motorcycling 101 and toddler dinner as guides to performance improvement

One of the first things they teach you in motorcycle class, after “always wear a helmet” and “never drink and ride,” is how to turn. A bike behaves differently than a bicycle or a car and this is weird. You have to unlearn what comes naturally or what you’ve always done to safely get around a curve on two wheels strapped to an engine. 

The most important turning technique is to look at the place you want to go rather than the obstacle you want to avoid. This sounds obvious. It is, however, something every beginner resists. 

The problem with looking at the obstacle is that the direction you turn your head is also the direction you turn your shoulders. Your shoulders turn your arms and your arms turn the bike. So when you look at the obstacle instead of the destination, you direct the bike to drive right toward the obstacle. Your rational, self-protecting anxiety about the cliff leads you to give attention to the cliff and then drive straight for the cliff.

As the grizzled, bandana’d instructor said to me on the cold February morning in Thornton, CO when I started learning to ride - “that’s a bad day.”

If you focus on the destination instead of focusing on the obstacle, your head, shoulders, and arms all tilt toward the destination. This turns the bike toward the destination, too.

Now for the toddlers. My strong-willed, adorable niece is three going on four. As is true for most kids her age, mealtime is a confusing carnival of preferences and manifestos and exertions of willpower that somehow leaves eating more than like 4g of carbohydrates by the wayside. 

At any given moment, Lula may be doing 5 things that are not polite, healthy, kind dinner table moves (feet on the table and food on the floor are favorites of hers). If I whack-a-mole through those with corrections, even kind ones, she understandably feels criticized, sad, and on the wrong side of the law. She then doubles down on one or more of the 5 misdemeanors and it all gets worse.

If, instead, I find the one thing alongside those 5 missteps that she is doing well and praise that, suddenly I’m on her side and she feels good about herself. She is motivated to keep doing that thing. The other good behaviors can velcro on to this first one. This even works – sometimes at least – if I audibly praise her older brother for doing one thing right. It draws her attention to that thing and the praise it generates. She wants that affirmation. To get it, she does the right thing, too. (Savvy K-12 teachers use this move all the time).

Narrating the positive draws your attention and your people’s attention to the positive - what you want replicated, what gets you where you need to go. What you want “posited” over and over. 

Take your “productive paranoia” and apply it to the question: “am I recognizing the ingredients of strong performance enough for my team?” The answer, even if you think you do this regularly, is probably no.

Steer to the destination. Compliment the good bites. Get your people growin’.

-Eric