I know this may sound out of place, but I have been taken by a popular TV series– Ted Lasso. More than 40 years ago, a colleague suggested I watch the movie, Hoosiers. It illustrated what a helping relationship is, and what it is not. I love that movie, but Ted Lasso hits the nail on the head.
For those unfamiliar with the series, it is about a mid-western football coach from Kansas, Ted Lasso, who is hired to coach an English Premier League football team—soccer to Americans. Ted has never coached soccer in his life. He is hired by the owner who wants to get back at her ex, who owns the franchise, by having the football club fail. The plot seems somewhat simple, and at times, downright corny, but if you hang with it, you realize is not about football, it is about leadership.
There are so many metaphors throughout every episode in the series. For example, Ted brought his boss a gift every day. The boss learns to love her gift – a small box of home baked biscuits (cookies). The boss appears very fit, and slim-she does not look to me like a person who eats cookies every day. At first, she’s dismissive of his offerings. Soon though, she does not just take his biscuits; she eagerly awaits them and eats them voraciously the minute Ted hands her the box each morning. This is not about biscuits. To me, it’s about the gifts his leadership behavior brings to the (literal and figurative) table.
Each episode brings more lessons. One of his coaches ends up leaving and clearly must justify his departure. He does his best to hurt Ted. What does Ted do? He forgives him and makes a point of telling his associates that holding anger and grudges serves no purpose. Don’t burn bridges.
The team, made up of star football players from around the world, models something we strive for in agency makeup – a team with cultural and economic diversity. For example, one player is a young Nigerian forward, who is wise beyond his years. His father visits and models what we all would pray to have as a father. Another player, the seemingly self-absorbed “franchise player,” full of himself, always “wants the ball” – You learn his bragging and behavior is all an act—one that grew out of his working-class family in Manchester. In the end, he is transformed by an unexpected visit from his estranged father—the source of his angst. After the team is blown out by Manchester City-the powerhouse of the Premier League-his father mocks him in front of the entire team. He loses it and knocks the old man to the floor. The moment becomes a turning point. Unresolved feelings of shame and embarrassment become an inflection point in his life. The entire team gets it. Regardless their cultural or economic diversity, they can all relate to the emotions the other players feel—they’re all human.
The most insightful installation of Ted’s impromptu leadership behavior being integrated into the league (read, agency), was the formation of the Diamond Dogs. The coaches and their staff (read, leadership team) tag themselves the Diamond Dogs, spontaneously convening meetings when one of their members has a deeply personal issue to discuss. Essentially, Ted initiated and then led group therapy.
At the end of the series, a journalist named Trent presents Ted with his draft manuscript and proposes to write a biography of the team. In a previous role, the journalist, writing for an English tabloid, had reported on a deeply personal weakness he saw in Ted’s coaching abilities – Ted’s panic attacks. Trent did the unforgivable – he exposed Ted’s secret. (A no-no for the Bait Box.) Regardless, Ted allows Trent to sit in on every team gathering going forward. The final manuscript, which the viewers never see, is titled, The Ted Lasso Way. You know what it is about. It is not about football. It is about transparency and leadership.
My title for this blog, The Forest Service Way is taking from this metaphor. Like the manuscript in Ted Lasso, we Forest Service employees never see the personal stories and nuances of how leadership develops in writing. Looking back, I did not realize what an extraordinary situation we had working in the Forest Service at that time. Now I do.
E.B. 2023