Learning From Little Boys

by Bill Collier

My wife and I recently attended a T-ball game being played by one of our grandsons. (Please humor me during this brief detour to brag about my four grandsons, all age 6 and under: They’re all exceptional. Thank you. Now back to my column.) On this particular day, we were watching our 4-year-old. All the kids on his team are 4 and 5 years old.

If you’ve never seen T-ball, it’s a precursor to baseball. The ball is placed on a waist-high plastic tee because very few kids at this age have the coordination to hit a ball thrown by a pitcher. Some call it “herd ball” because no matter where the ball gets hit, everyone in the infield and the outfield goes after it. The teams are coed, the kids are cute, and it’s fun to watch. Each game, at least one player does something really great, and at least one cries.

Two boys were playing catch near first base to warm up. We were sitting in our lawn chairs right by the base, so I had a front-row seat to what happened.

Brian got hit square in the face by the ball and started crying. Tommy, who had thrown the ball, apologized to Brian and then went straight to the coach and told him what happened. The coach was facing the other way and didn’t see the incident.

The coach calmed Brian down, and he stayed in the game.

This was a terrific example of the kind of behavior you would want from your employees:

Brian toughed it out and didn’t blame Tommy for what happened.

Tommy did several things right. First he apologized to Brian for hurting him. He also put his teammate above any concern for blame that may fall on him. And he got the coach involved so Brian could get the attention he needed.

Of course, Tommy did nothing wrong and was simply playing catch. But he’s only 5, so he didn’t know whether to expect to be in trouble. Telling the coach was a display of maturity and character.

I said above that we’d want this sort of behavior from our employees. But heck, any of us – business owners, CEOs or managers – would do well to mimic the behavior of these two little guys.

Mental toughness

Brian exhibited mental toughness in the face of pain and adversity. Workplace adversity is in ample supply in the form of lack of recognition, unpleasant co-workers, demanding customers and other challenges.

Willingness to apologize

Tommy’s contrition was admirable. How often have you had to arbitrate a situation between employees? How many of these incidents could have been quickly resolved if one of the parties had simply apologized?

As managers and business leaders, we have an obligation to model the way for our teams and to influence behavior in the workplace. If kids can get it right, surely adults can.

“Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”  
-Mark Twain.

Bill Collier is the St. Louis-area head coach for The Great Game of Business. He works with organizations that want to improve financial results, engage their employees and create a winning culture. Bill can be reached at 314-221-8558, GGOBSTL.com or bill@collierbiz.com.