Cheerleading
My seven-year-old daughter started on a new cheerleading team last week. I volunteered to drive her as some of my favorite times are with her in the car. I connect my phone to the stereo and hand it back to her. She plays DJ and we whiz along listening to Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Olivia Rodrigo, as well as songs from Encanto and Unicorn Academy (that’s a TV show and a book series. She’s very serious about it).
We arrived at the field and there was zero signage. So, we followed a family with a little girl dressed just like my daughter to an open gym door about 100 feet away.
We arrived and there wasn’t anyone there to greet us. So we stepped in and again, no greeting, despite there being multiple adults at the door. Additionally, no one was wearing shirts that read, “Coach” or “Director.”
So, awkwardly, I announced to the three adults standing there (they were having a conversation), my daughter’s name.
“Penny’s here,” I said.
To which one adult replied, “What?”
“Penny’s here. Where does she go?”
“Oh,” the woman said. “Over there.”
Looking “over there” I noticed approximately twenty other little girls. Which means that this had happened approximately twenty times already and no one working there (I get they’re probably volunteers, but still) thought to themselves, “We need a better way to do this.”
I wished Penny luck and proceeded to wait in my car until the ninety-minute practice was over.
When it was, myself and a group of adults waited by those same gym doors, until, without notice, kids stared running out. It was dark, so the kids were hard to see. Some ran to their parents (I hope), and they began walking to their cars.
No announcement that they were coming out.
No sign out.
No confirmation that the kids were with their grownup.
A group of adults, I’m assuming the coaches, then stood blocking the doors, chatting, as our kids tried to squeeze in between and around them. After ten seconds of this, I asked them to move aside.
Finally, my daughter came rushing out and gave me a huge hug.
The practice might have been amazing. I doubt it based on what I just shared. But it may have been. And she did have a blast.
Here’s the thing: this is fine for a seven-year-old cheerleading practice (maybe), but it’s not okay for your company, your team, or your department. But this is how so many people are operating.
Logistics are unclear, the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing, and it feels like nobody is in charge. This leaves employees and partners feeling like I felt: like these people have no idea what they’re doing.
The details matter.
A few months ago, I was a conference where the speakers didn’t have a powerpoint clicker. Instead, when they needed their slides changed, they said to the person running the tech, something that sounded like, “Uh, next slide please.” Most of the time that worked, but sometimes the person clicked twice so the presenter had to say, “No, uh, back one.”
This went on for three days. I couldn’t concentrate on the content because I was obsessed with the stupidity I was witnessing.
When your team operates like this, it smashes your credibility to pieces. The people watching are thinking you’re wildly incompetent and your messages get lost as a result.
My daughter will continue in that league, but maybe not for long. They haven’t yet lost credibility with her. But they have with me and likely others. And that’s hard to come back from.
