What We Can Learn on Communicating Vision from Kids’ Relay Race [Video]

I ran a leadership class early this morning. I played this video [below]. The setting was a primary school – kids were running an athletics relay race. One child runs and passes the baton to the next person. One team was clearly winning – until the baton was handed over to the last kid in the team. Then the problem started.

Instead of the kid continuing to run to the finish line [by maintaining the direction of the race], he ran the other way. In other words, he practically erased the progress made by the earlier runners. As you watch the video, you will see the coach shouting at the kid to turn around, and run in the appropriate direction. Unfortunately, the kid did not hear him well. By then, the previously losing team had overtaken his team,

As the kid ran the wrong direction, I paused the video, and asked my audience: “Do you think you have in your team people that run the wrong direction?” These are team members who just erase progress made by others.

Yet, we expanded the conversation looking at if those “problem team members” know the vision. In other words, has someone communicated the vision to them? For the kid running the wrong direction, it is possible the coach has not explained the purpose of the race and how winning could be ascertained. For the kid, innocently, he thought, the deal was likely to get the baton and start running, irrespective of the direction. He ran very well, but was simply erasing progress made by others.

Unfortunately, the efforts resulted in one thing: his team lost the race. Make efforts to communicate vision and what WINNING really means.

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