If you've been following my ongoing quest for a more chilled-out life, you'll appreciate the picture. There were people carrying lights, bolting in rigs and taping black card to the windows. There were cables trailing and cameras on tripods; there were long swathes of black cloth, draped across the floor with rolls of tape, a set of stepladders, a couple of laptops on tables and a lot of coffee cups. And there was me, sitting in the middle, eating a banana and contemplating it all as it sped past me.
Delegation is a beautiful and dangerous thing. It's beautiful because it means you don't have to worry about the detail, the tiny stresses that get under your skin or the niggling differences of opinion that appear like hairline fractures. It's also dangerous because you have to let some stuff go and trust someone else to worry about those same details. For control-types, perfectionists and creatives, it is really tough. For visionaries, logical leaders and disciplined managers, it ought to be a bit easier - but it's not always. For me today, project managing the event, it was just really funny.
It was a great banana - easy to peel, sweet, just ripe enough to provide some resistance against the teeth without squishing into a pulp, and it was unblemished. I really enjoyed that banana.
It's not that there weren't questions I needed to answer - there were! It's not that I didn't have to make a few tricky decisions or discuss things tactfully: I did all of that. It was just that it was somehow, way cooler than I expected - and pretty much, all I had to do was plug in my keyboard and play it while everything else sort of resolved itself around me in this hyper-excited motion blur. I loved it.
That's not to say that the filmed worship night didn't go without a hitch - there are so many things we've added to the learning curve for next time - not to mention me playing the wrong notes or any of the other dozen mistakes we all made with our instruments. However, what we have done, is we've made a start, and I think that's really important. Plus, I think I've learned some things about delegation...
For example, vision is better than instruction. What I mean is that if someone catches the vision for a thing, rather than just a list of things they have to do, they'll probably do it a lot better, bringing their own passion, flair and energy to the task. It's empowering.
Second, you sometimes have to let go to let it grow. I have ideas about how things should be done, and maybe even a bit of wisdom, but beyond that, it's not a monopoly on good ideas - I'm not the good-ideas-guru. In fact, if I'm thinking about everything all at once, I'm probably going to have mediocre ideas at best: if there's someone who's focused on that area, they're much more likely to come up with something better. You have to let go of something fully to let it grow into something else, sometimes. Anyone who's worked for a micro-manager will know what it feels like not to be trusted to do this.
Third, I guess, is don't take it all too seriously. I found myself curiously focused and yet... well, not really caring too much about what happened. I know that sounds a bit weird, but it is always important to maintain a bit of perspective: I have a great family; I'm in good health; my friends are awesome people; my piano sounds great; it's beautiful when the sun shines.
Oh, and that was a really good banana, right there in the middle of the timelapsed crowd of super-delegated activity.
I really enjoyed that banana.
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