The hardest thing to learn is what you think you already know, right?
Pain is a faithful instructor…
I read some years ago that the product of a team and the product of individuals aren’t the same. I’ve come to believe / realize the truth in this. Here’s the story that drove it home like no other. It was 2005 and I’d just returned from an extreme missions training pilot course. My mind was being brought into the light of teamwork in ways I thought I already knew.
I’ll spare you the gore of the incident, but I came face to face with a deception in my own life. Since very young, I was thrust into leadership. Some of the thrusting was my own doing, some was that of others.
Because I’d been routinely in leadership, I mistook this (somehow) for knowing how to be a good teammate. It seems strange now, as the two clearly aren’t the same thing. What I knew was how to be in charge.
It took a little drama to wake me from my stupor.
After the drama of team clash and proof beyond doubt that I knew how to wrestle people into submission, in a way that reminded me of my broken and abusive predecessors, I saw a light.
Continue reading “Painful Realization”