The Obligation

Something about Lance Armstrong always seemed to leave me less than impressed.  Obviously his mountain (no pun intended) of Tour de France wins placed him at the all time pinnacle of cycling.  However, as a baseball, football, and golf fan, that never seemed like a world changing thing to me.  That changed last Tuesday night.  During the closing keynote of Citrix Summit, Lance took the stage and told the simple, but very powerful story of his fight with cancer and its results in his life.

 

At that moment, he repositioned himself in my mind.  Instead of remaining the aloof icon of a not entirely mainstream sport, he became a human being and a hero.  Oddly though, he did it by talking about something that people face every day and that did not necessarily set him apart from his peers.  He talked about obligation.  In his case, he talked about how the fight with cancer created an obligation in his life to raise cancer awareness and promote research towards a cure.  He talked about how that obligation gave him a significant portion of the discipline and the drive to win all of those cycling titles. 

 

However, I did not walk out of the session hall thinking about his triumphant life and inspiring dedication, although I respect and admire both of those things very much now.  What remained in my mind afterwards was that concept of obligation.  What Lance called an obligation really seemed like the certain recognition of his life’s higher calling.  Obviously, there are significant religious topics that can enter into the discussion here, but I’ll focus on the lesson that seems to apply to organizations and knowledge workers.  How often do companies have the chance to offer their employees and stakeholder’s the sense of obligation and purpose that would drive them to repeatedly win the Tour de France in their field?  How would such a company compete with other organizations in their market?  What would the impact be on retention, recruitment, and results?

 

As you can tell by all of these questions, I didn’t end up with a lot of answers after Armstrong’s talk.  That short half hour though, did give me an insightful and inspiring vision into what it takes to drive and win at his level.  It became apparent that desire, effort, and talent could not beat his obligation to win.