Football, the Armed Forces, and the Workplace
Let it be known that I played high school football at 145 scrawny pounds, and I don’t have a personal military history. Yet, my loose ties to football and the United States Armed Forces helped me draw an important connection to UofM and the workplace.
When a football team enters a game week, coaches prep their players with opponents’ game films, offensive/defensive strategies, and practice. The team competes against the other team, and then the team evaluates the win or loss by watching their performance on game film.
A military unit participates in the same intentional cycle. Officers brief the unit on a particular mission. The unit uses that information to complete objectives. Once their objectives are complete, they debrief the mission.
Both football and the military rely heavily on cycles of briefing and debriefing to facilitate the growth of their players and soldiers. What would it look like for these groups to lose the ability or time to brief and debrief? In my opinion, they would see an absence of emerging leaders.
Activities and organizations that depend on leadership must take the time to initiate learning cycles for people to compare/contrast growth and internalize their key contributions. After all, if people within an organization aren’t expected to grow, then that organization is not fit to grow.
Have y’all ever questioned whether or not we deserve to call ourselves “Leaders and Best”? At five years out of school, I can tell you Michigan is exciting, because it is all about you. It’s a green light to be selfish. Right now…it’s all about your classes, your interests, your hopes, and your dreams. Family, faculty, and advisors are cheering for you. They want this journey to be all about you. Your mind is truly set free, and it explores the greatest intellectual, social, and civic collision in the world. Your ingesting and digesting daily experiences and the more you get to know yourself…the more you know what you are capable of in the world. We experience that kind of growth at Michigan, so yes…We are the “Leaders and Best.”
When you graduate and start building your career, you don’t always find environments that encourage you to reflect and internalize your journey. A company or manager’s inability to create learning cycles in the workplace can stall your enthusiasm for your job and injure your self-esteem. In any job interview, it is critical to ask future employers about their informal and formal review processes. Football teams evaluate game films weekly, but in the workplace, formal reviews typically take place on an annual basis. If an employer is unable to answer in detail or if those details are a bad match, walk away and set your sights on an employer that sees your growth (a.k.a. leadership) as a means to grow the company.
Go Blue from Texas!
When a football team enters a game week, coaches prep their players with opponents’ game films, offensive/defensive strategies, and practice. The team competes against the other team, and then the team evaluates the win or loss by watching their performance on game film.
A military unit participates in the same intentional cycle. Officers brief the unit on a particular mission. The unit uses that information to complete objectives. Once their objectives are complete, they debrief the mission.
Both football and the military rely heavily on cycles of briefing and debriefing to facilitate the growth of their players and soldiers. What would it look like for these groups to lose the ability or time to brief and debrief? In my opinion, they would see an absence of emerging leaders.
Activities and organizations that depend on leadership must take the time to initiate learning cycles for people to compare/contrast growth and internalize their key contributions. After all, if people within an organization aren’t expected to grow, then that organization is not fit to grow.
Have y’all ever questioned whether or not we deserve to call ourselves “Leaders and Best”? At five years out of school, I can tell you Michigan is exciting, because it is all about you. It’s a green light to be selfish. Right now…it’s all about your classes, your interests, your hopes, and your dreams. Family, faculty, and advisors are cheering for you. They want this journey to be all about you. Your mind is truly set free, and it explores the greatest intellectual, social, and civic collision in the world. Your ingesting and digesting daily experiences and the more you get to know yourself…the more you know what you are capable of in the world. We experience that kind of growth at Michigan, so yes…We are the “Leaders and Best.”
When you graduate and start building your career, you don’t always find environments that encourage you to reflect and internalize your journey. A company or manager’s inability to create learning cycles in the workplace can stall your enthusiasm for your job and injure your self-esteem. In any job interview, it is critical to ask future employers about their informal and formal review processes. Football teams evaluate game films weekly, but in the workplace, formal reviews typically take place on an annual basis. If an employer is unable to answer in detail or if those details are a bad match, walk away and set your sights on an employer that sees your growth (a.k.a. leadership) as a means to grow the company.
Go Blue from Texas!
posted by Corey at 7:04 AM
<< Home