Cannon Ball Into The Deep

Cannon Ball Into The Deep

John Paul Derryberry

The big pool in Ashtabula, which was a rather large town compared to little old Colebrook, Ohio, is where I took my swim lessons. I was rather scared of water for a large portion of my youth, making excuses for not needing to learn to swim and, more importantly, not entering into any body of water where I couldn't see the bottom. A rather big fear was not knowing the depth of my surroundings and the lack of control I had in water where I couldn't touch the bottom. That whole fear of the unknown is a real thing we all have to confront.

Unfortunately, we find ourselves in a culture that continues to engage in topics without any real depth; 60-second clips, echo chambers, or our stubborn bias, seem to rule the day. We choose our stance on a subject, candidate, or professional path and think there is no turning back. It's funny; with all the overlapping in our culture and greater access to information, we have decided to act like every topic is a kiddie pool. And with our biased information, we pretend to be an expert on the subject, whether that is war in Ukraine or Israel, the Criminal Justice System, Education reform, the economy and inflation, or the mental health world. We dismiss folks who work in that field of expertise when their opinions do not match ours. It's a dangerous place for all of us to be, but mostly for our leaders.

Leadership has the potential to delve into the layers, angles, and depths of complex problems to find viable solutions. However, many leaders fall short of this responsibility, opting for the easy route of imposing their views on those they lead. This approach stifles creativity, halts innovative solutions, and hampers progress. The worst effect of this on our culture is that new leaders give up, leave their industry, and the next great ideas never see the light of day; all to avoid taking an in-depth look at what is occurring. We fear that in-depth look because of what we will find out about ourselves.

Often, though, we find out that what we fear, in waters we can not touch because we think it's too deep, is that we made up all the fears in our heads. Once we learn to swim and navigate deep waters, all deep water is the same. Breathe, use your skills, and trust yourself to figure things out. And accept help from others, who can ensure we do not end up out of our depth. And we all know what happens when we learn how to swim in deep water. Two of the funniest English words are cannon balls; and we can do cannon balls professionally, too, if we move into knowing topics.

Problems have depths that need to be studied to find the best path forward. We won’t find those solutions are too many short snap chats. The best path forward is still understanding complexities and research for the best course of action, including consulting with folks who disagree on the matter. And, I know it seems counterintuitive, but the leaders who understand this do something we all learned about when we learned to jump into the deep end of the pool. Swimming in water with depth is fun, because we can do cannon balls. Please go the distance, check out the depths of the problems we have and inspire others to have fun and do cannon balls, which we all know make the biggest splash in the pool!