At a conference recently, several of my colleagues referred to me as “the Ted Lasso” of our institutional discipline. I was taken back at first as I wondered which features of this popular television character they thought I brought to mind (beyond perhaps my slightly too generous mustache). But the more I have thought about what I know was intended as a supreme compliment, the more I have come to embrace it. It is both honorable and at the same time aspirational.
Here I have to add something of a disclaimer. There was a pretty long time between when I watched the first Ted Lasso episode and when – following someone’s recommendation – I give the series another try. I thought the premise was another example of the ridiculous situations that characterize television sitcoms: an American football coach called upon to coach a British football (“soccer”) team with zero knowledge of the game who at the same time appears as the stereotypical caricature of a “good-old-boy” American. And frankly, there have been other moments watching that I have taken a pause on the series because some of the themes and language were a bit too much for my relatively conservative background. We eventually watched all three seasons and some episodes more than once. (The dart game may rank among my favorite of any television scene I have ever watched, S1E8.)
Still as I consider what Ted Lasso represents – especially through the filter of analyses like the Steve Cuss Podcasts and his approach to systems theory (Managing Leadership Anxiety: Yours and Theirs) – I embrace the metaphoric compliment and in specific have contemplated several aspects of the Ted Lasso character that I hope my colleagues intended in likening me to him. (These are grouped in an outline from Paul of Tarsus in a letter from prison to his “team” in Philippi). Continue reading
Henry V 4.3 