Way to lead, Drewe!!

OK, let’s say Kirk & Gary are in break-down. Kirk failed to show up for a meeting with Gary– one that Gary agreed to at Kirk’s request. Gary had to arrange his life to be there, even driving up from San Diego to Orange County specifically to meet with Kirk. Gary’s other OC appointments (which made meeting with Kirk relatively easy) for that day had cancelled. Gary, waiting at the restaurant for almost an hour, is chapped. Finally he’s able to reach Kirk on his cell phone…
K- Hi this it Kirk, can I help you?
G- Uh, this is Gary. I’m here at Cheesecake Factory for our meeting…
K- Oh… (sheepishly) you’ve got to be kidding! Gary, I totally and completely blew it! Gary, I am SO sorry! How long have you been waiting?
G- An hour and 15 minutes, Kirk.
K- Oh shoot! I have us down for next month, on the 10th, at 11:30am.
G- No, no. It’s definitely today: March 10th. … Look, Kirk, I don’t think we’re right for each other. I’ve been giving this some thought. I just doesn’t make sense for me to hire a coach this far away. And, I don’t think you really “get” my denomination’s culture…
K- Yikes! Holy cow, Gary… Let’s step through this one bit at a time. Would that…
G- No. Look, I’ve wasted 3 hours already and have a 90-minute drive ahead of me… and I haven’t eaten anything…
K- Gary, please would you forgive me… for not caring enough about you to have confirmed our appointment, please?
G- Wha…
K- If I value your time and your friendship as much as I say I do, I would’ve sent you a confirming email…
G- No, you have us down for April. It makes no sense for you to email me a month out…
K- Well, yeah, I get that, and what I could have done was to send you an email confirming our lunch just as soon as you and I booked it. I have a friend whose secretary does this every time he and I schedule something. Gary, there’s no reason for me not to have done that…
G- Hey look, I could have confirmed with you before I drove all the way up here…
K- Oh, geez. I thought you had a bunch of other stuff up here today… which doesn’t make me missing my commitment with you any different.
G- Yeah, well each of them got called to St. Louis… they let me know over a week ago.
K- So you drove all the way up here for this meeting with me today??
G- Ah, yup.
K- Oh, man. I am sick about this. You mean so much more to me than my actions today indicate, Gary. … and you’ve been waitting there… trying to reach me on my cell. I’ve been tied up on a conference call since 10:30 this morning…
G- Look, Kirk. Anyone can make a mistake. Hey, I may have put it down wrong…
K- No, I’m pretty sure it was March, ’cause we wanted to meet before Easter… Look at this! April 10th is a SATURDAY! I know you love me, but there’s no way we’d do this thing on the weekend…
G- Well look, I also could have confirmed… I even thought about it last night. My wife even said to me: “before you drive all the way up there, don’t you think you should double-check with Kirk?”
K- Whoa, you’re kidding…
G- The thing is, she’s always double-checking everything and it kinda drives me nuts. Actually, my regular practice would’ve been to fire off an email to you last night… but after her suggestion, I guess I decided “to heck with it”… I figured I’d show her how ludicrous it is to check and double-check every thing, as if everyone else is incompetent…
K- Well, in this case, for sure I am! … and it probably would have served us both…
G- Hmmm. I wonder where else I do this…
K- Do what, Gary?
G- You know, interrupt what I know to do, just to be right about something… to make a point.
K- Like, with your wife only, or other people, too?
G- Well, I maybe… probably do it most with her, but I do do it with other people too.
K- Man, that’s AWESOME!! What else do you see??
G- Huh?
K- You’re doing some really, really good work here, Gary. How amazing that God would bring something good out of my blunder.
G- Whaddya mean?
K- Well, for me, I see that to value people the way I say I do, it would be appropriate to send a confirming email whenever I book a meeting… and for you, you’ve discovered that in order to be “right”, or prove someone else “wrong”, you sometimes undermine your own effectiveness. Right??
G- Yeah. That’s a lot to think about…
K- Hey, I just pulled into the parking garage at the Spectrum. OK if we have that lunch after all?
G- It would if I was still there… I’m passing San Clemente now…
K- How ’bout we meet in San Diego next time? What’s the week after next look like…

Gary, let me know if this helps at all. In this case, “Kirk” owned his contribution and, in so doing, made an opening for Gary to explore his. While it’s hypothetical, my bet is the friendship, and maybe even the coaching relationship, was preserved.
-Kirk

As a Leader I had a situation in the past where two guys on the team were ‘in conflict’ – they literally wouldn’t talk to each other unless they had no other choice. Both of these guys were in their early 50′s and had known each other for a long time – even been very good friends at some point.

After about 2 months of ‘counselling’ and trying to make things work – to no avail – we got to a point they were either both going to leave the company (I was going to let them go) or we would solve this thing. In this case, I was able to rely on the fact they had once been good friends, so there was some level of care and association.

So, we went into a room, shut the door, set some ground rules (anything that is said in here will never leave here) – explained that it was time to open the books and let them roll. Took us over 2 hours of both saying ‘well you do this’ and ‘you do that’ and ‘wow, I didn’t realize’. Tears, frustration, anger, all was there, but the problem was solved in the end.

Yes, it took a few more months to get right back on track, but the ‘sharing session’ set the groundwork for the relationship to grow again, and them to work as a team again.

They weren’t able to do this on their own – they needed a leader to come in and help them through the process. In the end though they were able to learn more about each other, understand more about each other, and move on in their relationship – both personally and professionally.

Drewe

As time allows I will be reading the other sections of this series. Thanks for taking the lead.