Welcome back to Sunday Stories. The past 7 weeks have been part of the Disruption series, which was a bit of a doom-and-gloom look at the reality of our rapidly changing times. I felt it was time to pivot to something a bit more cheery, so the next few weeks’ we’re going to be taking a breath and talk about a children’s show. But not just any children’s show - we’re going to be talking about lessons for leaders from “Bluey”, an Australian kids show that has taken the world by storm.
“Bluey” tells the story of the Heeler family - Bluey, the eldest child, her younger sister Bingo, and their dad Bandit and mom Chili, with a cast of colourful characters in their city. The show provides accessible short stories - 8 minutes each usually - that teach incredibly valuable life lessons to toddlers and young children, like the importance of sharing, teamwork, and friendship. It simultaneously teaches parents about the significance of their lives too, jerking tears from even the most stoic eyes on topics ranging from miscarriages, the aging of elder parents, and life transitions like moving cities and leaving friends and families because of a job. It’s also important to mention that the “sharing” episode and the “aging of elder parents” episodes are likely the exact same episode. Pixar is famous for making movies for kids with occasional humour for grownups, but “Bluey” makes Pixar look hamfisted in terms of nuance to the writing. And don’t just take my word for it - “Bluey’s” recently had its first-ever special 30 minute episode that tugged on so many families heartstrings that CBC news released an article saying “Go easy on parents this week, the “Bluey” season finale released this weekend and they probably aren’t OK”.
“Bluey” is one of the best shows ever made - top 15 of all time on IMDB, and it’s only on Season 3, for these reasons I mentioned above. It’s also the perfect illustration of the “Simple, not Easy” frame that was taught to me by a dear friend and mentor, Chris Fukushima. There are things in life that are plainly clear and it’s simple to understand how one should respond or act, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy to respond that way. For the next few weeks, we’ll take my favourite Bluey episodes and break them down, unpacking the leadership lessons along the way that highlight the lesson, and we’re going to start with my favourite episode: “Cricket”. (If you want to watch, here's a link to a 2-minute section which is embedded below, and here's a link to the full episode on Disney+ if you are logged in. If neither works for you, it's Season 3, episode 47).
This episode is all about the community getting together for a bit of a picnic, featuring a cricket game for the kids. Lunch is served, and the call goes out, and the adults and kids alike agree that they’ll go eat as soon as Rusty - who is currently at bat - strikes out. The adults are all avid cricket-players, and they are fairly confident that they’ll soon be eating lunch. After all, how good can a little kid be at cricket, right? Famous. Last. Words.
It starts with a normal pitch, but the adults didn’t realize just how much Rusty loved Cricket. He played with friends, his brother and sister, and his dad, and when there was no one to play with, Rusty played by himself by hitting a tennis ball against a wall and then re-hitting the bounce back over and over again. Rusty squares up and hits every pitch every single time - and lunch is waiting. The parents then get creative, and decide to throw the ball in such a way that Rusty will have no choice but to hit it directly to the other two grownups standing to his right.
Except they didn’t account for Rusty having practiced that exact scenario so that he wouldn’t break his mum’s kitchen window. Rusty hits the ball right in the open space, with precision that would make a sniper jealous.
The adults then decide they won’t hold back and pitch to a kid like a grownup - clearly this kid is good and ready for some real throws, and they figure that Rusty may take a step back if the ball is going too fast, giving them the strike-out.
Except Rusty has an older brother, and they already gave him a “Trial by Fire” of having to experience fast pitches. At first, Rusty is scared of these fast pitches from Tiny, his brother’s friend, but a letter from his dad - who you find out is serving in the military overseas - gives Rusty some valuable advice: “I wish I could be there to bowl a few at you, but I can’t right now mate. But look, as you grow up, you’ll face harder things than a cricket ball, and you’ll have two choices: Back away and get out, or stand in front and pull a shot”.
I’m sure we all could have used a letter like that from someone at some point in our lives, eh? (I’m lucky in this way - I have a few letters, thanks to a leader I admire greatly who knew the power of a letter and ensured me and my colleagues had a stack of them to refer to when times called for some sage advice. I refer to them often).
So, it comes as no surprise that Rusty has no problem standing at bat and taking a swing at the balls the adults throw at him with a bit of heat behind them. The adults then scheme to throw the pitch directly at a crack on the ground right in front of Rusty, expecting the bounce to be unpredictable and causing Rusty to miss it.
Except they didn’t account for Rusty having played at his mate’s place, in a yard full of roots, dirt, and uneven ground - he’s no stranger to a wonky pitch, and again he knocks the ball out of the park. Lunch is still waiting, but man, this kid is just so damn good at cricket.
