Earlier this summer my friends Barron and Jex began doing jiu-jitsu here in Cedar Rapids and asked me to join them. Looking for a way to get a workout in without having to go to the gym as I really don't enjoy going to lift weights, let alone early in the morning, I said yes. Long story short, I really enjoy jiu-jitsu and it is proving to teach some valuable life lessons that I will be writing about here and there. The first though, being the importance of details.
To give you an idea of how jiu-jitsu classes go, we warm up with some movements and stretches, and then jump into drilling. The instructor, typically Jared for our 6am classes, demonstrates the move for the day step by step, and then lets us loose to practice the step. Then, we come back together and he progresses to the next step and has us practice that, and so on and so forth until we are practicing the actual submission or "finishing move".
As we are practicing each step, Jared is typically walking around the room watching people and giving correction, providing tips, or answering questions as needed. Today we were practicing three submissions from side control; an americana, a straight armbar, and a Kamora. (If you are curious what these are/look like, you can simply google BJJ americana, BJJ straight arm bar, or BJJ Kamora.) Barron and I were partnered up today, and as we were going through the americana and the Kamora, Jared showed us two details that really increased the effectiveness of our submissions. For the americana, we had a tendency to try to finish away from the opponents body, and we weren't creating as much leverage as we could if we were to finish closer to their body. The solution was a minor detail that increased the effectiveness of the move almost 2 times over. Jared told us if we would bury our elbow into the crease of their neck and shoulder as we finish, it would be a much stronger finish. The final step for an americana is to lift their elbow off of the mat, and with this small detail, Barron and I could hardly even get past the 2nd step of the americana before tapping each other.
As we were practicing the Kamora, a similar thing happened, but this time we couldn't hardly get the finish until Jared informed us that if we would glue their elbow to our chest we could get a better rotation on their arm. After we made that adjustment, we finished every Kamora.
The reason I'm telling you all of this is because details are important. I think so often when we are presented with a task we know how to do, we get caught up in thinking, "I know how to do this" that we go with the flow and totally forget the details that make us as good at that task as we once were. Barron and I had both learned how to do all three of these submissions. They were basically the first submissions we learned and certainly the first ones we were able to pull off in a live roll (that's like a jiu-jitsu match), but we got complacent with them.
Where in our leadership do we become complacent and begin to compromise details? For me, I see it in my ability to make others feel included. I was incredibly good at making people feel known on my team in high school because I ALWAYS went out of my way to ensure everyone was not only invited, but also included. In college, I got complacent and my constant nagging of, "how can I make you feel included?" turned into, "I make people feel included." I stopped focusing on the details of how to make others feel included and just claimed it as an already present identity of mine. Assuming I just naturally made people feel included, I pretty well failed in accordance with my standards of what true inclusion looks like.
Maybe you read this and thought, "My team may leave out some details, but we are still succeeding in those areas." And I would say, like the americana, "Great! But could you succeed more if you got the details squared away?"
Whether intentional or not, we often leave out the details that once made us extremely effective at a task because we get complacent with the results we see. Don't get complacent. The details matter.
Read this again today. Great reminder to Have to be INTENTIONAL ALWAYS! 💙
Tanner, Great perspective on this topic. I often realize how easy it is to fall into a place of complacency in my own career when I "roll" with some of my own tasks (see what I did there?). When I focus on the multitude of details that go into the task there is a higher level of satisfaction with the finished product. I love the way you associated this topic to your jiu-jitsu training! Great Job T!
I love this! So true!