Larry D. Lauer

This past week I was impressed by several interviews with the trainer of the Triple Crown winning horse. I have been thinking about what he said ever since. He repeatedly said it was all about having the right horse. He dodged every opportunity to take credit for the win, pointing out that the only way this can happen is having a horse with both the talent and the will to do it.

It occurred to me that athletic coaches wanting to win championships have said basically the same thing. It’s all about the players. It’s absolutely necessary to have the right athletes with the right talent and a single-minded commitment to winning. In other words, even a really good coach must have talented athletes with commitment in order to be able to use his or her knowledge and experience to enable their best performance.

I have learned this same lesson about teaching. For many years I was just fine teaching anyone in my classes about what I thought I knew about communication and media. But in time I realized that when it came to helping students achieve truly major things it was all about them. If they had the talent and a relentless desire to make a difference I could call on my hard learned lessons to help them turn their potential into impressive accomplishments.

And I also found that this applies to strategic communication and marketing administrators and leaders. My last blog post described both Bob Schieffer and former TCU Chancellor Michael Ferrari as opportunity enablers. Looking back on my administrative years I now know that my greatest satisfactions came when I hired people with extraordinary talent and helped them develop it.

In the end, helping professionals fine-tune their special talent enables satisfying working relationships that continue well beyond your time at work. In fact, you are making an ongoing difference in people’s lives that you may eventually come to see as your “crowning” achievement… your Triple Crown.