To Strengthen Your Team, Admit Your Weakness - Lessons From a Pirate Ship
I once was an understudy for the lead character in a stunt show, set on a pirate ship (with a moat around the stage and everything). My character sang, engaged in sword fights and swung on ropes.
There was one particular stunt, in the middle of our opening song, where I had just finished a verse while standing on a six-inch wide balance-beam-like boom, I then swung out over our moat (as well as a portion of the audience) swung back in and was expected to make a clean landing back on that same six-inch wide boom, in time to start the next verse.
This is never how it happened for me. As an understudy, I didn’t have the chance to practice this stunt often enough to get the muscle memory and coordination down. Every time I swung out, it was with hesitation and fear. Luckily, a few of my fellow cast-mates were always in the general vicinity to help me regain my balance, but I felt like a failure and beat myself up about flubbing the landing. It just didn’t look good, for me or my character, who was supposed to be strong, confident and fearless.
One day, I decided to accept the fact that sticking that landing would never be my strength, but I did have other resources that could help me make it a successful stunt, my cast-mates! That day, I found the guys who were normally near me at that moment and said, “I’m just going to need you to catch me.” And you know what happened? We all had more fun! I got to swing out, over the audience with wild abandon (as my fearless character would), knowing that there were three guys ready to catch me and place me nicely on the boom. At the same time, they got to play into their He-man pirate characters even more!
When we realize and share our own weakness’, we create space for others to step in and play to their strengths and creativity and here’s what happens:
We build trust along the way, because we give in to the fact that none of us can do it all on our own.
We allow ourselves to rely on one another, valuing the diverse skills and expertise that everyone brings to the table.
We all get to lean in to what we’re good at and in the process, we make each other look good AND have a great time!
Where are you experiencing frustration? Is there someone who might be able or even THRILLED to help?