Last weekend my daughter took part in an 8 hour dance competition and my son, on the other side of town, was playing in his first football tournament.
One of those weekends when it would have been a really jolly good idea to book Monday off to recover. Reader, I didn’t. Oh well, you live and learn.
Two years ago I would never have dreamed my now 8 year old would have had the social confidence to captain a game in a tournament, to score goals, take penalties, listen to direction from a coach and win player of the tournament for all his hard work. My eyes leaked a bit as I read Whatsapp updates from his Dad.
Actually the update that I enjoyed the most was this one, after a couple of defeats:
“Couple of sad faces after the last game then S found an old mushy banana on the floor and all was forgotten”
And right there, my 8 year old perfectly demonstrated a skill that doesn’t get a lot of air time: He lightened the mood in a dark moment, giving the team a bit of extra energy to carry on. Sometimes you need a pep talk, sometimes you just need to spot something gross and go ‘Urgh guys LOOOOOK!’
A mushy banana is bloomin’ hilarious if you are 8, it turns out.
Off the football pitch, this is a nuanced leadership skill isn’t it? It doesn’t mean, pretend everything is ok and divert attention by telling a witty joke. It’s about being able to see the lighter side of life, without denying or ignoring the difficult stuff. It’s about there being space for both and being comfortable talking about both.
In fact studies into human resilience by The Resilience Dynamic show that not taking oneself too seriously actively supports our resilience, by which I mean, our ability to adapt to changes. What also helps is the ability to not dwell, but move on (and lots of others we’d need more space to explore than a Sunday night email.)
Is the take away from this email to start spotting squashed bananas, shout ‘urgh banana!!’ and take pictures for the Teams chat? No, obviously not.
But it might be to ensure that there is time and space given to the work chats about nonsense that give us lightness as well as the to do lists, deadlines and funding conversations.
The night before the football tournament and dance competition marathon, I went round to my friend’s house with a group of friends for a surprise evening. Exciting eh? It turns out, eleven of us were to each paint a portrait of whoever we picked out the hat. I mean there wasn’t much OTHER than lightness that evening. What did we learn? That painting noses is hard and it’s easy to forget to draw a neck. And that there’s nothing that bonds a group of friends, or work colleagues, than a really really silly evening doing something everyone has express permission to really suck at. And suck at it we did. Proudly (though Katie did an amazing pic of me that I’m so proud of, it’s now on my Instagram)
Lucy Gower and I have a team away day to facilitate this week – for an organisation who typically deals with serious and sad subject matter. We have built in time for a range of conversations and activities with this in mind, from the light to the appropriately serious, and of course we aim to role model our comfort with both from the front.
