Mike, an HVAC foreman for a large general contractor in eastern Washington, told Session 6B of the Leadership Development LAB:

"On May 6th, my 6-year old daughter, Kaitlyn, had a state bowling tournament in Olympia. She was bowling in a league on Saturdays but this was her first tournament ever. Three days before this tournament, I took her to the bowling alley to practice. As she was bowling and I was watching, I decided to make a huge adjustment to her game, knowing that if she could learn what I was going to teach her, she could make a big improvement in her game. If she couldn’t pick it up quickly, she could always go back to her original style. What she was doing was standing about two feet from the foul line, swinging the ball, and as the ball was on the downswing, she would finish by taking one step with her left foot and follow through. What I wanted her to do is stand back by the dots, about eight feet away from the foul line and use a four step approach. I told her, ‘ What must be done is push the ball away from your body at the same time you take your first step with the same leg and just walk while you swing the ball and trust that you will end up with the correct posture.’ We worked on this method for twenty minutes and she was getting so frustrated, she told me she wanted to go back to her old way, but she was so close to getting

it that I insisted that we give it a little more time. Ten minutes later it all clicked, it was very fluid and gave her more ball speed and increased accuracy. The biggest key to it all was getting her to believe and trust that this new approach would make her a better bowler. I saw a new found confidence in her. She was ready.

There is no coaching allowed during tournament play. Just before the tournament started, I refreshed her memory on the timing of when to get her feet and push away started. I said, ‘Just walk with the ball and everything else will be okay.’ She entered the tournament with an average of 61. She bowled a total of nine games in two days. Her low score for the tournament was a 70. She had four games in the 90’s and three games in the 100’s, with an all time high of 141, 80 pins over her 61 average. Wow!!!

The lesson I learned from this experience is to pass on my knowledge to everyone I care about when they are in their learning/ growing stages to prevent bad and insure good habits. The action I call you to take is when you have an opportunity to help a team member improve their performance, DO IT.

The benefit you will gain is a great sense of accomplishment and pride, knowing that you are a piece of the puzzle that provided the winning combination."