When I was in tenth grade, I attended a leadership camp where we played a game called “Win As Much As You Can.” I love games, and I still remember this one because it had a punchline (spoiler alert): the meaning of “you” was ambiguous — was it intended to be understood as plural or singular? Your interpretation would affect how you played the game and what you understood as a win.
I think of this example often, partly because I move quite fluidly between individual and collective pursuits.
In my work as a coach, I find that many leadership principles that apply to individuals can often be applied equally well to organizations or even sectors. Similarly, I’m becoming increasingly convinced that skills generally thought of as individual pursuits, such as imagination and curiosity, are even more powerful when experienced together. (You can read more about that in ELASTIC.)
So I am generally not too worried about whether the “you” is singular or plural, as it’s usually both.
Until it isn’t.
Recently, I realized that I’d been showing up to play a collective game when others in that same community were playing an individual game, and that’s when things got tricky.
Not life threatening, but I took it as a good reminder that even if a game can be interpreted both ways, it helps for everyone involved to be explicit about which way it’s actually being played. Otherwise, you risk understanding your win quite differently.
Useful as you reimagine your next chapter, individually or corporately: take time to sort out what success looks like before you roll the dice.
Photo by Laura Rincón from Pexels.