Keeping Those Plates Spinning

The Amazing Race has so many practical applications for the workplace... Where do you start?  From choosing the right team member to take on the race with you in the first place (sure, take your birth mother that you just met on the most stressful vacation invented), to choosing which detour to take, there are choices throughout the season that we encounter in our daily lives, just not with the million dollar prize waiting for us at the end.

This past week teams had to choose between two detours: Keep ten plates spinning in the air or learn a three-part song on an accordion.  How many plates are you trying to keep spinning every day?  I don't think there's a day that goes by when I don't need to stop and learn something new.  Thankfully, I've never had to learn how to play a tune while clowns try to distract me, but trust me, it has felt like that at times!

As the teams started the plate-spinning challenge it was clear to me who was going to be successful:

   Jill and Thomas: "We just get too frantic too quickly..."

   Nick and Vicki: "Stop yelling!"

   Brook and Claire: "There's no challenge we can't overcome if we just... focus on the task at hand and you've just gotta learn the technique and you can't panic."

I think one of the essential keys to success in this game is to just stop, look, and above all, don't panic.  How many times do we see the teams get flustered and turn on each other?  The teams who do well are always the ones are able to take a breath and concentrate on learning how to master the appropriate skills before trying to complete the task.  A little time spent at the start of the task before diving in goes a long way.  My heart just sinks when I see the teams continue to attempt the tasks by insisting on the same wrong approach, over and over again. 

I have one last obvious point to make about this last episode...  Why can't the teams just take a minute to read and understand the clue?  Following instructions goes a long way in elimination competition reality television, and it goes a long way in the real world, too.  I doubt anyone really cares if I take a cab to my destination or if I walk, but I certainly need to follow instructions when writing grants, completing statistical reports, or writing budget proposals.  There a many opportunities in life and work to think outside of the box and do your own thing, but knowing when it's important to follow those detailed instructions can mean the difference between success and failure, funding and seeing your pet project go down in flames.