Non-Hypothetical Reasons for Being Provide Critical Context for Deep Work

Your local municipal rec center will likely host any meeting you want. I can see the fold out chairs, hand pump coffee station, and those giant bulletin boards outlined with the wavy heavy card stock paper that doubles as arts and craft paper for a children’s crown-making-party. You could call it, Introduction to Effective Leadership in the Digital Age. 

You could have well designed handouts, a charismatic speech, and even an engaging Powerpoint. Yet, somehow we know that the rec center leadership workshop series isn’t going to produce the leaders we want and need for our organizations and communities. 

What is that all about? 

Groups with longevity, rich learning environments, and human development (especially in areas like leadership development) benefit from non-hypothetical environments. That’s why DEUCE Gym is a fitness facility for our customers, but a hidden-in-plain-sight leadership school for those who work here. 

Leadership worksheets and break out groups are far less effective than the real (or perceived) challenges that impede progress to a meaningful, consequential goal.

If the work is difficult enough, then a group decides to move together toward a shared goal will inherit the need for leadership. 

It is when someone can actually lose their job or forces outside of your control threaten your success or current realities will not suffice for future survival that real leadership becomes relevant. 

In fact, leadership is even possible in an environment with no stakes, because leadership is about paying the price for failure. If you intend to teach (or learn) anything meaningful, you’ll need a tangible reason for being first and it can’t be conceptual.