The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr

Author:Jim Loehr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Free Press

His obvious skill as a player won him instant respect, but it was his nurturing style that eventually won the hearts of the kids on the team. Gary was sixteen when his own father died, and his high school basketball coach’s steadfast encouragement and support, even when Gary’s play fell off dramatically, had been deeply meaningful to him. The kids he was now coaching had even more harrowing stories to tell—of being abandoned, beaten, abused—and Gary saw a way to use basketball to build both their self-confidence and their connections with each other.

It didn’t happen quickly. Gary spent the first several weeks of practice breaking up fights and trying with limited success to get the kids to keep their attention on practice. The team lost its first three games, and Gary had to throw one of the most talented players off the team after he physically assaulted a teammate. But Gary’s patience and persistence eventually bore fruit. The team began to win its share of games, but even more than that, they began to genuinely work together as a team. For Gary, the rewards were immense. He loved coaching and he loved the kids. The exhilaration he felt spilled over into the rest of his life. For the first time in years, he felt alive and connected.

Three months after he first visited us—a month into his coaching—it dawned on Gary that there was an obvious parallel opportunity at work: serving as a mentor to the younger people who worked for him. The company had never rewarded nor given much priority to this role—or to leadership generally—but to Gary the analogies to coaching suddenly seemed obvious. Here was another chance to make a real difference. He launched a ritual around spending time away from work with the young traders in his department. His interest was not so much in improving their technical skills as it was in helping them to manage their careers and sort out their priorities, both at work and in the rest of their lives.

This proved especially significant as the stock market began to melt down. Gary’s steadiness in the face of the downturn and his refusal to panic proved to be invaluable to many of his traders. He spent many breakfasts and lunches simply listening to them. In addition to offering counsel on how to navigate a difficult environment—and serving as a role model—he helped them to see that their self-worth didn’t have to rise and fall with the market. Several of them even followed his lead and volunteered at different social service organizations. One actually became his assistant coach.

Demanding as it was to take time for his traders amid the pressures of a difficult market, Gary found it both rewarding and energizing. For the first time in two years, he started to look forward to coming to work, and to feel a sense of mission. The rewards that he derived from his mentoring—both at work and with his basketball team—gave him back far more energy than he expended.

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