Too Much Pressure Hurts The Business Leader

I recall a time when my sportsmanship was lacking.  I was filled with unwanted pressure.  It was the kind of pressure that can sneak up on a leader and destroy the ability to attract winning ways.  It was the kind of pressure that can interfere with the smooth flow of harmony.  It was the kind of pressure that can irritate the results that a business leader prefers to produce.  Too much pressure hurts the business leader.

I spent my youth playing baseball.  Baseball was my life.  I slept with my bat and glove.  I played baseball every waking moment of almost every single day.  I skipped summer family outings and small camping trips to play baseball in my youth.  My family had a boathouse and a boat on the river.  I never visited it much because I was busy playing baseball.  They had 'boat house neighbors' I did not know that spent a lot of time at the river with my family.  I remember going to the boathouse a few times here and there to go visit my family.  They had this ongoing conversation in the relationship with their 'boat house neighbors' that I did not understand.  It was not like any other relationship my family had with their other friends.  I would see a completely different side of personalities my family had with these people.  It was strange.  They all seemed to have fun with it.  It was like walking into a different world with my family.  I would always go back to my baseball world after a short visit once in a while at the boathouse.

My baseball life was the center of my world.  After three years of Division I College Baseball, I decided to hang up the cleats.  I put an end to my baseball career.  Once I decided to end my baseball interests, I moved onto some other segments that captured my attention.  I needed to focus on school and my business career.  Even so, baseball always remained as a small part of my heart and passion.  I still follow the college team where I once played.  They have won the College World Series two times.  They are an excellent program still to this day.  The kids they attract now play a whole lot better than we did many years ago.  Baseball dominated my younger years.

When my work life took over my time and interests I drifted away from playing baseball in those recreational city leagues with old college and high school friends.  Eventually I quit playing any baseball at all.  I even stopped watching local high school teams play.  At one time, I enjoyed watching the young kids play.  I became too involved with my business career to spend any time following baseball activities.  I had enough trouble finding time to spend with my young family and the business model I was trying to build.  Those responsibilities had a way of dominating my waking hours.

I recall one local high school baseball club that was made up of some average kids with a great coach.  Their coach was once one of my baseball local idols.  He was a few years older than I was and he played baseball with a furious attitude.  When I was young and growing up he was one of my favorite local baseball idols.  Years later, he became a great local baseball coach.  His teams were always competitive.  Some of them have won state titles.  He coaches with the same kind of intensity he used to play with.  One year he had a bunch of average kids.  He helped to teach those kids how to make the most of their average talent.  This group of kids became a short term group of local favorites.  They had bumped their way through a rough season enough to qualify for the state playoffs.  I had learned how they had made every lucky bounce go their way.  They were the talk of the town.

They reached the semi-final round of play and were scheduled to meet the best team in the State.  It was a scheduled game that would have the local kids travel to the city where the best team would host the next game.  It was rained out.  They moved the game to the small town where we lived in order to keep the playoff schedules moving on time.  I had heard about this change in location for the game.  It was big news around town.

On the day of that game, they moved the schedule to our little town.  The big city folks would be coming here to watch their favorite stars play our little guys on our local turf.  In a moment of excitement, I decided to go watch this one game.  I had not gone to a local baseball game in many years.  I had heard a few really good things about this young local group of kids who had average talent yet they played with great efficiency and heart.  I had heard many nice stories about how well they had been doing at the end of this year.  They had become local celebrities for winning big as they carried the underdog role well.  Due to some very bad weather in the other city, this powerhouse team from the city was coming to our little town to play the next game on their playoff schedule.  I decided to go watch that game.

I dropped everything I was doing and headed to the baseball park.  I discovered I was not alone.  It was apparent the rest of our little town had the same idea.  I was late.  The seating was full.  The parking lot was jammed and the nearby neighborhoods were filled with the overflow of cars.  This was a big thing.  The only place I found open in the stands to sit was a place on the oppositions side.  I decided to sit right smack dab in the middle of the other teams group.  It was the only seating left open.

The state favorite was throwing their best pitcher.  He was the subject of great attention.  He had not lost a game in three years.  He was pitching his last season and would be going to a professional baseball club after school because he was drafted by a professional baseball team.  He had totally mystified our young kids in the first four innings he pitched.  Nobody could touch him.  The crowd of visitors I was planted next to were kind of rude and arrogant about how our little boys were playing.  Baseball parents can be some of the rudest people you will ever meet.  If you doubt that truth, go watch a little league game.  Those same rude parents grow up with their kids and seem never to change their ugly comments and ugly ways.  I am sitting quietly in the middle of a few of them.

I was wishing for a small miracle.  I so badly wanted our little kids to get a rally going so I could get even with some of those rude comments this group of parents were dishing out about how badly they were snubbing our little team.  The score was 4-0.  It was the beginning of the fifth inning.  We were at bat.  We had not had a single base ruunner yet and their star pitcher was looking very strong.  Our pitcher was barely hanging on.  At times it looked like they were getting ready to uncork a few long balls anytime now.  The picture did not look good.  The fans I was sharing seats with were not becoming more friendlier.  They did not know I was a local fan, however.  That saved me from getting thrown out, I am sure.

