Coaching in Analogies #12: Grass on your boots

You’ve been cutting lawns since you were in high school and needed gas money. There’s something you just love about the fresh air and the smell of freshly cut grass on your boots. One day, you look down and realize you haven’t actually worn boots in years. Your dress shoes have not a single blade, not a hint of green on them.

You are the successful owner of a chain of landscaping businesses. You’re responsible for personnel, equipment, real estate, all manner of things that are necessary for serving customers who want tidy lawns. But you don’t cut the grass and you haven’t in the longest time. Instead, you lead a team of people who lead teams of people who cut the grass.

The impact of your work is exponentially larger than it was. Your company manages hundreds of landscaping contracts -- literally acres upon acres more mowing than you’d be able to do yourself with a single machine. Still, you miss that smell more than a little.

I have coached many leaders who yearn for the past days of cutting the grass themselves. It might have been easier to leave work behind at the end of the day. The doing was simpler, easier to quantify than the being, directing and enabling an executive-level position requires. 

Sometimes they wish they could cut grass again. And sometimes they actually do so, either intentionally or unintentionally. The trick is to find meaning and fulfillment in that expanded impact, and to grow comfortable with one’s own value being expressed through the work of others.

Coaching prompts:

• Are you taking on a task, an assignment or a role because it’s the best expression of your abilities and perspective? Or are you doing it because it’s comfortable and familiar?

• How might you expand your impact by further enabling your team to do its work? 

(Hat tip to the incomparable coach and author Scott Eblin for originating this analogy and giving me permission to use it.)