Know Your Personnel

Years ago, our middle son played on a travel soccer team with a lot of the same boys year after year. One of the players he played with was an extra-tall, sturdy, solid, brilliant young man who would later go on to college at one of the military academies. This young man was a great defender because he was strong, stubborn and he was hard to get past. He was like a wall. But, he wasn’t fast. He wasn’t tricky and nimble. The defender position, standing solidly, right by the goalie, was the perfect position for this player.

In one game, one of the players passed the ball to this young man and then criticized him when things went awry with an opposing player who was small and crafty and quick. “Know your personnel!” is what my son’s solid teammate loudly barked back to his critical teammate, and rightly so. The teammate seeing the quick and nimble opponent right by the tall, lumbering defender should have known to pass the ball elsewhere. We parents all got a chuckle out of the “Know your personnel!” comeback and so did our son’s team. It became a catchphrase that was often used by all of the team, and even our own family adopted the saying. Here I am, years later, writing about it.

Being fully cognizant and aware of your own strengths and weaknesses, and the strengths and weaknesses of those with whom you live with or you work with, and utilizing these strengths and weaknesses effectively, can make the difference between creating a masterpiece or creating a disastrous mess (all with the same group of people). Taking advantage of placing people with particular strengths matched to tasks that lend to those strengths, is a win-win for everyone. Knowing your personnel, helps to manage everyone’s expectations and stops setting people (including yourself) and projects up for failure.

Know your personnel. Be observant. Be humble. Be amazed and appreciative. Be open to different ways of doing things. Be impressed with the well-oiled machine of a group or an entity that knows their personnel very well, and has strategically placed everyone in positions where they can blossom and grow. When you find yourself disappointed, ask yourself, was this a situation where I ignored what I already knew about my personnel? Can I use this knowledge for better decisions in the future? KYP – you know me. Knowledge is power. Know your personnel.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.