Lessons for muggles after seeing Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
If you are like me, you might relate to my excitement about spending 5 hours and 15 minutes (not including breaks and waiting time) immersed in all things Hogwarts with my husband (my kids weren’t invited!) to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. We were transported to another world with my favorite familiar characters and some new favorites too! But as is often the case, as I experienced the world, I had some "aha!" moments about work and learning which I thought I’d share. This will be a spoiler free / #keepthesecret post per JK Rowling’s request.
Keep heroes grounded. Harry Potter is often built up as a “revered legend” by many in that world, almost celebrity in status and in people’s hyper focus on him, but in reality he’s still just a person (wizard) with talents and insecurities and vulnerabilities like all of us. Years ago I worked for an extraordinary leader who was the head of our large division. She was the ultimate leader to us. She cared about people’s morale, had a ton of experience in her vocation, and was hero worshipped by all of us. She seemed unflappable and bigger than life. The challenge she faced was that people so adored her, they held her at a distance and didn’t want to bother her with real concerns she needed to know about. And the tried and true “open door” policy didn’t break this distance since people didn’t feel comfortable troubling her with what they deemed as small concerns. She ended up operating in a bubble, so when a real crisis that was brewing and came to a head, she was completely caught off guard. We also came to learn she insulated herself from us, not sharing her own challenges which we could have taken off her plate since she wanted to appear strong. In the end we all realized we contributed to this silo'd culture together and after hard work changed how we engaged with one another. Who do we put on a pedestal at work, who may in fact need support, patience and empathy? And who has surrounded themselves with "yes" people versus people who tell them what they need to know? Break through your hero worship to keep the person and yourself grounded and connected.
Live in the present. Yes history and backstory matters, and certainly in Harry Potter the world building is mesmerizing and inspiring and I could spend hours obsessing over it. But when we are giving people our best, we are engaged in the here and now with them. Not letting a bad experience or a past challenging time cloud our purpose and contributions. I once worked with a colleague who had a deep memory of every tiny slight or mistake someone made. We would have to start a project or even a meeting rehashing his past frustrations in great detail. It became clear that we couldn’t move forward with work because he carried so much baggage. Finally we decided to address it. With kindness, we sat him down and listened and talked through his concerns, focused on the lessons and takeaways he wanted us to have, but then very directly asked that we spend more time on the here and now. We all agreed we would help remind him if he was slipping backwards. It was a tough conversation as he was unaware of this tendency and quite defensive. But he agreed to try it out, and ultimately his renewed focus on being present made a huge difference to our work! He later shared that he felt happier and lighter. Double win! Obviously we want to learn from history, but once that lesson has been logged, keep your eyes and attention on the here and now.
Learners need to do the work to learn, but they still need your guidance. This is one of those "duh, it sounds easy," but it’s actually really hard in practice. In Harry Potter’s world, both in the books and in the play, there are lots of examples of teachers and mentors and even parents trying to find the right balance between keeping the students safe, and letting them fight their own battles. In some cases, the tension is at the the opposite end of the spectrum where the mentors seem too aloof during challenging times. Transitions in particular can be tricky. I recently helped one of my mentees through a tough one. He was asked to lead a thorny project, and nervously began to learn how to tackle it. His predecessor, senior to him and still involved on the periphery of the team, interjected (e.g. micromanaged) at every turn based on how it was done in the past. In this case, the past approaches would no longer work, and even if they had, it was moving along just fine as it was. Very quickly the tensions rose and work came to a halt. Once we took a pause, we went through a series of discussions over the coming weeks that allowed for the "newbie" to set boundaries so he could own the process and learn and innovate. The "expert" grew to respect those boundaries, and focused on mentoring through offering support and wisdom --largely by asking questions and being a thinking partner. The result was the relationship strengthened, the project continued to progress, and both people walked away invigorated by this new way of working. It's hard to see people struggle. Offer them empathy, ask questions to help them think about how to work through their struggle, and cheer them on when they learn.
That’s all for now with my secret-keeping, spoiler-free post of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Inspiration comes from many places like wonderful art, friendship and a little magic.
