Being Canadian, many of the principles we discuss in business are invariably wrapped in hockey analogies. ‘The Gretzky Principle’ stresses the development of The Great One’s most differentiating skill - his intuitive ability to go in advance to where the puck will soon be - over building the raw physical attributes required to get it there.
Canadians often equate organizational leaders to hockey coaches and the concept of building complementary organizational skill sets with building balanced teams. We say that parts of our organizations keep us out of the “penalty box”.
A very effective business analogy involves a hockey game on the roof of a tall office building. The scenario supposes that an ice slab covers the entire surface of the roof, right to the edges. There are no boards.
It’s easy to imagine the type of game that would ensue. The puck drops and everyone huddles desperately in the middle, gingerly trying to keep the puck away from the edges. Terrible to watch, resembling less a hockey game than a nervous dance. Almost immediately, both teams would collude to stay safe. No winners. The game would end as soon as possible. It would never resume.
Unless . . . to continue the analogy, you take the same scenario and add immovable boards around the entire ice surface. You will have a dramatically different game. You now present the players with the opportunity to play all out. To show who is the superstar; to reveal those who shrink from the spotlight. It’s fast and exciting. There is winning. There is progress.
The “boards” are the rules that govern the activities of the company’s employees (the players). Absolute rules that, if properly understood and respected, allow the company’s talent to play hard and close to the more lucrative edges. Of course, this passion is only unleashed if the company’s boards are immovable - absolute. To give this assurance, a company’s “boards” ought to flow directly from its first principles.
It’s a very good business analogy, but it has far deeper implications. The "boards" are control itself. The "boards" are the Ten Commandments.
The boards protect the entire society. At various times in history, they have been torn down. Always in times of great decadence. In turn, leading every single time to entire societies running headlong into great disaster and the worst of times.
And to this place we run again.
"Control" is an interesting word - a state of being that is always present. It does not disappear as does "contentment". Its closest synonym would be “order”. From “order” flows “safety”, “confidence”, “courage” . . . “happiness”.
There is control . . . or there is not. Control cannot be measured. No employee would tell their boss that things were “mostly in control”. It can only be sensed, as though alive. Its presence, or lack of it, can evoke anywhere between "bliss" and "terror" on the emotional spectrum.
Control cannot be controlled. The response of the hockey players clearly demonstrates that control is the necessary first ingredient in playing to win. Without boards, there is no control and the players will not wait for someone to skate off the edge before deciding to give up and huddle.
You cannot create without control. You instead seek to simplify. When the urge to create is extinguished, the first casualty is hope. Without hope, many instead seek out the huddled group, content within its mediocrity and its insistence to play on without the boards.
To play on without control. Without hope.
I suppose that this sadly reveals the truth of our present situation. Though two sides vehemently oppose one another in all their rhetoric, both complain of the same essential truth. To both sides, the current sense of “control” is unacceptable and unsustainable. One side wants to re-install the ancient boards. In the other game, the choice is to huddle. Look at our children.
We can observe the two very different games during the small space of our own lifetimes. In the one now underway, the huddle grows larger by the day.
The other game, its long-sustaining boards now shredded, is surely lamented more and more by those who let it happen.