Ted: “Back home, when a team was playing poorly, we didn’t call them unlucky. What do we call them, Coach?”
Beard: “New York Jets.”
Well, that was unnecessary.
The NFL season kicks off this week, which means millions of Americans will once again spend their Sundays (or Thursdays, Mondays and even Wednesdays) experiencing joy, disappointment, hope, anger, and an irrational belief that yelling at a television can influence professional athletes hundreds of miles away.
And for at least one of us writing this newsletter, it means another season of being a New York Jets fan.
We bring this up because of one of our favorite throwaway jokes from Ted Lasso. In Season 2, Ted is talking about Richmond’s run of bad luck and asks Beard what they called a team playing poorly back home.
“New York Jets.”
Ouch.
But that's the thing about reputations. Once you've earned one, they can be awfully hard to shake.
🏟 Everyone Has a Scouting Report
Sports fans do this constantly. We decide a team is clutch. Or cursed. Well coached. Poorly run. Winners. Chokers. The team may replace its players, coaches, executives, uniforms, and stadium, but somehow the story survives all of them.
We do something similar with people.
He's difficult. She's quiet. He's not a leader. She's unreliable. He's the funny one. She's the smart one. He's bad under pressure. She's not ready for that.
Sometimes those assessments start with a little truth. Maybe even a lot of truth. The danger comes when an observation becomes a permanent scouting report.
Because people aren't supposed to stay the same.
⚽ Richmond Had a Few Scouting Reports Too
Think about how many characters in Ted Lasso could have been trapped by the first version of themselves we met.
Jamie was the selfish superstar. Rebecca was the cold owner trying to destroy her own club. Nate was the timid kit man. Roy was the angry aging footballer whose best days were behind him.
Those descriptions weren't necessarily wrong.
They just weren't finished.
That's an important distinction. Ted had an unusual ability to see the person in front of him without assuming that the person he saw today was the only person they could become tomorrow. He expected Jamie to become a better teammate. He saw leadership in Roy before Roy was ready to see it himself. And way back at the beginning, he treated Nate like someone whose ideas were worth hearing when almost nobody else did.
Ted wasn't ignoring who people were.
He was leaving room for who they might become.
🏷️ Be Careful With Labels
Labels are efficient. That's why our brains like them. Once we've decided someone is "the difficult employee" or "the irresponsible kid," we don't have to spend much energy reconsidering our assessment.
The problem is that people tend to notice evidence that confirms what they already believe. The difficult employee raises one objection in a meeting and we think, See? There he goes again. The irresponsible teenager forgets one assignment and suddenly we've reopened the entire case file from seventh grade.
Meanwhile, evidence that doesn't fit the story is surprisingly easy to miss.
There's another side to this too. Sometimes we're the ones carrying around an outdated scouting report about ourselves. I'm not creative. I'm terrible at public speaking. I'm not a leader. I'm bad at math. I'm an introvert, so I can't possibly be good at networking.
Maybe that description was accurate once.
Is it still?
🏁 Final Thought
One of the great things about a new football season is that, at least theoretically, everybody starts 0-0.
Last year's record doesn't disappear. The mistakes still happened. The history is still part of the story.
But you get another chance to write what comes next.
People deserve some of that same grace. We shouldn't pretend the past didn't happen, but we also shouldn't assume it has already written the future.
Jamie Tartt didn't have to remain Jamie Tartt from Season 1. Roy Kent's story didn't end when his playing career did. Rebecca got to become someone different from the woman Ted first met.
And maybe, just maybe, the New York Jets don't have to be the New York Jets forever either.
Hey, it's Week 1.
We're allowed to believe.
— Nick & Marnie
Your tea sipping, scouting report revising, cautiously optimistic football friends
More leadership musings
🍪 Biscuits with the Boss:
Here's one to try with your team, family, or Diamond Dogs this week:
What's something people who knew you five years ago might still believe about you that isn't true anymore?
Then turn it around. Is there someone in your life you're still judging by an old version of their scouting report?
They may have changed while you weren't looking.
🌎 This week in Here - There - Every F’ing where
Shout out to our friend Irina Posan who released her book The Career You Crave this week. (We were honored to be asked to give a quote for the back cover!) If you aren't in the career you crave, check it out!
Believe!
Nick & Marnie
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