‘Wow, that looks easy’ I said to myself as I watched for the first time ever, the now $8 million dollar rider Shawn Flarida running a pattern on his horse.
The year was 2009, I’d just started to get in to Reining (IYKYK) with my horse, and was told to watch this specific video to see how it was done.
Shawn guided that horse all over the arena with effortless precision; he and his horse were the perfect team, it was a pleasure to watch all the manoeuvres executed so well.
But it looked easy!
Thinking I could go out there and repeat that as effortlessly as it had seemed to me, is something I am still chasing 25 years later… a lesson I have learned humbly and one that I recognised in my day job, is something a lot of us experience in many walks of our lives through cognitive bias. Think you can sing? Oh yeah! Until the place empties. Think you’re a good leader? Of course! Until you have no followers. Think you can ride a reining horse? Yes until you nearly run the judges over in the show pen (that one could be just me).
In leadership and management just as riding a reining horse, people may be able to articulate what they need to do, they often just can’t seem to do it.
In 2016 I was selected as a facilitator by a large financial HQ in Toronto, to develop a two-hour session for their senior leaders on Emotional Intelligence. They’d been trying to create a culture shift through behaviour alone and weren’t getting anywhere fast.
They recognised they needed to get deeper, into the emotions and values so we could connect what their often hidden drivers were and see if we could stimulate the self-awareness required in order to connect current outcomes to future career aspirations.
In the workshop there’s a part where I ask the groups – ‘What does emotionally intelligent behaviour look like in action?’
It’s never at all difficult for groups to come up with the same attributes, time after time. I still run this workshop today and still get the same responses, I must have asked thousands of people across the globe the same question.
But why then, are they able to say what it looks like but not do it?
I believe it comes down to three things:
1. Cognitive Bias – they think they are already doing it
2. Inertia – it takes effort to change a behaviour
3. They realise what they thought they wanted in a career is not what they actually wanted
Self-awareness is fundamental to making the connection between the outcomes you’re experiencing and connecting those to what you want, what you really really want (thanks Spice Girls).
Often people are barking up the wrong career ladder, they’ve been promoted because they were good at their previous job, but they haven’t realised yet they don’t particularly like the new job.
Then there’s behaviour change – which is very hard! Just ask all the gym owners in January how many new people signed up and how many are still there in February.
But, as the saying goes, if someone doesn’t want to learn you can’t make them, and if they do; you can’t stop them.
Anything done well looks easy – it’s supposed to. It’s aspirational; it’s comforting, you feel safe when your manager excels at their job. But getting to that place of making it look easy, can take a lot of dedication, practice, resolve – and you can get to be the best version of yourself if it’s what you really really want.
For me, I am still trying to improve my skills in the show pen, will I ever get like Shawn Flarida? Not a chance – but I can get as close as possible and be the best I can be – and that’s good enough for me because riding my horse is my passion not my career.
Managers and Leaders lives are more complex today than they once were; it takes someone who really really wants to do it to do it well – as is only fair to the people they lead and manage.
If you’re not sure, here’s how to make sure or make a different choice.
1. Cognitive Bias – you think you are already doing it. How do you know if that’s true? Ask for feedback and be open to hear the good, the bad, the ugly.
2. Inertia – it takes effort to change a behaviour. If in your feedback you heard things you don’t actually care about and it’s not important to you then you won’t change. If in the feedback you heard things that you really do want to change, consider getting coaching, or talk to a mentor and others who are doing it. Practice.
3. You realise what you thought you wanted in a career is not what you actually wanted. Only way to answer that is to be honest with yourself, no judgement, gain the clarity to make decisions about what you actually do want.
This is Shawn Flarida riding Wimpys Little Step to a win at the 2009 Futurity. This is the video where I thought how easy it looked. And it does – like everything done well by someone with great experience and great talent. But it is not easy. Not even a little!
And if you want to change a behaviour or know how to ask for and take in feedback, contact us at sharon@beabetteryou.ca
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