Coach
continued: “I tell you what. In the next race I want you to run alongside the
race leaders. Stay right at the front. Then, if you feel up to it, you can run
as hard as you want the last mile.”
A week
later, Lopez ran his second meet. This time he did exactly what his coach told
him to do. When the gun sounded, he took off but did not break away from the
pack. Instead, he paced himself with the leaders. He enjoyed jogging along with
them so much that he tried talking to them throughout the entire race. “Hey,
guys, my name is Lopez…How long have you been running?....Do you play soccer?” He
talked and talked and talked, even though his English was broken. However, the
other runners did not answer. The more he tried talking to them, the more they
looked at him like he was nuts.
Lopez
ran along, talking away until he saw his mom and dad standing at the one-mile
marker. Coach had told him that they would be there so that he would know when
to start running hard. Barbara yelled: “Yea, Joseph, you can do it!”
“Hey
guys,” Lopez said to the other boys at the front of the pack, “there’s my mom
and dad. I gotta go. See you at the finish line.” With that, Lopez stopped
jogging and took off running. He won the meet, beating around four hundred
runners from across upstate New York. He received his first gold medal and wore
it all the way home.
The
Rogers’ next door neighbors were outside when they pulled up to the house. Tom
and Fran were around eighty years old. Tom saw the medal and said: “What do you
have there.” Lopez proudly showed off the gold medal while Rob explained that
he had beat a field of four hundred runners.
“You
know, I bet you can run in the Olympics someday for the USA,” Fran said. Those
words took Lopez right back to watching Michael Johnson on the black-and-white
television. “Yes,” he said. “That is my goal. One day I will run in the
Olympics for the USA.”
The
second New York snapshot involved Barbara Rogers and her plans for Lopez’
education. Within days of his arrival, she told Lopez: “You may be behind now
with your education, but we will make sure you catch up. You will graduate from
high school on time, and you will go on and get a college education.” She did not
ask Lopez’ opinion. There was no discussion. There was no debate. This was just
the way it was going to be.
At
that time, Barb’s goal seemed impossible. For starters, Lopez spoke almost no
English, and he could read even less. To graduate on time he had to start off
in tenth grade. Age-wise he was a tenth grader. Academically, he was a
kindergartner. He struggled to read: “See Jane. See Jane run. Run, Jane, run.”
He did not know a consonant from a vowel, and the sounds these strange letters
made did not match his Swahili patterns of speech. His math skills were not
much better. As for science and history, he did not have a clue.
Barb
did not see why such minor details should stand in the way. She made hard and
fast academic goals for Lopez and she would accept nothing less than everything
Lopez could give.
From
day one she worked with Lopez on his English. At the same time, she pushed the
school administrators and counselors just as hard. Tully High School did not
have an ESL program when Lopez arrived in the U.S. in July, 2001. They did by
the time he started school that Fall! She pushed and pushed until the school
gave in and started the program. Once classes started, she pushed the school
even harder. Whenever a problem arose, she insisted the staff meet with her and
settle the issue. After a while, the counselors grew afraid of her. Lopez never
had anyone work so hard for him in his life.
His
first semester didn’t go so well. Lopez failed a few of his classes. Adjusting
to the classroom and the constant barrage of English presented enough
challenges, and the school environment made life even harder. He had never seen
such displays of public affection like he saw in the halls of Tully High
School! That type of behavior would never have been allowed in Sudan.
Barb
didn’t care. She marched up to the school and announced that he would be given
the opportunity to take his failed classes the following summer. No one argued
the point with her. The following summer, Lopez passed every class he had
failed before.
Management Lesson #13 – Fight for Your Staff
Barbara Rogers was relentless in fighting for Lopez. Likewise, an
overlooked management trait is the failure of senior IT leaders to fight for
their staffs. You need to fight for resources, recognition, and reality. There
should not be a contradiction between stewardship and the staff in your
department. Work to make sure they are aligned and then fight for your staff.