Working Together to Solve Problems

I want to start by sending my thoughts and best wishes to my family and friends in NW Iowa and SE South Dakota who have been dealing with severe flooding issues the last few days. My hometown of George and my former residence of Cherokee have been hit by incredible amounts of rain and rivers at levels never seen before. Hopefully the weather will cooperate with some quiet days to dry things out.

As I have followed the events back home, I have been amazed by the cooperation by everyone and the willingness to work together to support each other and get the job done. People from all walks of life and all different beliefs are pulling together to get through this emergency to make sure everyone is safe and able to put their lives back together. It’s one of the things I have always loved about living in small towns….everyone has each other’s back and will jump in to help when a crisis occurs. Working together to solve the problem, support each other, and help people move forward is what matters. This is a core element of successful sports and activities, and we would all agree, this system works.

This made me think about our world today and especially our state and national governments. Why does it seem like too many of our political leaders spend too much time trying to prove how they are right and that the “other side” is wrong, instead of trying to resolve things and find solutions to the problems we face?! Shouldn’t we switch that around? Wouldn’t we all be better off? Why isn’t it ok to admit some times that I don’t have all of the answers and can learn something from someone else, even someone I may disagree with? If the focus is on what is best and finding solutions, it should only matter about what is right vs. who is right. In today’s social media world, it appears our leaders must always be “right” and can never admit that someone else has an idea that may be better during this circumstance.

Harry Truman once said, “it is amazing what you can accomplish when it doesn’t matter who gets the credit.” I think coaches overall do as good a job with this as anyone. Most of us are constantly stealing plays or drills from others and are great at giving credit to others while giving less credit to ourselves. We just want our teams to be successful and if that means learning from others and taking advantage of that wisdom, we will do so.

Why can’t our political leaders do the same thing? Why decisions be made by thinking what is best for the people and for the future vs what is different than my opponents think? We have a large presidential debate on Thursday and vital elections coming up soon. Raise your hand if you think our politicians will be like coaches and listen and learn from each other….. I’m not seeing any hands….maybe we need to start holding our politicians more accountable for their actions and support those people who are willing to work together with others for the common good?

I used to be quite interested and quite involved with politics and loved to follow what was going on. I must admit being very discouraged the last number of years because of the lack of cooperation and ccommunication among everyone involved. That’s not the right thing to do. The events of the last few days as well as my coaching work shows that cooperation and working together is “best practice” in all facts of life and if we truly want better lives in the future, we need our leaders to be doing that.

Have a great week!

Coach K