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Transcript

Authority Is Not Permission · After the Signal

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Thomas Calder.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is After the Signal.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go a little farther down the road.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: In last week's episode,
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: I told you about coaching my oldest son Chad's YMCA football team
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: when he was seven years old.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I checked a box saying I'd coach if they needed somebody.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: They needed somebody.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Of course they did.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: And somewhere along the way, a bunch of first graders taught me something about leadership.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Leadership isn't demonstrating how much you know.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's figuring out what the people you're responsible for need from you
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: so they can become the best version of themselves.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I told you that lesson would come back years later.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: With Chad.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: With another football team.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And with another coach.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: So here we are.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: By the time Chad reached high school, he was still playing football.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: He played quarterback on the JV team in ninth and tenth grade.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Chad was a leader.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: I say that as his father, obviously, so discounted accordingly.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: But he was.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Still is.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't necessarily the most technically proficient quarterback on the team.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Another kid had won the starting job, and he didn't have a problem with that.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Coaches make decisions.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Parents generally think they know better.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And most of the time,
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: the best thing a parent can do is sit in the stands and let the coach coach.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Until I don't.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: One night, Chad's team was getting destroyed.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean destroyed.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: They were down something like 48 to nothing late in the fourth quarter.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: The game was over.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Not mathematically, spiritually.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was over.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sitting there watching the starting quarterback continue taking snaps.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I remember thinking, why?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Give the other kids some playing time.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Let the backups get some reps. Let some boys who have practiced all week get onto the field.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: There was nothing left to prove.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then the starting quarterback dropped back to pass and got hammered.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: He suffered a concussion.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was furious.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Not because a kid got tackled playing football.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: That happens.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was furious because,
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: from where I was sitting,
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: there was no reason for him to still be exposed to that risk in a game
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: that had been decided long before.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now Chad had to go in.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: One offensive series left.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember every detail, but I remember this.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Two running plays, a few yards, third and long.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: The coach sent in a pass play.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Chad came to the line, looked at the defense, and changed the play.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: He audibled to a run.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: The runner broke through the defense and went about 40 yards for a touchdown.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: The only touchdown Chad's team scored that night.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly,
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: this kid who had spent most of the season as the backup quarterback was being mobbed
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: by his teammates.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: They put Chad on their shoulders, carried him off the field like a hero.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was proud of him.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: But not because he had thrown a touchdown.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: He hadn't.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Not because he had executed the play the coach sent in.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: He hadn't done that either.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was proud because he had looked at the situation in front of him,
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: trusted what he saw, and made a decision.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: He led.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: For one play, mechanics mattered less than judgment, and judgment changed the outcome.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: You would think that's the part of the story I remember most.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: What happened afterwards stayed with me much longer.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: On the bus ride home,
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: according to Chad,
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: the coach berated the team, called the boys names, belittled them.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: These were high school kids who had just lost a football game,
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: and an adult who had been given authority over them decided
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: that authority gave him permission to diminish them.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: That crossed a line for me.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was in his office the next day.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember every word I said, but I remember the part that mattered.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have my permission or Chad's permission to treat him that way.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: I meant it.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: The coach ultimately lost his job.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: I've thought about that incident many times over the years and age has complicated it for me.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the inconvenient things about getting older.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: The stories in which you were obviously right at 40 become a little more complicated
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: when you examine them at 60.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Would I handle every part of it exactly the same way today?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Was I angry?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Could I have been more measured?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Probably.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: But the line itself?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: I still believe it.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have permission to treat him that way.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Facebook recently suggested that I should talk more about Internet culture.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: That made me laugh.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently,
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: the algorithm has looked at me and decided what
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: the internet really needs is another man in his 60s explaining things.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Fine.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Boomers need an influencer too.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: But here's something interesting about internet culture.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: We spend an enormous amount of time talking about influence.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Who has it?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: How many followers they have?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: How many people watched?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Who went viral?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Who has a platform?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Who can move an audience?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: We actually call people influencers.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: But we don't spend nearly as much time asking the question that interests me more.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: What responsibility comes with influence once you have it?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because influence and authority aren't the same thing.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Neither are authority and leadership.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: You can have a title and not be a leader.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: You can lead without having the title.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: I watched both happen on a football field that night.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: The coach had the authority.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Chad had the judgment.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And a group of teenage boys knew the difference.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: They put one of them on their shoulders.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of the central questions underneath the Executor Series.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Influence must answer to ethics.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's Thomas Ward's Law.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And when I wrote it, I thought I understood exactly what I meant.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm less certain now,
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: which is probably a good thing,
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: because the more interesting question isn't whether influence should answer
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: to ethics.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Of course it should.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: The harder question is, whose ethics?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Who decides when authority has crossed the line?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: What happens when
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: the person exercising authority believes he's doing exactly what responsibility
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: requires?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: What happens when the people who are affected by that authority experience it differently?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: And what responsibility do you have when you see it happening?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Those questions become much more important in the executor's discovery.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Elias Ward is beginning to understand that inheriting influence is not the same
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: as inheriting permission.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Just because something can be done doesn't answer whether it should be done.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And just because a structure gives someone authority doesn't make every exercise of
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: that authority legitimate.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Charles III.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Charles III.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: My father's name carried into mine.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Mine carried into his.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And in a little more than two weeks, Chad is getting married.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: He's asked me to officiate the ceremony.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've been thinking about that more than I expected.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: 30 years ago this month, I stood at my own wedding.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: My father stood beside me.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: He was my best man.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Two days before Chad gets married, I'll tell you that story.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because my father won't be standing beside me at Chad's wedding.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: He died when Chad was a little more than a year old.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Chad met him once.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And yet my father will be there.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Not literally.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not becoming sentimental enough to tell you that.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: He'll be there in the ways people remain after they're gone.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: In names.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: In stories.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: In things they taught us.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: In things they never realized they were teaching us.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe even in the way a father responds when somebody mistreats his son.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: There are commercials I've loved for years.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: You probably know them.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: The premise is essentially,
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: we can't keep you from becoming your parents,
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: but we can help you with your insurance.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: They make me laugh because the recognition is immediate.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: One day you're young,
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: and then one morning you're standing somewhere saying something your father used
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: to say, and you hear it.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, there he is.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's inheritance too.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Not the inheritance lawyers administer.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: The inheritance we discover inside ourselves.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Some of it we keep.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Some of it we change.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Some of it we decide should stop with us.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we don't even know we've inherited something until life puts us in
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: a situation where it comes out.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: My father let a 10-year-old boy decide how he was willing to be treated.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Years later,
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: when my own son was being treated in a way I thought was wrong, I drew another line.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that one caused the other.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Life is rarely that tidy, but I know both stories, and now you do too.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Next week,
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: I want to tell you about my father,
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: about Chicago,
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: about 30 days that changed my family,
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: and about something I was able to tell him before he died
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: that I am profoundly grateful he lived long enough to hear.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because the week after that,
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be getting ready to stand in front of my oldest son and the woman he loves
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: and do something I never imagined doing.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'll officiate their wedding.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: 30 years and 5 days after my father stood beside me at mine.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: The circle isn't perfect.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Life isn't.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: People leave too soon.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Children grow up.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Parents become memories.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then one day you realize you've become the person carrying the stories forward.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's what inheritance really is.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Not merely receiving something from the people who came before us.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Becoming responsible for what happens to it next.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Thomas Calder.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is After The Signal.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, strengthen the things that remain.