The Report Card of Encouragement

Several days ago, our six-year-old daughter brought home her most recent Report Card.

The 'Academic Subjects' include Math, Science, Social Studies, Language Composition, Reading, and Spelling.

The 'Fine Arts & Specials' include Art, Music, Spanish, and Physical Education.

And then there are a dozen or so 'Life Skills' that include things like 'Accepts Responsibility, Demonstrates Organization, Exhibits a Positive Attitude,' and so forth.

She brought it home as she always does, given she is in First Grade... with beaming hope and curiosity, not knowing what it means or how she did.  Ah, the innocence of youth.  Soon enough, the world will clamp down upon her, and Report Cards will become more than they ever should be; they will become perversely internalized -- as they are by too many -- as a measure of one's own worth.  I did that; perhaps you did too.  Get straight A's, and all is right with the world.  Get a C, and the end is near.

So there we stand, all three of us in the kitchen.  My daughter has placed the Report Card on the kitchen table, that her mother and I will review and interpret it.  And so we do.

My eyes scan the categories.  Making sense of them, I then scan down the columns, quickly taking in the grades.  97, 98, 99, 96, 97, 99, 97...

Fixating first (and solely) on the 96, I say into the face of my beaming daughter, "96.  Talk to me about 'Language Composition.'  What's going on there?"

And so we talk for a few minutes about this lowest grade.

After a few minutes, my wife elbows me in the ribs.  Clearing her throat, she looks at Lauren and exuberates, "Wow, you're doing really great.  You must be enjoying yourself; just look at all these awesome scores!"

See the difference?  (Just recounting it makes me feel so ashamed of myself.)

I, like most people, fixated immediately on the 'lowest marks' and the 'perceived failures,' working immediately to understand them, in hopes that they might be improved or repaired.  (As if a 96 in First Grade is anything worrisome.)

My wife, however, focused on the exemplarity of Lauren's scores, affirming and encouraging her.  (One can see so readily how the slippery slope of well-meaning but poorly executed 'parental Report Card reviews' begins.  Left to my own devices, I'm sure that by the 3rd grade, Lauren would twitch as she approached me... sheepishly handing me her Report Card with her eyes cast downward!)

Realizing my own error, I quickly caught on and joined my wife's tact and together we worked with Lauren to understand ALL of her Report Card.  By the end, she was indeed where any parent would like for his or her child to be: affirmed, encouraged, educated, and aware of the opportunities and strengths and prepared to address and extend them all.

The clarion irony is The Lesson Was On Me.

On a regular basis, I am teaching the lesson that my wife had to demonstrate for me; the very same lesson that Marcus Buckingham and countless others have written about.  From Selective Perception, Broken Windows Theory, and the Boiled Frog Phenomenon to the Pygmalion Effect, Target Fixation, and Chevreul's Pendulum... we see again and again the relationship between Vision, the Mind, and Behavior.  We know that we are to acknowledge and address shortcomings, but more importantly, that we should focus upon and extend strengths with great fervor, as these are indeed Talents that should not go unexploited.

Over the years, having supervised dozens of trainers, teachers, and consultants, I have seen all of them periodically deflated or devastated by 'course' or 'project evaluations' that were not 100% positive.  It's amazing (though totally understandable) to see a forty-year-old professional, adept to a zenith of near flawlessness, emotionally decimated by a handful of poor or low 'scores' received out of hundreds. 

Specifically, there is one course in particular which comes to mind that five of us team-teach twice annually.  This class generally has around 150 participants.  By way of a representative example, I recall the Friday evaluations after a long week of instruction a few years ago.  One of my colleagues received a '5' (perfect score) from 138 participants.  A handful of the remaining scores were 4's, and there was one 2 and one 1. 

That's amazing.  92% of the participants perceived this instructor as Excellent... essentially without demerit.  7% perceived him as Above Average.  Approximately 1% of the participants were critical.

In short, the instructor blew the socks off nearly everyone.  A few important outliers disagreed, yes, but that's it.

