Service Management Leadership - Ted Williams Mindset

Speaker A: Back in 1941, Ted Williams, famous baseball player, was the first and only player to ever finish a regular season hitting above.400, 400 or above, meaning he got a hit on 40% of his at bats. Really good baseball players will be at.330% average.250, 275. So 25, 27% chance of a base hit. Every time they come up to bat and people ask, um, hey, Ted Williams, you've done something nobody else has done and nobody's done since. And it's been almost 100 years, right? 1941 is 85 years ago. But his philosophy was for that year, and it makes sense to us in our IT world, that he had a zone. In this zone was where he knew that if a pitch came through, he could make a hit. So his philosophy was, I, uh, will not swing at any pitch that's outside of this particular zone, even if it's a strike. He gets three strikes, but before he's out. So he said, you know, I'm going to limit my, my swing zone to very small, knowing I can, I can do something with this. And even if it's a strike, even if he strikes out, he's like, I don't care. I want to, I want to be in my special zone. And I think there's a lesson for us technology leaders today that there's stuff coming down the pipe every day, coming at us every day, and we swing at too many pitches. We try to address things that maybe we shouldn't have. Uh, maybe they were outside of our sweet zone that we know we can hit every time. And don't you see that? Right? Because we feel like we have to swing at everything, but we don't. We need to be able to say no to things that we are not great at. Maybe it's something that somebody else is great at. So we let them do that through delegation. But we swing at, uh, way too many things. We should be saying no to things, even if they're a strike, just so that we can hit something. We have focus, and we can hit something that is in our sweet spot. If we are going to be successful as technology leaders, we have to know where our sweet spot is. I know where mine is, and I hope to, uh, delve into that a little later on a different podcast. But it's been a new realization for me. I have found that I am very good at a very small sliver of things, but I apply that in different situations, and it's enabled me to be successful in those So I want to encourage you. Find your sweet spot. Don't swing unless you have to at things that are not, uh, on, not inside your swing, your sweet spot. Delegate if you have to. But it's okay to say no to things that may be just a little bit outside your sweet spot. That's my wisdom for today. My name is Jeffrey Tefertiller. I am, um, the founder of Service Management Leadership. I ask that you follow our LinkedIn company page. Let me know how I can help your organization. And I hope you have an awesome, awesome rest of your day. Bye.