Stop! You’re doing it wrong. — A Terrible Blog Post #10

Chris Dwan
Sep 5, 2018 · 4 min read
“person doing exercise” by Victor Freitas on Unsplash

Good morning, Dear Reader. I’m glad to see that you came back. I know it’s a little lonely here, just me and you, but we can have some fun chatting about random ideas that are important to me. What you want to talk about things that are important to you? That is hillarious.

Wait, don’t go. You’re the only person reading this and I need someone to talk to. Today I’m going to tell the story of an inspiring leader and one of the great qualities he has.

Several years ago I had the privilege of being one of the first members of a new Crossfit box in Vancouver called Crossfit 604. (604 is Vancouver’s original telephone area code before we got 778 added) Jason Darr opened Crossfit 604 because he wanted to start the gym that he really wanted to attend himself.

Jason was able to recruit the best trainers and I‘m pretty sure most of them are still working for him at the box. One of the things that you’ll notice if you train there is that there’s a consistency in coaching excellence. It doesn’t matter much who runs your class, you’re going to get a great experience with quality coaching. This doesn’t happen by accident. It requires a leader with a vision and the ability to hold people to it.

Recently I was back at the box for a drop-in workout and I had the pleasure of being in a class being run by Jason himself. It was this experience that really got me thinking about the leadership qualities that Jason brings to the table and the things I admire about how he does things. The first thing that you’ll notice is that he is completely unwavering on his rule that before every class, everyone in the gym shakes everyone’s hand and introduces themselves. Year after year, class after class, he never backs down, and he holds the other coaches to that standard as well.

I don’t want to rush by this point because it seems small, but it’s not. I’ve been a visitor to a number of Crossfit boxes over the years and it’s a terrible experience to show up as a visitor and not have a single person say ‘hi’ and shake my hand. It’s a small thing to hold people’s feet to the fire and force them to say hello, but it’s has a huge importance. Small things are big.

Now let’s get to the titular thing that I noticed from Jason. (you know, the thing that’s in the title of the blog post. I probably used that word completely wrong, but that’s perfect. It adds a dash of terrible to this post for flavour) Jason was also unwavering in not letting people add more weight to a barbell unless they had good form with a movement. For some reason, he’s the only coach that I can remember who would tell people clearly. “Stop. Put it down, go back to a lower weight.”

The best part for me was seeing how clear and direct he was without seeming like a jerk at all. He was confident. He knew what good form looked like. He could see that the good form wasn’t there and he directed people clearly what they needed to do to progress to good form without injuring themselves.

This is something that I struggle with in leading software teams. I can see behaviours that are not ideal or code that is poorly written and hard to maintain and I want to say clearly, “stop, you’re going to hurt yourself” but I don’t know how to do it without sounding like a jerk. In thinking about the scenario with Jason, I think I see some patterns though.

First of all, he established himself as an expert and embodied his role as an expert. I think it’s too common in software development that we want to remain open to possibilities and not offend people’s creativity so we’re less willing to say “I’m the expert. I know what I’m doing.” Maybe that’s just me, but I’m pretty sure it’s rampant in startups at least. Or perhaps it’s just a function of there being so many people that are self-taught and feel like perpetual learners.

The second thing is that he was direct and unapologetic. I suspect that being direct and apologetic is worse than being unapologetic. Perhaps it just goes back to the point of being the expert. If you say something then apologize, then it takes away from your confidence and then you sound like you’re not sure but you’re making a suggestion. Can the person trust you as an expert now?

The third thing that I notice is that he was clear about progress. He wasn’t stopping the person for the sake of stopping them. He was getting them to take a step back so that they could progress forward. It will probably help in my own leadership practice if I do the same thing more clearly. I can express to people that I want them to stop that behaviour and try something different so that they can progress forward.

I’ve used up more than my allotted time to write today, but hopefully Dear Reader I kept your attention for a spell and gave you some interesting things to think about. Thanks Jason for your leadership at Crossfit 604. I’ve benefitted greatly over the years and still am drawing out benefits.

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Doing all the Software Development Things for 20 years

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