When their team took the field in the fifth inning I decided it was time to do some special work to help our team out.  In high school, the games were only scheduled to go seven innings.  We had the fifth, sixth and seventh innings remaining to do something good.  The possibility looked slim.  I was not fond of what I was hearing from the parents of the other team.  I knew one thing for sure.  All of the kids on the field were only young kids.  They were not mature men.  They were youth with personal images that had not become fully developed yet.  I knew this was true.  I decided it was time to test the image of their pitcher.  I had heard enough of the rude comments from the parents I shared bleachers with in the section where I was sitting.  It was time to make a move.

The very first pitch their star pitcher threw that was a ball, not a strike, I yelled, "Come on...throw strikes!"

I shocked the crowd of folks I was sitting with.  They did not know what to think of my loud comment.  It stood out well since nothing particularly outstanding was happening at that moment.  The next time their star pitcher threw another ball, not a strike, I yelled it again, "Come on...throw strikes!"  It was very unusual.  Some parents turned around to check me out.  They all looked puzzled.  Nobody said anything to me.  I sat still and calmly.  The next ball he threw I yelled, "Throw strikes!  They can't touch you...throw strikes!"  I noticed the pitcher looked up towards my direction of the stands with a puzzled look.  Some more parents turned around to look at me.  I saw a few of the parents whispering with each other to try and figure out who I was.

The count on our batter was 3 and 2, it was a full count.  Before their pitcher threw the next ball I yelled, "Don't walk him!  Throw strikes!"  You could hear it echo throughout the stadium.  It even shocked me.

He threw another ball.  He walked the batter.  We had our first base runner.  The local crowd began to cheer.  When the cheering quieted down, I yelled again, "Throw strikes!"  This time I yelled it with some stronger emphasis.  The young pitcher turned and faced the crowd in my direction.  He seemed to be squinting to see if he could find who was yelling at like this him from his home town crowd.  He looked puzzled.  i knew i had his attention.  It was very evident to everyone else, too.  Someone yelled, "Don't pay attention to him.  Pitch like you know how to pitch."  I smiled a little bit.  It was working.  My plan to take his mind off the game he was pitching might give us an edge since he would not be concentrating on his pitching control.  A small war of words began floating about in the stands where I was sitting.  It was only one single walk that caused the restlessness to begin.  It was faster than I had expected.

Before he threw the first pitch to the next batter, I yelled, "Throw strikes!"  You could hear it everywhere.  It was obvious that the pitcher and I were involved in a new level of communication.  He looked seriously upset.  He threw a mean fastball for a strike.  He threw another one with some seriously mean attitude.  It was a strike, also.  I yelled, "Thats' it, get mad and throw strikes!"  He immediately looked up at my direction and was shaking his head from side to side.  He threw a ball.  I yelled, "What was that?"  The fans in my section were beginning to heat up a little bit.  I could tell.  The pitcher tried to ignore what he was feeling.  It was evident.  He threw another ball and when he did you could tell by his body language he did not want to hear another comment about throwing strikes.  So I yelled, "That's it, walk 'em all!"

Some parents turned around and asked me to shut up.  I sat still and ignored them.  Their coach called time out to go have a short chat with his pitcher.  I am sure he went out there to remind the young star that he was fine, just ignore the idiot in the stands.  As their coach walked out to chat with his pitcher I yelled, "Even your coach wants you to settle down!  Settle down, throw strikes!"  Even the locals seemed perplexed.  He walked the next two batters.  It is the truth.

The locals rallied to score two runs with two hits and four walks.  The fifth inning was a nightmare for everyone in the park.  Poor sportsmanship, mad coaches, ticked off parents, and a disturbed and interrupted star pitcher.  The game ended 4-3.  We lost.  They took out their star pitcher in the sixth inning because he walked the first two batters he faced.  The pressure was too much for him to handle.  I boldly left the stands in the sixth inning.

It took me several years to resolve how foolish I behaved.  It was such a poorly performed act of sportsmanship.  Too much pressure hurts the leaders.  This is true even if the leaders have a lot of talent.  Make sure you do not kill your talent.  Make sure you do not place too much pressure on your best leaders.  Make sure your business model does not become so pressurized that you cannot lead well.  If anyone believes that a human being is above failure when the pressure becomes so rich to endure, they are sadly mistaken.  Great talent will disappear in a heart beat when the pressure gets too much to take.  Relieve your model from this kind of pressure.  High levels of pressure will not produce the kind of favorable results you prefer to enjoy.  You might still win, but the cost will not be worth it.

One more thing, be a far better sport than I was on that day.  Proving a point with wrong tactics is not the best way to build a better team.  In fact, sooner or later, your team will become a nightmare to manage.  What's more, it will be your fault for those results.  I had to learn how to grow up.  Make sure your leadership follows the same path.  Grow up if you are leading your group incorrectly.  Your business model is waiting for you to become the best leader your character deserves to become.  Grow up if you need to grow up.  When we attend the first teacher conference with our kindergarten children we discover how little the chairs are in the classroom.  Those chairs are little for one reason.  They are little because they need to remind the parents that they must move on to bigger chairs.  Become a good leader and learn how to move on to bigger chairs.

Until next time...