Which Olympic Event Is Your Specialty?

The other night I dreamed that I had been asked to kayak on the women’s Olympic team in a shared boat with another woman.

Before you go all, “Kathy! I never knew that about you!” let me explain that I am a recreational kayaker. I kayak mostly on calm lakes or bays, in daylight, and in a single kayak for reasons my husband can explain.

In the dream, however, I was invited to race in a double kayak with a woman I didn’t know. The race time kept changing along with the weather. Eventually, the event was pushed to nighttime despite the threatening downpour.

I was about to compete in a boat I had never used, with a partner I had never met, in worsening weather, in the dark, for the first time.

At the Olympics.

It reminded me of walking into a meeting with people I barely know and being expected to solve a dire problem flawlessly. It also reminded me of navigating the pandemic as head of finance at a nonprofit I had joined six months earlier and whose most profitable program is a 10,000 attendee in person conference.

We ask leaders to do this all the time.

Walk into an unfamiliar situationm absorb incomplete information, read the people involved, decide what to say, anticipate the response, adjust when the conditions change, and get it right, because the consequences may be existential.

Somehow, we accept that Olympic athletes practice constantly, while experienced leaders are expected to improvise.

Practice gives us a chance to try the words before the conversation: to hear how they sound out loud, anticipate resistance, recognize where we may lose our footing, and decide how we will recover.

Practice doesn’t eliminate uncertainty, but it can keep uncertainty from controlling us.

I woke up before the race began, which suggests that even my subconscious has decent risk-management instincts.

In leadership, the alarm clock rarely saves us.

The meeting begins. The decision has to be made. The conversation has to happen.

Practice gives us a chance to find our balance before the water gets rough.

So, where are you practicing? With whom?