Finally, the adults stop messing around and the best of them grabs the ball to pitch. He puts everything he has behind that throw and tosses it straight at Rusty. The narrator - Bandit - notes that with all the power behind that throw, Rusty could have easily knocked it into the middle of next week if he had connected.
And connect he did, but not to the middle of next week. The ball went straight up, and then straight back down and landed directly in his little sister’s hands, getting Rusty out, giving his little sister the incredible pride of finally doing what the grownups couldn’t do, and the result being sending the kids running for lunch - and leaving the adults gobsmacked knowing full well that Little Rusty did all that on purpose.
There’s a few lessons here. The first is about underestimating people. We’ve all made that mistake before, and it’s one we’ll likely make again - but our estimates are only as good as our information, and if I were to include “Never underestimate people” as the advice from this blog, it would be a bit cliche and simple - there’s nobody reading it who doesn’t already know that. Instead, the advice is this: we often don’t notice the information that allows us to make a good estimate of someone - Rusty’s cricket passion wasn’t a secret, and maybe if the grownups had been paying more attention to the stories of their children or neighbours, they would know that Rusty was basically a cricket Wayne Gretzky at his young age.
The other side of the coin is that some people claim to be Wayne Gretzky, but they are in fact more like Brent (That’s Wayne’s brother - also an NHL player. In fact, Wayne and Brett hold the record for points for brothers in the NHL - Wayne with his 2857 points, and Brent with his 4.) And if that’s the case, at least you are still getting a professional - many who claim to be Wayne end up actually being more like…well, more like me in terms of their hockey skills, which I stopped developing when I was a teenager. The point is, this “Don’t underestimate people” has a counter point of “don’t overestimate people because you like them” and it gets hard to know how to dial in your estimations of folks as a leader. And because all of us carry our own biases and attitudes that may impact those estimations, it gets even harder - how do you know that new hire is a Rusty, a Wayne, or a guy who stopped learning the skills needed 20 years ago?
The lesson here is: When people show you who they are you should believe them. If your new hire is showing you he’s a Rusty, and the people working with him are calling him a Rusty, then you should accept you've got a Rusty and know you’ve got a good one there. And that’s great! But the opposite is also true - if someone is showing you they are the opposite of a Rusty, it’s important to notice those moments too, even if you thought you hired a Rusty. Maybe there’s something you can do to give them the hours of cricket practice needed to be more like Rusty, or maybe not - the point is don’t ignore the information, and when people show you who they are you should believe them.
The final lesson from this episode is an illustration of the Dunning-Krueger effect in a real-world (okay, an animated dog-world) scenario. The Dunning-Krueger effect is simply stating that those with the most confidence in their knowledge often have the lowest actual knowledge - in other words, folks who think they know the most in many cases know the least. This tracks with a common framework in higher education and skill training known as the Four Stages of Competence - when you first start doing something, you do not know what you do not know. Not only do you lack knowledge in a domain, but you don’t even know how much knowledge there is to have in the domain. From this stage of “unconsciously incompetent”, a person moves to “consciously incompetent” - this is where they DO have a rough idea of how much knowledge is in a given domain, and they know they don’t have it. From there, they move to “consciously competent” - which basically means they know what to do, but they have to think really hard about doing it and concentrate on it. The final stage is “Unconsciously competent” - that’s when someone has been doing something for so long, they can do it without even thinking.
This “unconscious incompetence” runs into the Dunning-Kruger effect when we consider how we often translate knowledge - it’s alleged that Einstein once said “Those who cannot explain it simply, do not understand it well enough”, and much of our good information is translated into a simple, easy-to-understand format by those who are “unconsciously competent” - experts who are exceptionally knowledgeable about what they do. If a person mistakes their understanding of an expert’s simple explanation for any kind of actual expertise, it can create a leadership pitfall. For example, I just explained the four stages of competence to readers in a simple, easy to follow way - but they’d be mistaken if the reader thought that based on those 4 stages, you understood adult learning. A person might feel they do, but in reality there’s so much more to know.
This is the adults in the cricket game. They were pretty confident that they were the best players on the field - they were, after all, playing with a bunch of kids. But their confidence was not matched by their competency - they were unable to strike out Rusty.
Bringing these things together gives you a major leadership lesson: The combination of ignoring information about others - not believing them when they show you who they are - with the Dunning-Kruger effect of thinking we know more than we do, is a toxic leadership pitfall that many people fall into. Leadership isn’t about knowing all the answers - it’s about knowing what you don’t know, bringing the right people people together to fill those gaps, and getting people to work together towards the goal or solution. And the best way to know who the “right people” are is: Pay attention, and believe when they show you who they are.
Simple right?
But not easy! (Thanks, Chris).
See you next Sunday where Bluey will teach us a few more leadership lessons!
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