Forgotten Triumphs

I remember sitting on the bench next to Bill. We had been deemed to sit out the final inning for no other reason than two of us had to. That was the life of a mediocre ballplayer: playing the field one inning and riding the pine in the next. It wasn't all bad. In fact it wasn't bad at all. We got to play plenty and we got to practice spitting seeds when we were benched. I could hold my own, but Bill was like no eleven year old I had ever seen. He could hit a batting helmet from ten feet away in mid sentence. To this day, I've yet to see a spitter with his presence. He could have been a big leaguer if he could only hit a baseball.

I didn't know it at the time, but this would be the only championship game I would get to play in. We had a pretty good team that year. On paper we were decent. On the field we were above average. On the bench we were loose. Win or lose, game or practice, it didn't matter. The team got along and we were all better for it.

Neal was manning right field for the finale. Neal was easily our worst player. He couldn't hit, throw, catch, or run. Hell he couldn't even spit a seed past his foot. Nobody hated him for it though. Every team had a Neal. Most of them wouldn't put him in the championship game for the final inning though. But coach felt bad. He had been ignoring Neal most of the game. Besides, we were winning by five runs. How could Neal mess that up? This game was all but over.

As Bill and I sat and watched, our five run lead slowly eroded to one. It started with an infield single, followed by a walk, followed by a lazy fly ball straight to Neal that he predictably dropped. It seemed like every silly play kept repeating itself. Every hit was barely hit. Every ground ball found the one piece of ground we couldn’t cover. It was a slow and painful choke. The two outs we managed to get were like pulling teeth and Neal had already booted two sure things. Our loose fun loving team had tightened up. And that is when I got the call. “Kevin!” coach yelled at me even though he was standing four feet away. “Get in there for Neal!” I didn’t say a word. I grabbed my gloved and ran out to relieve Neal. Trust me, he was thankful.

To know me as a ballplayer, all you need to understand is that I was fundamentally sound. As a hitter, I was no one a pitcher feared. However, it was virtually impossible to strike me out. I could hit foul balls for days until a guy got tired and finally walked me. As a fielder, I never dropped a ball. Whether I was scooping balls at first or shagging them in the outfield, I was as reliable as they came. You know all those remedial cliqued quips of advice that all coaches say? I followed them. When I was at bat, I kept my eye on the ball. When I was in the field, my hands were on my knees thinking about what I would do if the ball came to me before every pitch. I always knew the outs. I always knew the scenario. I always made the catch. And now with the bases loaded, up by one, I was injected into the championship game with the sharpest hit fly ball I had even seen heading right towards me.

I remember the ball taking off like a rocket. A loud collective gasp from every player and everyone in attendance was quickly followed by a loud consistent noise. People were yelling. People were screaming. Nobody was sitting down. Through the noise, all I could see was a ball that may never come back down to earth. However, what goes up must come down and after a fleeting moment of panic, I realized that I could catch this ball. By the time I realized that, I was already running to my spot. As fast as the ball went up, I couldn’t believe how slow it was to come down. I was there and ready to catch the ball with several precious moments to spare.

So what did I do?

I caught it. It was like any other catch. In fact, it wasn’t even one of my most spectacular ones. I caught it though. I made it look easy. The other team was stunned. The sound of the bat hitting the ball alone was enough to make them think they had won. But I caught it. No problem. I jogged in and tossed the ball over to the coach. We always did that. These were the balls we played every game with. He smiled at me and said “You made me look like a genius” as he tossed it back. “Keep it,” he said. “That’s the game ball.”

Sometimes it’s easy to forget triumphs of our youth. Years after my playing days were over; I got a job painting houses for the summer. I was a nineteen year-old kid burned out on the fundamentals. I couldn’t even remember being an eleven year-old anymore. I showed up the first morning and was greeted with a smiling new boss whose first words to me were “You made me look like a genius”. It took less than a moment for it all to come rushing back to me. I made the game winning catch; the championship game winning catch. That is one triumph that I never will forget again.

Understanding Personal Contructs

The judgments we make about people are not all without merit. We have spent our whole lives trying to figure out other people and our judgment skills have been honed and well practiced. However, as we blindly assess the people we are in contact with we sometimes forget how much alike or not alike we really are.The Personal Construct Theory explains that we create certain truths about people and things to help explain the reality around us. For this post, I did an exercise in constructs by comparing people I know by simply writing down a few words that come to mind when I think of them. I think the results of this exercise show how things can easily seem so different at first glance and how relationships help to dictate our thoughts.

