World Series or bust!
Stuck to the clubhouse door of the Detroit Tigers clubhouse at their spring training facility in Lakeland, Florida was a poster with the Champion’s Trophy and a handwritten message, “I believe this belongs to us.” There on the bottom is written, “Don’t come in here unless you do, too.”
According to reporting by The Detroit News, the sign appeared to be the handiwork of Matthew Boyd, a veteran pitcher. Manager Ron Gardenhire told reporter Chris McCosky, that players look to win now not rebuild. “Inside a clubhouse and for a coaching staff, we believe we’re going to win. We don’t do anything other than say we’re coming to the ballpark to put together a team that’s going to win baseball games.” Gardenhire admitted it was a rebuilding year, no surprise, but that with veteran players on the squad anything could happen.
What Gardenhire, a veteran manager who has taken his former team, the Twins, to the championship level, likes the enthusiasm of his players, but he is realistic. Why? Because like all managers he understands that expectations too high can have a deleterious effect on a team. If players are aiming for a World Series, but early in the season hit some setbacks--a distinct possibility with the Detroit Tigers who have not posted a winning record in years—that lofty goal becomes a millstone rather than an aspiration. (So far this season the Tigers are playing just under .500 ball.)
Every leader should be looking to point a team, a department or an organization upward. You want to give people a goal larger than themselves, but if that goal is too audacious, and it becomes unattainable, people tune out. Rather than be inspired, they feel defeated. Morale sags and people feel unmotivated. Inertia becomes the order of the day.
Same occurs to individuals. Say you decide to run in a marathon, but you have not exercised in years. When you begin, hopes are high. You start slowly clocking a few miles a day, but in time you realize that no matter how much running you will do, you don’t have the stamina, even with more training, to complete the 26.2-mile trek. So rather than recalibrate the goal, you quit running altogether.
Doing so is what happens when you conflate a goal with a mission. For the Tigers, as Gardenhire preaches, their mission is to compete hard and win as many games as possible. For a runner, the mission is to get in shape by running. When, however, you add a World Series or a marathon, you are not adding to the mission, you are creating a goal. Failing in a goal is not the same as failing in a mission. Goals can be adjusted with regularity; missions remain in place for a while.
Savvy managers understand this difference, and they set high expectations, but they temper them with two other things. One, they provide support in terms of manpower and resources. Two, they remain flexible to change if the situation changes. This is not defeatism; it is realism. “Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you,” writes novelist Neil Gaiman. “And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.”
We all want to be inspired. Inspiration is rooted in the aspiration to achieve tempered by the reality of what is possible. That’s not an excuse for not aiming high; it’s a challenge for tackling big goals that aligned with the mission, but you do them one goal at a time.
