The Wardman Wire

Thanks to Simon Sarmiento for doing the column during August. Whilst he was doing that, I was watching the Olympics and waiting for the weather to clear over Snowdon. It never did….

1. Know What You Have To Do, and Why.

A few years ago, when Gallup was researching what helped employees to do their best at work, they discovered that “the manager… (is) the critical factor in building a strong workplace.” The top management task was to make clear what was expected of people. At the heart of Englands recent cricket upsurge has been a better sense of who does what. Under Kevin Pietersen’s captaincy, players have a clearer sense of their role in the team, and high expectations that they’ll deliver in those roles. In return, the players are responding.

This certainly isn’t the sense you get from the Labour cabinet at the moment, which seems disjointed and un-led. Ok they’ve all been on their summer holidays, and I’m sure the media are looking for ‘disunity’ stories before anything else. If a talented group of people are performing below their best, look to the manager. The key to Browns survival will be whether he can bring the best out of the people around him.

This is also a key question for the US presidential hopefuls. Say what you like about Ms Palin, she actually has experience of running a government, something which Obama, Biden and McCain all lack. Okay, to be elected as Senator you have to manage a team to run your campaign, though I guess the campaign manager does most of the managing. Reagan, whatever you thought of his presidencey, is credited because he could lead people with talent, and let them flourish.

In the midst of all the digging and scrutiny of candidates, here’s a good question to ask: are they any good at running a team?

2. Work on your Connections

Watching the olympic sprinter baton-twirling competition is a useful reminder that, no matter how talented you are, it’s how you connect with others that matters.

3. It’s OK To Be Human.

Marcus Trescothick also deserves a medal, for his honesty in interviews this week about his struggles with anxiety. To have wrestled with this since the age of 10, and yet to have become one of the best England batsmen of recent years, is a tremendous achievement.

Here’s a snippet:

“I struggled mostly with the nerves and the worrying that goes with it. It doesn’t matter what you do, anybody can pick it up whether you earn £1m a year or £20 a week. It strikes when it wants to and there’s not much you can do until you take pills or seek help and get back on the road to recovery.

“People try and hide it all the time. I hid it for weeks, months and a couple of years before saying I don’t want to run from this any more.”

Trescothick said there remained misconceptions about the nature of his condition.

“Anxiety problems are seen as a weakness. People tell you to pull yourself together. But it is an illness, it’s not something you make up.”

Anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses are not much different from diabetes: a flaw in the body chemistry. Though a steady trickle of sports stars and pop stars admitting to mental illness has helped, there is still a stigma, and the pressure to ‘hide it’ for fear of what people will say. And Trescothick, Beckham etc. all have the pressurised life of international sports stars to point to; what can a ‘normal’ person blame for the feeling that they’d rather be dead, or a paralysing fear?

4. There’s More to Life Than Football.

Or at least for Kevin Keegans sake, I hope so.

5. Eventually, the Game Ends

I was struck by how many of the Olympic winners were pictured with their medals between their teeth, showing that it was real gold and not just well-wrapped chocolate.

John Ortberg tells of a childhood dedicated to beating his grandmother at Monopoly. After a summer practicing on his friends, he finally succeeds in wiping her off the board, and taking over every space. Just as his heart swells with pride and victory, her words interrupt his thoughts “now it all goes back in the box.”

We’re all going to die. The Times even offered this as an inspiring thought to get over the back-to-work blues. But one day, everything will go back in the box. Everything we do, buy, work for and sweat about now - what will it look like then? Monopoly money, or Olympic gold?

David Keen blogs at St. Aidan to Abbey Manor, and loses at Monopoly to his 5 year old daughter.