So did you pace or did you run?

One of the things that I enjoy off work is running! This is habit that I got not by choice but by force :-) ! The man of the house is into everything that can be put into the bracket of “Sports”. So after 5 years of marriage and 5 years of courtship preceding the date we got formally hitched, I have learnt some “need to do” and “good to do” things in my marriage. Doing some activity together is definitely one of the "Good to do" things. So when I was left with the option of choosing an activity that we could do together (out of running, cricket, tennis, swimming and badminton) somehow running seemed very doable.  Also running seemed like the new golf :-) :-) (more so because running shoes were fancier and way cheaper than golf clubs)!

Thankfully over the last year and half, I have started to enjoy running. Apart from the usual health benefits, it helps me caters to my innate need of chasing a target. Every run is targeted to achieve my “Personal Best”. Hence, there is no competition with anyone else but my own self.

As a novice runner, I was fairly happy with my progress. From a 10 kms in 89 mins (followed by two days of walking like a zombie) to a 10 kms in 63 mins (Followed by an energy level to go for a dance event)…I felt I had done okay within a span of 1.5 years till I was exposed to the concept of “Pacing” a week back!

Post a week of frantic appraisal discussions with the team at work, all I wanted on a Saturday morning was a long date with my running shoes and my playlist (playing Ed Sheeran and Sia incessantly amidst Bangalore traffic was just not enough). Till the coach (who is also the husband) asked me to “Pace” someone else from our running group.

I was categorically told to “pace” this friend for the entire 7 km stretch and refrain from changing my “speed” irrespective of how tempted I get. Worse is….he repeated this not once but thrice to me resulting in a small voice going in my head “How hard that can be?”. I was also told the objective of this is to make my friend increase her pace of running.

And for the first time, I realized that “slowing down” is much difficult that “going faster”. When you pace someone else, you let go off your natural speed of running and have to keep running in sync with your running partner.  

Before some of you start complaining …this is not Facebook but LinkedIn …let me give you the relevance. In our professional life, the moment we become a manager, we should stop running and start pacing. Considering how hard “pacing” is, no wonder so many of us fail to be good managers but are wonderful individual performers. We are so used to running at our own pace that we don't realize there are others who are faster and slower than we are.

As an Individual contributor, we can run as fast as we can. Our running will progress as per our practice and training. However, as a manager, if we run …most of the time we will be left standing on the track alone (with the team far behind or ahead of us depending on our speed vis a vis the team).

Leading a team is “pacing” with so many different types of runners, whose speed and stamina are different from us but all of us are expected to reach the end line together as a team. If your team has mostly runners faster than you are, it’s very important that you practice harder to sync up with their pace. However, the real challenge comes when your team has runners with speed slower than yours. As a manager and a coach we cannot run faster than they do. We will need to constantly pace alongside them guiding them and encouraging them to speed up.

So as managers…this month (or anytime as a matter of fact) when you are evaluating the team, please appraise them on how they have progressed in terms of their own speed and not in terms of the speed of the “Manager” i.e you. Also do spend some thoughts about how you have paced alongside them to help them speed up….

Happy Appraisals everyone!! May the “Ratings” be ever in your favour :-) :-)!

PS: Yes I am a Hunger games fan!