On taking the path of greater resistance in your teams
A golf swing is a pretty unnatural movement - even when done by the professionals. It has a lot of twisting and forces going in different directions around joints. Sitting, on the other hand, is a pretty natural process that takes almost no effort, thought or energy. I shared late last year that I had a bout of Old Man Back. It's back with a vengeance in 2020 - with a twist (not quite literally). It seems to be triggered by sitting. Counterintuitively, swinging a golf club and walking a course is better for my back than sitting down at my desk.
This brings me to the crux of my point this week. Typically with an injury, our instinct is to protect the area, to avoid any unnecessary movement and rest up as much as possible. In the case of my current back complaint, the single worst thing that I can do for my back is to sit down. There are implications here for our teams.
So often, the path of least resistance and our old habits are short term comfort leading to long term pain. As I read recently from an unknown source, "when we avoid difficult conversations, we trade short term discomfort for long term dysfunction". In so many teams, this extends beyond difficult conversations and into other aspects of their performance like changing the way that they meet, improving ways of sharing information and building the capability in team members (rather than taking the quick fix and doing it ourselves.)
Some questions for you to consider in your teams:
In what ways are your team's current patterns serving you?
In what ways are your team's current patterns likely to lead to longer term pain?
How can you make it easier to take different actions? I'll share my thoughts on this next week.