Here at Ceoptions we have been using our signature pattern breakthrough process to create lasting change and help today’s leaders prepare for the inevitable challenges that come their way.
Question: How does a 13- year- old boy scoring points for his basketball team connect with his mother climbing the corporate ladder?
Here’s the story recently told to me by CEO facilitator and coach, Joanne LaMarca Mathisen.
“Our son had joined a basketball team in town that many local boys had been playing on for a couple of years. We noticed our son, who was no shrinking violet when he played with his close friends in our backyard, seemed to be a very passive player on his new team. Instead of shooting the ball, he’d most often pass it to another team member. The more we watched him play from the bleachers, the more we realized the confidence he had competing with his friends in our yard, didn’t translate to the court playing with new boys.”
“Initially, we did the typical parent thing, telling him he was as good as the rest of the team. It fell on deaf ears.”
“But then one night while watching him, it came to me. My son was exhibiting the same behavior patterns I grew up with. These patterns show up in the generations that follow us unless we identify and break them. Then I had an idea based on what I had learned as a leadership coach. I wanted him to see the larger picture about something as subtle and complex as what it means to have confidence. I grew up in a house where my dad was boss and what he said, went. What my sister and I had to say didn’t matter much. It “wasn’t my place” to speak up because in our house my father often joked “children should be seen and not heard.” It was no surprise I let others take charge and now so was my son.
So I sat my son down and told him my story. When I first began my career at NBC, I believed, because I was so new to the company, it “wasn’t my place” to speak up if I thought I had a good idea that would improve our product. I assumed everyone else who’d been with the company longer, knew better. That came from my upbringing. But when I went through my leadership training, I learned it was not only my place to speak up, it was also my job. That’s when I started to steadily rise up the ranks.
I continued to tell him that as I watched him on the court, I saw myself. Someone who was too timid to take charge. After all, the other boys had been on the team for years. And I told him just like it was not only my right to speak up, it was my responsibility, it was his right and responsibility to take charge on the court and shoot the ball. Just because he was the new guy, didn’t mean he had to take a back seat to the rest of the team. He owed it to the team to be the best he could be.
“He was really, really listening. Not the typical teen telling me to hurry with my story. I let him know that once I realized this was a family pattern and that I had the ability to breakthrough and move up the corporate ladder from a place of confidence and that he could do the same.
“That was it. Each generation has the ability to change old, outdated ways of thinking and reacting and he could strengthen his confidence muscles by using them even if it was uncomfortable.
“The next game, he scored 15 points.”
This is when The Pattern Breakthrough Process can assist each of you to have amazing things happen in ways you least expect.
Leadership strategies are not just for the workplace. All relationships need the benefit of learning the way OUT (Observe, Understand Transform) what gets in the way of success. Once you see how the impact of family, culture, and crises shows up in your life you can pass this knowledge to those around you.
If you would like a strategy session with Joanne please contact me at 570 233 1042 or email sylvia@ceoptions.com to get you started.