I first compared my sister, Bridget, with a kid I knew from high school, Dave, who I did not like very much. I must preface this by saying that I have always been friendly with Dave and we were more friends than rivals. But I always knew he would be someone I did not stay in contact with all my life because I just did not like certain things about him. The similarities between the two were their stubbornness and selfishness. Their differences were Bridget I saw as smart, shy, and nice while Dave I saw as vapid, loud and materialistic. Next I compared one of my best friends Peter and one of my best female friends Andria. I wrote that they both were nice and generous. For Peter I wrote loyal, easy going, and goofy. For Andria I wrote caring, engaging, and pretty. Lastly I compared myself with my sister Bridget. Like her, I wrote down smart, shy, and stubborn. However, instead of selfish and nice, I saw myself as calm and calculating.

This exercise made me realize how the type of relationship I have with someone may affect my initial thoughts about them. I do feel, at least in written form, that my values could be unrefined because I kept going to similar adjectives. I think I may have stereotyped a bit based on the relationships I have and gender. For instance, when I started the list for my sister, I went straight for her faults even though I am closest with her than most on the list and think very highly of her. With my two friends, I immediately wrote loyal for my male friend and pretty for my female friend. Loyalty is generally a best friend quality. Pretty, on the other hand, is not something necessary for a friendship. However, since she is a female the first thing to come to my head was how pretty she is.

As far as being fair and complete; I think that is almost impossible. While the assessments I made were fair in my mind, they are far from complete. All of the constructs I used could probably be applied to everyone on my list in some capacity. We are all made up the same traits but some are more prevalent in others. I did judge myself very favorably because I have a favorable view of myself. I included some of my faults because I am very aware of them. I think for people to develop rich and complex constructs they must first realize how much they have in common with the rest of the world. You could be just like your worst enemy and nothing like your best friend even on the surface. They key is to respect people’s strengths and remember your weaknesses when criticizing.

Confronting a Hostile Employee

Case Study: “You are a department manager in a mid-sized company that provides technology support services. You have ten employees who are required to maintain a high level of technical expertise and deliver excellent customer service. One of your employees, who has been with the company for two years, is performing at a substandard level and you have received numerous complaints from customers and coworkers. In addition, this employee has displayed confrontational behavior which has created a hostile environment. You must now meet with this employee and deliver an ultimatum regarding the need for immediate improvement or dismissal.”

“The only way to appropriately handle conflict is to actually deal with it” (Goldsmith, 2008). It sometimes seems easier to just “let it go” and continue a dangerous cycle of conflict avoidance. Sometimes you wish to engage in a much needed conflict but just don’t have the nerve to confront the other person. At some point though, you just need to jump in the pool. But just in case you are still timid, there are smart and proper ways to initiate confrontation that will give the conflict a good chance of being successful.

In terms of initiating, Cahn and Abigail (2007) have identified two important steps: preparation and tell the person “we need to talk.” Preparation falls right in line with the stop/think portion of the S-TLC. At this point you need to think about the conflict and where it should go. Two ways to prepare include self-talk and imagined interaction. Think of this as talking through the issues with you imagining possible ways the confrontation may go. In this case you may expect the employee to act defiantly or hostile. When the time comes to initiate, tell the person “we need to talk.” As cliqued as it sounds, “we need to talk” is a universal way of calmly making a statement that a conflict must be confronted. Think of it as your go-to method to ease your way in to the pool.

When it comes time to talk, it is time to be serious. According to Stockwell (1997), you should state you message assertively, do not get off topic with small talk, and directly state your purpose clearly without any ambiguity. After that it is time to listen. “Expect that your message will surprise your listeners. It will take them time to ‘process’ your remarks” (Stockwell, 1997). There is a good chance this employee will not take the news very well. It is important to listen to him have his say. Another notion to think about during the communication phase is the use of I-statements. I-statements help to reverse the heat from the other party. In the midst of battle, we tend to repeat ourselves and try to express what is wrong with the other person. I-statements replace you-statements. For example a sentence starts with “I feel…” instead of “you make me feel…” (Cahn & Abigail, 2007). What this does is express to the other party the feelings you are experiencing instead of attacking them and making them more defensive. Anyway to ease the tension can open up communication lines for a more honest discussion.

Eventually you must give the employee the ultimatum to either shape up or ship out. Honestly, if the employee is that expendable this should not be such a hard thing. If he takes the confrontation poorly it is probably clear that he should move on. If the employee takes the criticism well and acknowledges that he needs to work on being a better employee then give him the chance to. No matter what, it is necessary to confront an employee that is not only not working up to standard but also disrupting the workplace.
 
References
Cahn, D.D., and Abigail, R.A. (2007). Managing conflict through communication (3rd ed.). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.

Goldsmith, B. (2008). Difficult Conversations. Cost Engineering, 50(9), 20. Retrieved May 17, 2010, from ProQuest Database

Stockwell, R.G. (1997, April). Effective communication in managing conflict. CMA, 71(3), 6. Retrieved May 17, 2010, from ProQuest Database