EGO Loses the Game
Week 2 of the NFL season is over after tonight’s Monday night game. And what a week it’s been! A business lesson jumps out at me. It’s called DO YOUR JOB! It’s a recurring mantra among football coaches, as well as among corporate CEOs, presidents of volunteer boards, and soccer moms in charge of assigning rotating “snack moms.” So why is it so hard to just DO the task you are quite able to do and that you are assigned? Aaahhhhh, the age-old question . . .the reason we “training-HR-types” still have our jobs, and will never run out of people who just don’t get it.
I contend it’s our individual EGO that gets in the way. More subtle in the workplace, it’s obvious for all to witness on the football field. Case in point: You know what a fan I am of Robert Griffin III, Heisman Tropy winner and rookie Quarterback of the Washington Redskins. This is the guy who motivates his teammates with not only “Do your job,” but he urges them to “KNOW YOUR WHY.” He is instinctively tapping into today’s hottest marketing and sales concept: to know WHY you do what you do, what the passion is about that drives you to do what you do, sell what you sell. This guy is tuned in! He led his team last week in his first professional NFL game to beat Drew Brees of the celebrated Saints in their own house in the New Orleans Superdome, one of the loudest home stadiums in the NFL!
And, yesterday, in week 2, it looked for all the world, he was going to do it again, beating the St. Louis Rams. But someone’s EGO got in the way. At a critical time at the end of the game, when his Redskins were trailing by 3 points, Redskin player Josh Morgan retaliated against an opponent who was baiting him to retaliate! The opponent, Cortland Finnegan has a reputation for being a little s___; many players have learned this the hard way. Remember, in my book, I pointed out that penalties in football are called on the player who retaliates—90% of the time! So don’t fall for it! When Finnegan slapped Morgan, Morgan threw the ball AT Finnegan! What a knucklehead move! Morgan was called for “unsportsmanlike conduct;” his team had to MOVE BACK 15 yards away from an almost sure-fire field goal, to TIE THE GAME, and yep. You guessed it. They missed the field goal; game over; ego triumphs over sense—again. And my RGIII loses the game. I was not happy.
My definition of maturity, which I tell managers in my classes and speeches, and which I have been preaching for years, is the ability to put off immediate gratification for a long-term result. So, even if throwing a football at someone may feel good for a moment, look what happened . “Do your job” means do what is required, and that is, act like a professional, and not a 6-year old at recess. I know: I have monitored 6-year olds at recess, and that’s the kind of thing they do, and that’s how you break a fingernail, and decide you have to teach adults . . . so THINK before you act—you have to, because your ego doesn’t want to.