Surrender to the Model

Experienced in the coaching profession, I was in a coaches’ certification program and getting bad grades from my supervisors. I saw myself as a crackerjack coach, and resented the “just okay” assessments.

“You need to surrender to the model, Rose,” a supervisor said. “You may be a great coach. We don’t assess you on that, but on how skillfully you’re using OUR model. . .and you’re not.”

The same goes for you. You got here because you’re tough, independent, and results-oriented; bulling through is usually a workable strategy for you. It is not your nature to surrender to anything. You like when it’s “my way or the highway.” But sometimes you’re there as part of a bigger whole, and bigger dogs than you are barking about what’s to be done (you can see the fangs, too). Somebody bigger than you said, “You all have to make this work,” You came as a champion of your organization, but other champions similarly fighting to do what seems right to them are just as loud as you.

Sometimes you just have to surrender to the model. Do it with grace, and you just might win the day when toughness wouldn’t. You may have to swallow anger at analysts or say the sound-bite without flushing with anger at the reporter who doesn’t have a clue about your business and didn’t bother to research the issue. You can get into trouble when collaboration, cooperation, and compromise are the order of the day, and you’re behaving like a bijon frise yapping at all the ankles entering the room and tempting the “accidental” kick.

I learned this at one of my first corporate-wide meetings and sat next to an experienced plant manager. The presenter, Mr. Big, was speaking English, but I couldn’t see the problem or the decision that needed to be made. “What are we supposed to do here?” I whispered to my table-mate. “We’re supposed to say, ‘What an excellent program you’ve designed, Mr. Big!’” my colleague replied. It was our job, not to critique or approve the project, but to surrender to his model. It wouldn’t be the last time I would growl about such a colossal waste of people’s time and energy, but that’s the way it was, and still is.

You can probably find plenty of examples of how your knowing-better, impatience, and bullheadedness saved the day. There are also times where these fine qualities stymied the project, slowed progress, derailed fruitful discussion because you wouldn’t pay attention to what was going on around and above you, or look for the opportunity beyond the easy pot-shots you could take at the puffed-up suits. You surely cut yourself off from learning, from finding the clever way, from the relationships you nicked in your rush to be you.

The nature of your job is political. Just acquiesce and go with the program from time to time. Surrendering to the model can move you in the direction you would like to go.