Tennis lessons helped me become a better leader!
I've been taking private tennis lessons for 5 years from an amazing coach. Not only have I become a much better tennis player, I have a become a better leader, spouse and human being as a result. Learning a completely different skills amplified my growth mindset and helped me develop my leadership skills.
Beginners Mind: With tennis I had no ego. I accepted that I didn't know a lot about the right technique and there was nothing wrong in me asking for help. I spent half my class having conversations with my coach and applying changes. This transitioned over to work where I started to accept that I did not know how to handle specific scenarios as a leader and I should talk to people who are a couple of steps ahead of me in their journey.
Power of deliberate practice: At the start of each lesson my coach and I would discuss the exact area we would work on. For example (i) Hitting cross court forehand (ii) Tackling a high ball on the backhand (ii) Hitting down the line backhand on a wide ball. Each of these required understanding specific techniques and doing deliberate practice to add them to my toolkit. Now I apply the same mindset to leadership skills where I break down my growth areas into specific scenarios and fine tune my technique. For example (i) how to integrate new people who join the team mid way into a strategy development process (ii) setting up operating processes to lead large virtual teams.
Improvement Stacking: Right before a tennis lesson starts I read the notes from last few lessons to remember the technique improvements and do shadow practice to lock them in. Then I think about what additional improvement do I want to stack on top today. In warm up we try to lock in last lesson’s improvements before adding on. I apply similar methodology to my personal growth. I have a lessons learnt doc that goes all the way back to 2014. I do a spaced repetition over those notes looking back at most recent lessons frequently and older lessons less frequently. Sometime I just talk about my lessons and changes on long walks with my wife & close friends.
Focusing a 100% on 1 action: My coach keeps repeating “I don’t want you to hit 10 balls well. I want you to hit 1 ball well and repeat it 10 times.” The last ball in gone, the next one won't come until later. The only ball you can do something about is the one right in front of you, give it the best you have. I see this play out with great leaders at Facebook. They bring 100% of themselves into the moment to make complex decisions in a 5-10 min conversation and then move on to a completely different yet complex topic to do it all over again. This requires brining all of their focus on to the matter at hand one thing at a time. I am trying to build that skill.
New Match is a fresh start: Whether it is a single set or a three set match once it is over it is over. I move on to the next match. I write down lessons from the previous one, develop a new game plan and start all over. I now apply the same mind set to projects and roles at work. At the start of any project or role I have only the skills / techniques I have at that point. I do the best of my ability and it produces the best results that version of me could. At the end of it I write my learnings, call myself a new version Satish X.0 and give myself a fresh start without the baggage of the past. Sometime it needs dropping the baggage in my head and other times it means working with a new set of people on a different area.
Self compassion: Finally the biggest mindset shift is that all behavioral and mental mistakes are a result of lack on technique for a situation. In tennis I swing harder or stop my swing because there is a technique flaw or preparation flaw. At work I realized that any mental or behavioral mistakes were because I didn't have the right technique for that situation or that I wasn't prepared enough for that situation. Once I realized that I could move on from judging myself to learning the technique to handle the new scenario. As I result I treat myself more kindly when I make mistake.
I learnt a lot of tennis lessons that I directly apply to work but that is for another post.
My belief now is that learning a new skill unlocks your growth mindset and helps your do your job much better!