Photo by Peggy Anke
I’m watching my partner juggle balls in the air, literally. She’s actually throwing three balls in the air and trying to catch them all without dropping a single one. She’s counting out loud; one, two, three. She’s building some sort of rhythm so that she can make everything both fly and fall predictably all at the same time. As she gets the rhythm she’s also beginning to throw in another word, “Softly,” she tells herself, “softly”.
There’s no point in her being tense and rigid. That won’t help her here. Instead she needs to have soft hands that leads to a certain dexterity both physically and mentally. I can see it’s a battle for her though; this quest for “going at it softly.” She’s physically tense and there’s a palpable frustration every time she fails.
She hands the juggling balls to me. I immediately tense up. I throw the balls in the air and predictably it all comes crashing down.
She bursts out laughing. She’s been where I’ve been. “You’ve got to relax more,” she tells me, “soft hands, and soft mind – that’ll do it.”
“Try softer,” she says.
I try it. She’s got a point. I try softer and find things come easier. I still drop the balls, but at the very least I’ve taken away that mental anguish that I get every time I fail.
Am I even failing each time I drop the ball? Or am I simply just another step closer to being able to get all the balls in the air at the same time?
When I throw the balls I try to relax myself as well. I feel a softness in my hands, and with it I sense that every time I throw the balls into the air that they rise in a more manageable arch. This gives me a fraction more time to catch them. I still fail, but each time it gets easier.
My partner is a much better juggler than me, but she’s also learning. She’s about a week or two ahead of me, but she’s beginning to realise that the “softly” approach works better. I’m super lucky that she shares with me this pearl as I start my journey. Surely this can give me an advantage in my own learning journey.
Juggling balls is a great analogy for our lives – our whole lives, not just our professional ones. We spend so much of our time with multiple “balls” in the air, and if we’re super lucky these balls hang in the air almost as if gravity is some sort of conspiracy theory. More often than not we drop some.
“Try harder!” tends to be the call from the sidelines, but in reality we’re better doing just the opposite – try softer. 07
There’s a lot to gain from this approach as a leader. But it’s not just in the way that you approach the team that you lead. It’s also just as relevant in the way that you lead yourself.
So next time you’ve got many balls in the air, try to do it softly. You’ll find it makes a huge difference.
Steve