Don’t Send Your Ducks To Eagle School
Why? Because it won’t work. Good people are found, not changed. They can change themselves, but you can’t change them. If you want good people, you have to find them. If you want motivated people, you have to find them, not motivate them. Motivation is mystery. Why are some people motivated and some are not? Call it “mysteries of the mind.” Chalk it up to mysteries of mind, and don’t waste your time trying to turn ducks into eagles. Hire people,find people who already Eagles, and then just let them soar. If you send ducks to eagle school, you will frustrate the ducks. Ducks are not supposed to be eagles-nor do they want to become eagles. Who they are is who they should be. Ducks have their strength and should be appreciated for them. They’re excellent swimmers. Ask an eagle to swim or to migrate thousands of miles, and it’s going to be in trouble.
Leadership is all about placing people in the right place so they can be successful. As a leader, you should always challange people to move out of their comfort zone, but never out of their strength zone. Not Only Duck, The Eagles can be frustrated..Even, if you send ducks to Eagle School, You will frustrate Yourself. Birds of a feather flock together. Eagles don’t want to hang around with ducks. They don’t want to live in a barnyard or swim in a pond. Their potential makes them impatient with those who cannot soar. People who are used to moving fast and flying high are easily frustrated by people who want to hold them back.
Have you ever led people who never did rise up and fulfill your expectations? No matter how much you motivated them, trained them, provided them with resources, or gave them opportunities, they just didn’t perform according to your expectations? Maybe they weren’t the problem. Maybe you were. Cats do what cats do, ducks do what ducks do, and eagles do what eagle do. If you take a duck and ask it to do an eagle’s job, shame on you. As a leader, your job is to help your ducks to become better ducks and your eagles better eagles-to put individuals in the right places and help them reach their potential. Over the years, sometimes we’ve the mistake of trying to turn ducks into eagles. All we did was frustrate them and ourselves. We shouldn’t ask someone to grow in areas where they have no natural talent.
Why?
Because our ability to grow and change is very different depending on whether or not we can make choices. In areas where we have choices, our growth potential is unlimited. Attitude is a choice. Character is a choice. Responsibility is a choice. So , for example, if we have terrible attitude –a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10- We can improve it all the way up to a 10 by making the right choices. We can choose to have a great attitude. In contrast, natural ability is not a choice. It’s a gift. You have whatever you have. The only real choice you have is whether or not you will try to develop it. And if you do, the growth in that area will hot be as dramatic.
Therefore, if a person is born a 3 in a given area, he may be able to become a 5, but he’ll never go from a 3 to a 10. So if you have someone who is a great swimmer and loves to fly in V formation, send him to duck school. No matter how motivated or intelligent he is, he’ll never become an eagle. You cannot put in something that God has left out. If you can’t find any potential eagles within your organization, search for them outside of it. In other words, if you need a great eagles, go find a potential eagle. Only then do you have the possibility of developing that person into a great eagle. Don’t get a duck. No matter how much you train that person, all you’ll receive is a “quack”
Taken from Book, John C. Maxwell “Leadership Gold”
