Turning Subjective into Objective....

One of my hobbies is to officiate wrestling. Really it's my only hobby, but that's for another day. It's hard to get it out of my blood because I've been around the sport since first grade. This past weekend I went to "Mat Clinic" with one of the best officials in the country, Dave Hickson. He's the guy who officiates the NCAA finals...he's the one who gets the call when Minnesota is wrestling Iowa. He's that good. During the clinic he talked through how he officiates and the systematic approach he applies to the calls he makes.

In wrestling, one of the toughest and most subjective things to call is stalling. It's when the is no action and the wrestlers are being passive. Ten different officials will call it ten different ways, it's that subjective. Dave made a profound statement "my job is to make the subject objective and call it consistently every time no matter what." He's developed a system to interpret stalling and he's going to call it the same regardless of who's winning or how much time is left in the match. Dave developed his system based upon his definition of stalling, "it's when one wrestler is the aggressor and his opponent is passive and it happens repeatedly...repeatedly is three times." In his system there's a clear definition with an objective criteria. So in a match if one wrestler makes a legitimate maneuver and his opponent does not counter, that counts as one point and Dave keeps score. If the score gets to 3-0 its stalling. It doesn't matter when, where or to who it happens...because he's developed a system.

In your world, what are the subjective areas? Where are the grey spots? With the people you are leading, what are the areas that you've allowed to remain ill defined? This principle is revolutionizing my approach to certain situations. How about you? If you are leading leaders that utilize volunteers and you ask them the question "how are your volunteers doing", what is the typical response you get...."good, alright, we need more, they don't show up on time." What can you do with the information, it's totally subjective.

When they say "I don't have enough", push back and make it objective. Ask "how many do you need to create a level of excellence and how many do you have?" Now instead of saying "I don't have enough", they can say "I am at 64% capacity".

If you're a leader, you have an obligation to remove the subjective and give clear specific objectives for success. It's the thing that will turn ordinary into extraordinary....it's the systems that create reproducible results...it's a great way to coach those you lead....and it's an opportunity to call people to higher standard because they have greater leadership capacity.