Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it teaches us a lesson about the importance of checkups.
I have had pet dogs for most of my life, and currently that includes a lab-chow mix named Jett, who recently had her visit with the veterinarian, which led me to think about this lesson. (On a side note, she’s named Jett not just because she’s black (“jet black”), but because when we got her, we had another dog at the time that was a little 15-pound schnauzer-poodle mix named Tank, so it seemed appropriate that we had a “tank” and a “jet” as dogs.) Jett was a rescue dog, and part of the responsibility that came with having her is meeting her nutritional needs every day, getting her nails trimmed every once in a while, updating her vaccinations every year (which was the purpose of this particular visit), and occasionally taking care of other things, like her senior citizen checkup and teeth-cleaning.
And it’s not just dogs that bring this. Almost everything that you own comes with additional responsibilities. Your clothes need washing. Your car needs oil changes. Your home needs filters to be replaced. And those are just the regular needs. There will also be other things that wear out and break down over time, and will need to be repaired, replaced, or removed. I remember a summer in college when I worked for my uncle, who was a building contractor, and on the drive into work one morning, he told me, “Jeff, the minute you purchase a home, it begins to wear out and break down and requires maintenance.“
The same truth applies to your organization (and your personal life; sometimes we only think about our work in topics like this, and neglect the same things in ourselves). Everything wears down, so there are some things that need to be checked or maintained regularly, even daily, like keeping up with emails, checking reports, or going to scheduled meetings. There are other things that need your attention periodically, or annually, like budgets, and project or performance reviews. And then there are things that need the occasional attention, like when something (or someone) is no longer functioning properly. Regardless, there are always things that need to be monitored and maintained.
Because this is true, there are four things that you can and should be doing, depending on the level of maintenance that is needed:
- Simple maintenance. Notice that the root of this word is maintain, which means doing the things necessary to keep something running smoothly, to help prevent it from breaking down. These are the behaviors that have to do with both people and tasks that need to be done on a regular, or even daily, basis.
- Repair. These are the things you have to do to fix something when it breaks or is not operating the way that it should. I love when my granddaughter runs to me with a toy in her hand and says, “Fix it, Gi!” Often, it requires a simple fix, and it works great again. Don’t be too quick to dispose of something that has value and can be repaired just because it seems to be broken.
- Replace. Sometimes something is beyond repair and will no longer work the way that it should, and now it’s affecting performance and needs to be replaced. It’s like the heating element that wore out in my dryer. There was nothing I could do to fix that part, so I had to order a new one and replace it, and when I did, the dryer worked like new again. It’s important to note that replacing the part was much less expensive than replacing the whole dryer!
- Remove. Sometimes something is no longer used, or is even causing damage, and just needs to be removed. It’s like when Apple changed from using lightning cables to using usb-c cables to charge their phones (like the rest of the world already did). The lightning cables no longer fit and no longer functioned, and so it was time to dispose of them and move on.
That’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from a regular checkup for my dog. Everything experiences wear and tear, including relationships, and, therefore, maintenance is always necessary. Do regular checkups, and pay attention to where there is friction, a performance issue, a breakdown, or any other sign that some type of maintenance is needed. And then, do the thing you need to do to make sure it is operating the way that it should.