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Article Dependability In 1995, Christopher Reeve had it all. He was married to his best friend, Dana. He had three wonderful children, and his family enjoyed a house and estate in beautiful West Chester County, New York. It seemed he could do anything he set his mind to. He was an accomplished pianist who had composed classical music. He was an avid outdoorsman, and a superb athlete, an expert sailor, a licensed pilot, an excellent skier, a scuba diver, and a horseman. And of course, he experienced great success in his acting career. As a teenager, he had decided to pursue a career in show business and by age sixteen, he had an agent. He had entered Cornell University and The Juilliard School, learned his craft, and began getting work as a professional actor. At the 1979 Academy Awards, John Wayne turned to Cary Grant and said of Reeve, “This is our new man. He is taking over for us.” Aided not only by his acting skills, but also by his good looks and imposing physique at six feet, four inches tall, he became a star. In 1995 at age forty-two, Reeve had performed in seventeen feature films, including the blockbuster, Superman; a dozen movies for television; and about one hundred and fifty plays. He was financially secure and had achieved critical acclaim. But then his life was turned upside down. On May 27, 1995, during the cross-country portion of a riding competition, Christopher Reeve was thrown from his horse. He crashed head first into the fence his horse refused to jump and then fell on the ground. He sustained an injury to his spine at the first and second vertebrae and his breathing stopped. He was paralyzed from the neck down. If the paramedics had not arrived in minutes, he would not have lived. Reeve had no memory of the fall. He remembered the time he spent in the stables a few minutes before the ride. The next thing he remembered is waking up a few days later in the intensive care unit of the University of Virginia Hospital. During those few intense days, doctors kept him alive with a respirator, stabilized him, and literally reattached his head to his spine surgically. The damage Reeve had sustained is sometimes called the “hangman’s injury.” Reeve later quipped “It was as if I had been hanged, cut down, and sent to rehab.” He was given a fifty percent chance of surviving. A serious spinal cord injury is difficult for any person to survive, emotionally as well as physically. An injury that leaves you helpless must be unfathomably devastating. But in the hours after he first woke up, he began to understand the real importance of a team. “When they told me what my condition was, I felt I was no longer a human being,” he recalls. “Then Dana came into my room and knelt down to the level of my bed. We made eye contact. I said, ‘Dana, this isn’t worth it. Maybe I should just check out.’ She was crying and she said, ‘But you are still you and I love you,’ and that saved my life.” Before the accident, Christopher and Dana Reeve had a good marriage. But in the years since then, they developed an even stronger partnership. Chris, Dana, and their son, Will, functioned as the core of that team. But they also developed a wonderful larger team around them consisting of an army of medical professionals. Some assisted Chris with his physical therapy, exercises, and respiratory therapy. Others fed, clothed, and bathed him, as well as helped with other personal needs. Someone had to turn him over hourly each night as he slept and he saw numerous specialists on a regular basis. At first, the people around him simply kept him alive. But then, they wanted to keep him healthy. “What you begin to say to yourself instead of what life do I have is what life can I build. And the answer, surprisingly, is more than you think.” Reeve hoped some day to walk again. He understood his need for dependable people on his team. “If all the people who are around to help me were mad at me or in a lousy mood or whatever and they went away,” he observed, “there would be nothing I could do about it, absolutely nothing. It all comes down to goodwill. Nobody has to do any of those things. I’m completely dependable on them.” That is the way it is on every team. We can see it as clearly as Reeve did. Teammates must be able to depend on one another. Dependability may not always be a matter of life and death as it was for Christopher Reeve, but it is certainly important for every team’s success. We know it when we have people on our team upon whom we can depend. Every one on the team knows it. Likewise, we know the ones we can depend on. Allow me to note what I consider the essence of dependability. (1) Pure motives. Aristotle believed that “All we do is done with an eye to something else.” Evidently, he believed you cannot trust anyone’s motives. I do not agree with that. Most of the time, I give people the benefit of the doubt. I try to keep my motives rights and I encourage teammates to do likewise. However, if someone on the team continually puts himself and his agenda ahead of what is best for the team, he has proven himself to be undependable. When it comes to teamwork, motives matter. (2) Responsibility. Another quality of a dependable team player is a strong sense of responsibility. New York Times best selling author and former editor, Michael Korda, emphasized, “In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have is the ability to take on responsibility. While motivation addresses why people are dependable, responsibility indicates that they want to be dependable. That desire is described effectively by poet Edward Everett Hale who wrote, “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.” Dependable team members possess the desire to do the things they are capable of doing and doing them for the benefit of the team. (3) Sound thinking. Gene Maurine, the editor of the Examiner, once sent a new sports reporter to cover an important game. But when the young man returned, he did not have a story. Maurine asked why. The reporter replied simply, “No game.” “No game, what happened?” asked Maurine. “The stadium collapsed,” responded the reporter. “Then where is the story on the stadium collapsing?” asked the editor. “That wasn’t my assignment, sir,” answered the reporter. The potential for a news scoop went right down the tubes because of the young man’s inability to think well. Dependability means more than just wanting to take responsibility. That desire must be coupled with good judgment to be of real value to the team. The final quality of a dependable team player is consistency. If we cannot depend on teammates all the time, then we cannot really depend on them any of the time. Consistency takes more than talent, it takes a depth of character that enables people to follow through no matter how tired or distracted or overwhelmed they may feel. As Britain’s eloquent and steadfast prime minister of World War II, Winston Churchill, said, “It is not enough that we do our best. Sometimes we have to do what is required.” Some questions to ask ourselves are whether or not our teammates are able to depend on us? Can they trust our motives? Do we make good decisions that others can rely on? Have we demonstrated good judgment and do we perform consistently even when we do not feel like performing? And are we a player that others can go to for help in crunch times? For more information about Ken Chapman and Associates’ Leadership Development Programs, contact Ken Chapman at 205.366.0265 or email Ken at kchapman@leaderscode.com. <End> |
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