At the gym this morning, I caught a few moments of a baseball game on the locker room television. While do enjoy a lazy afternoon watching a game at a ballpark, I can’t stand baseball on TV. It just doesn’t as engaging. Most of the games play out better as highlight reels on SportsCenter. Still this one game caught my eye, simply for the scoreboard.
R H E
Runs
Hits
Errors
This sports highlights mistakes. It doesn’t put up amazing catches, or number of strikeouts (that tends to be on a separate part of the stadium). It doesn’t highlight number of walks, singles, doubles, or triples (those just all count as “hits”). It highlights mistakes.
I can’t imagine what it is like to have that E staring you in the face, especially when you know it’s yours. At the same time, I wonder if it elevates the level of play or at least a level of honesty.
I look at some of the major blunders taking place these days in leadership roles. Everyone is always willing to place blame elsewhere or claim there is nothing they could do about it. I wonder what it would be like if major CEOs had to have “Errors” publicly placed on their scoreboard.
I wonder what it would be like if would looked at our own failures as leaders. I’m not saying we should dwell in them, but I think our failures can sometimes be as important as our hits and runs.