Leadership lessons from Beethoven and Bolt
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During lockdown our family invested in a MasterClass subscription. We’ve learnt about gardening, space travel and game design. It’s been a real treat watching world class pros wax eloquent about their craft.
We started Brandon McMillan’s dog training course recently. He hosts the Emmy-winning TV series "Lucky Dog". He’s covered the sit, stay, down and come commands so far.
Already my mind has been blown watching him develop trust and control with his dogs. But the show is about more than dog training for me. It’s gotten me thinking about work life, leadership and the essence of being professional.
If dogs can be trained, and they can, then why do we accept mediocre standards of professionalism from ourselves? If Beethoven and Bolt can learn to stay, why can’t Bob and Betty adopt best practices and stay the course?
The answer is that of course they can. Indeed, we all can. But Lassie was not born fully trained. Behind every exemplary doggo there is a committed trainer and coach. A leader if you will.
Back to us... We need coaches, team leads, delivery owners, tech leads and principle engineers. Not for the sake of hierarchy but to teach us new tricks. They build teams greater than the sum of their parts and help us become more than we ever imagined.
Already my mind has been blown watching him develop trust and control with his dogs. But the show is about more than dog training for me. It’s gotten me thinking about work life, leadership and the essence of being professional.
If dogs can be trained, and they can, then why do we accept mediocre standards of professionalism from ourselves? If Beethoven and Bolt can learn to stay, why can’t Bob and Betty adopt best practices and stay the course?
The answer is that of course they can. Indeed, we all can. But Lassie was not born fully trained. Behind every exemplary doggo there is a committed trainer and coach. A leader if you will.
Back to us... We need coaches, team leads, delivery owners, tech leads and principle engineers. Not for the sake of hierarchy but to teach us new tricks. They build teams greater than the sum of their parts and help us become more than we ever imagined.