Spin

Below, I'm going to tell you two stories of how my race went this weekend:

Story 1:

Yesterday, I was so excited to compete as an Elite Triathlete for the first time ever at the Philly Triathlon.  I shaved off 5 minutes in my bike time and 4 minutes off my run time from last year's Philly Tri. I finished 8th* in the Female Elite division.  I'm so excited that my times keep improving this season.

Story 2:

Yesterday's Philly triathlon ended up being a duathlon because of a torrential downpour. The race directors cancelled the swim - which was really bad news for me because the swim is by far my strongest leg of the triathlon.  The race started way behind schedule and was really muddy.  I lost my Garmin watch -- an expensive piece of equipment -- during the bike portion so I couldn't keep track of my time. I ended up getting second to last in my division.

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Both of these stories are true. Like with most stories, there are key points that I add or leave out depending on my audience or on how I feel about what happened.  If I hadn't taken off a bunch of time from the previous year, I probably would have told more people the second version of the story. In reality, I'm really happy about how I did, so I've been telling people the first version.

People spin stories and issues all the time. As a business leader, I try to keep spin in mind whenever someone brings something to my attention -- It's important for uncovering problems and understanding the full picture before making a decision on something.  Here are some of my favorite questions:

• What do you mean by _____?
• If you do _____, how will it affect ________?
• If you were looking at this from ___'s perspective, how would he/she describe it?
• What's the upside of this?

Spin is also important for positive thinking. Almost every bad situation has something positive about it - something to be learned, a new opportunity, or a way to start from scratch. Positive thinking is incredibly important for leading a team.  It's hard to motivate people who can't see the silver lining.

So use spin! It's great! But also be aware of it.  It helps keep me both optimistic and realistic.  

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*My unofficial results after that race had me in 6th, but the official results had me at 8th.