I often struggle for ideas that make a good post. Some ideas incubate for months before I find the right words to express them. But sometimes, a post springs to mind almost fully developed. This post came from a discussion with a teaching coach and less than a week later from a church sermon.
THE COACH
I am a member of Vistage, an organization that brings together business owners who spend one day a month discussing mutual problems. The chairperson’s job is to inspire and keep us on track. I am not a typical member – at 85, my age is about twice the median age of the group. I joined when my business career was well behind me. The coach asked, "What are you doing here?" I just wanted to learn and stay connected in retirement. And the coach has helped me do that.
Coach is Matt Doherty. He has had a lifetime career in college and professional basketball. If you don’t know the name, as Casey Stengel said, “You can look him up.”)
He often teaches with examples from basketball. I asked him, “What sets apart the great players like Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and now Caitlin Clark. Matt’s answer- Situational Awareness. He explains: many basketball players can only focus on the person guarding them. They do not see the whole court. The best players see the entire court in the moment and conceptualize what it will look like a few seconds later as nine other people move around the floor. That’s how the greatest can make spectacular “no look” passes to their teammates, so that the five of them are far more effective than a single star.
I realized that Matt was describing what was wrong with my game, some 70 years ago – minimal Situational Awareness. And I never improved, because I never had a coach like Matt and maybe because I had little natural talent.
I now understand how a lack of Situational Awareness has handicapped much of my decision making. In basketball this was no big loss, but not applying it more broadly has been costly.
THE MINISTER
A few days later, a minister at church, Reverend Lisa Hickman, gave a sermon on how one can grow in his Christian life. She used an acronym, “SHELL.” a 5-step process.
· See – We wander through life without taking time to see what surrounds us. So many lessons can come from just observing and making mental notes about the actions of others. We retain 10% of what we read and 30% of what we see.
· Hear – We often think we are paying attention, but we retain only 20% of what we hear.
· Experience – We can gather knowledge by seeing and hearing, but we grow wiser by repeating or writing down our observations. We retain 70% of what we say or write and 90% of what we do. The Oklahoma cowboy humorist Will Rogers said, “A few people can learn by watching, hearing, or reading, but most people just have to touch an electric fence themselves.”
· Learn – It takes a combination of seeing, hearing, writing, and doing to build a storehouse of knowledge that we then use to lead a better life.
· Live – Applying what we have learned is the final, critical step. Knowledge without positive action is useless. As we become more attune to our surroundings, we will make far better decisions.
The SHELL steps can provide Situational Awareness and help us have a better life. Applying these simple rules is not easy, but it is rewarding. The goal is to live what we learn along the way, and make better decisions in business, society, and personal relationships. Few of us will ever be a Michael Jordan or a Caitlin Clark on a basketball court. But we can still strive to be stars who are Situationally Aware in our daily lives.
In a later post, I will share how my own Situational Awareness developed much too late, and what that cost me in my professional and personal relationships.
Thanks, Gene, for a thoughtful - and helpful - post.