
What relationships were strengthened?
What assets do you have now?
What new ideas?
Speak your appreciation for their efforts and risk-taking. Express the value of these things to your team. Celebrate together. That's being a Loving Leader.
You'll all be ready to try the next hard things because of that love.
******************
Looking for encouragement and insights on being a loving, human-centered leader? Sign up here for Renée’s Loving Leaders email list and receive several short, supportive emails each week.