In my book, that's irrefutable success, because to my way of thinking, when an instructor gets perfect 5's across the board, he or she is not taking enough risks.  Not challenging the students.  Not questioning them, pushing back, calling them on the carpet.  Not probing their paradigms or pushing for change.  Generally, he or she is 'entertraining...' performing a well-rehearsed routine or shtick, playing for some broad laughs along the way, but not really consulting.  I've seen it far too often.  A student provides an anemic answer (however well-intentioned it may be), and the instructor congratulates him rather than converting it into a teachable moment. 

Or a facilitator refuses to deviate from the pre-printed lesson plan, thereby missing the real-time moments to address immediate and expressed needs.  Any material exists only to serve us, not the other way around.  The most powerful sessions I've ever attended were often those during which the facilitator took a risk and said, "Tell you what.  I'm observing all sorts of issues that our planned agenda won't address.  Out the window it goes; let's get real with each other and start over.  Where shall we begin?"  This responsiveness differentiates professionals from amateurs, so don't be hard on yourself when improvising; it's the hallmark of a good teacher. 

When entertraining, the entire potential of a given course is essentially betrayed by the pursuit for comfort, likability, popularity, fun, appeasement, and accommodation.  (Limited learning occurs, but the instructor sure was cool!)  And when sticking so closely to a training script as to not deviate when necessary, a teacher misses untold extemporaneous opportunities to meet students where they are.  ("I didn't resolve any pressing needs, but at least I covered all my slides and the pages in the binder.  Yea me!")   

Mark Twain wrote, "If we both agree, one of us is unnecessary."

Differences of opinion are the starting point of knowledge, and it is through the expression of varying perceptions that we grow and learn from one another.

The key, as my wife gently prodded me while reviewing the Report Card, is to retain perspective.  To see beyond the outliers or perceived deficiencies to the massive trend of successes and strengths.

My conscientious instructor, the one who received poor feedback from 1% of our participants, called me on Saturday after our long flight home.  I was exhausted and recuperating, and his voice sounded thin and tired like mine.  "I've been thinking," he began.  "Do you think I'm really cut out to do this?  I feel that I failed you.  The team.  The client, even."

"Oh, my.  No, no, no, no," I responded.  "Listen, it may take you several days and one unicorn success to put this behind you.  I understand; I've been there, too.  Anyone who tries has.  The short answer is: 92% success is not failure.  I'm proud of you; you were superb.  You invested the hours to prepare, you had your A-game on, and just because a few people didn't fall in love with you does not approximate, in any conscionable way, a failure."

We spoke for quite a while.  It took some time to talk him off the ledge he had wandered upon.  It wasn't until he had succeeded 'wildly and on his own terms' some days later that he regained his confidence.

Participants, managers, employees, spouses... individuals of all sorts and stripes can be very critical and judgmental.  They are not to be faulted, as it's human nature to judge others.  We come by it quite naturally, though that does not make it right. 

Sit 100 people down in front of a flipchart pad with a small blue dot on it, and what will 99 people say they see?  "A blue dot."

How many will say, "I see a whole lot of white space, and a blue dot."  About 1 in 100.  (Try it; you'll see.)

One of our responsibilities as leaders is to demonstrate grace, understanding, and humility.  We are all flawed, horrifically so.  And we all rely mutually on one another to succeed.  Today's economic environment is difficult enough; employees don't need another knife in their back.  Learn from my mistakes and be better -- be a constructive conduit, not a critic.  Give people the benefit of the doubt, and realize that the appropriate and logical slack you cut another for his or her human-ness is the slack you'll desire for yourself one day.

My final encouragement to you is to realize the vast capacity and successes of yourself and those around you; to acknowledge the A's (and affirm them) and keep the C's in perspective.  Don't let your shortcomings consume your magnificence.

If any of us is expected to achieve 100% perfection, I can guarantee a life of misery and unslakeable thirst that contorts one's existence into a twist of perpetual disappointment like the ouroboros... the snake always consuming its own tail.

Be lifted, as I have been by those who love, coach, and care for me along the way.  Work to improve your shortcomings, as we all must, but take great joy in your talents, gifts, and successes.  Life is rife with joy-robbers and critics, but as Teddy Roosevelt reminded us:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."