The Ice Storm That Forced Me to Practice What I Preach (and Almost Cost a Chromebook Its Life)

Thanks to the ice storm that blanketed much of the nation, today and yesterday were e-learning days for my 3rd grader. Ever helped an 8-year-old navigate Google Classroom, slides and even a brief meeting just to stay on top of his schoolwork? Then you know that it’s NOT something you can do while also continuing to work at your day job.

At the risk of pulling a full LinkedIn-style “what e-learning day taught me about Building a Sustainable Support team” here, I did immediately put in practice a LOT of the Sustainable Support framework to get through two days of frustration (for me and my adorable child).

Nobody is Good at _________ the first time they try it.

When we started on Monday, my sweet child looked at me and said “ok what do we do?” as though I had done this before. Initial thoughts included “step one: burn your chromebook in the yard if I have to figure out one more login.” and “I do not get paid enough to figure out a system today.”

Reader: this is normal. Instead of my downer internal monologue, I said “well, I’m not exactly sure, bud. So we are going to start by repeating a useful phrase. Say it with me: ‘Nobody is good at something the first time they try to do it.'”

Let me make it applicable here: the first CRR you do with a team member is going to take a long time, even if you already understand the system. It’s going to be awkward and you’re going to be very tempted to just go back to whatever non-system you were using before you started.

This is a normal reaction.

If you want to go back to the same non-results from that non-system, have at it. But if you say out loud “this is my first time, it’s going to get better” you’ve got a fighting chance to get to the point that me and my child got to just today (spoiler alert): a high five coupled with “that was pretty easy.”

It only takes a few tries to go from “total failure” to “basic competence.”

I work in tech. I have accessed thousands (if not tens of thousands) of Google Slides presentations before. But Monday morning, one three straight slides, I just could not seem to figure out how to pause a video playing in a slide. Space bar moved me to the next slide, even with the video full-screened. Cue the thoughts of a chromebook bonfire.

But you know the end of this story: my curly-headed 8-year-old laughed at me—it made for a good comedic break—and today, by slide 3, I had learned my lesson: click to pause, spacebar to advance slides.

This principle applied on a macro level as well. On Monday I didn’t know where to start, and did the entire paper packet they sent home, before moving to the slides. Then I opened the slides only to find a specific exhortation that the paper packet was for folks who don’t have internet. First timer fail? Yep. Second time? Slides first.

No sense in getting wrapped up in emotions. Just learn from it and do it right the next time. Be bold enough to ask questions when you are confused. It’s NEW, it’s supposed be confusing.

Every single silly mistake I made on day 1 was corrected on day 2. I started to get the feeling that I could get to a point where I could conceivably do this whole virtual school thing AND work at the same time.

At work, I could have easily been derailed by the (normal) emotions of incompetence on my first try at reviewing teammates. But by the third or fourth review, I had streamlined the process. The main impetus behind the creation of the CRR Tool is that it forces supervisors and leaders to focus on the right things. By the time you’ve done 3 of them, you start to really enjoy how fast you’re able to do them.

The only thing you need is want-to.

Want to guarantee that you’re going to tap out the moment something gets even the least bit difficult? All you have to do is forget why you are doing it.

E-learning days are no fun for anybody involved. Day 1 was a tear-punctuated day for the child, and if I had any hair I’d have pulled it out. What kept me going is the fact that (1) of course I have to do it per laws and stuff and (2) the lesson I knew it would help my boy see. I knew I was going to fumble around and not be able to figure things out, and I wanted him to see that.

Stop trying to pretend that you’ve mastered things on day 1. Your team won’t believe you no matter how you try to sell it. Instead, lead with the destination in mind. Paint a picture (for yourself as well as your teammates) for where we are going. On my 1:1s I always try to remind team members that the reason we’re doing hard things is to keep this a place where we want to come to work.

The reason we obsess over the right metrics scored in the right way is that they are the leading indicator fo making teams, products, and services that our customers rave about.