When This Comes, It's Too Late to Prepare
After watching the Carolina Hurricanes game last night with family a great lesson in leadership first spoken by the late great John Wooden came to light...
"When the opportunity comes it’s too late to prepare."
In case you missed it, David Ayres, a 42 year old zamboni driver for a Toronto ice hockey rink was forced to play as the emergency goalie for the Carolina Hurricanes vs. the Toronto Maple Leafs because of injury in front of over 18,000 fans in a must win game for Carolina.
The Canes won 6-3 and Ayres received star of the game.
Ayres gave up two early goals but settled in to shut out the home team over the last 20 minutes. His teammates mobbed him when the game was over.
Whether it was during his junior hockey days or maybe driving around on the zamboni in an empty rink; my guess is Ayres has played that scene in his head thousands of times.
And when he finally got his shot, decades after he first imagined, he was ready mentally and physically.
Preparation is more than just a discipline. Preparation is an attitude. Preparation will make the difference between winning and losing.
Success and failure.
Connecting and feeling lost.
Preparation can happen in many ways in your school.
It could be about thinking ahead of a potential problem (upset parent, teacher suddenly out sick, taking benchmarks just like they are EOG tests) to make sure the school never misses a beat!
Preparation could be practicing your elevator speech to new families, teachers or strategic partners not until you get it right, but until you never get it wrong.
Preparation could be when you get those five key minutes with your boss to pitch an idea you have all of her potential questions (i.e. budget impact, key resources, first steps) already mapped out in an easy to read one page report.
Preparation is all about getting better results.
Better results in this order:
- Better results for the organization/family/community.
- Better results for the team.
- Better results for you.
So remember, when the opportunity comes, it's too late to prepare.
Write down no more than three improvement areas where you need to prepare more and build this preparation time into your daily/weekly schedule.
Tom
Oh, just one more thing. The Teacher Leader Consortium, the ultimate professional development and school leadership growth experience for teachers I invited you to join this week, is a prime example of preparing for that prized future opportunity!
Click here: https://www.leaders-building-leaders.com/teacher-leader-consortium
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