The Power of Singles Hitters in a Homerun Culture
Singles hitters don’t get much attention— they just win games
We live in a highlight reel world.
In sports we celebrate the big, brash and violent with a passion – the homerun, not the single; the slam dunk, not the layup; the ace, not the winning serve; the one-handed catch, not the two-hander; the bicycle kick, not the goal.
Meanwhile, most of the success of any game comes from the routine runs, baskets, serves, catches, and assists we rarely celebrate, and most of those are the result of the walks, screens, blocks and tips we never do.
It’s not so different with the rest of our lives. The people who shout the loudest, complain the most, who announce the final product or present the final report or put the final signature on a bill – those are the ones we celebrate, while those who did the work to make it all possible often lurk in the background.
In her poem “To Be of Use,” Marge Piercy salutes the lurkers:
“The people I love the best
Jump into work head first
Without dallying in the shallows…
I love the people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
Who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
Who strain in the mud and the much to move things forward,
Who do what has to be done, again and again.”
Over the course of my career, I’ve had the chance to get to know and work with a number of public officials. The ones who get the most done spend most of their effort behind the scenes, putting in the time “in the mud and the muck” to nail down the funding, cinch the support, get the votes, slowly convincing the people they need to go along with the idea, saying or doing just the right thing at just the right time. By working the count and swinging for singles, they strike out a lot less often – and two-run singles count more than solo homeruns.
If a leader does it right there’s very little evidence of all the work that went into getting the end result. Here’s one example.
Erskine Bowles (left) worked behind the scenes to ensure success for rural priorities.
In 1999, I was staff director for a group called the Rural Prosperity Task Force, which was charged with developing priorities for reversing rural decline in the state, and got a chance to see a leader in action. Before agreeing to chair the Task Force, a project of then-North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt, Erskine Bowles made sure that he had gotten the full support of the two other leading politicians in the state, the Speaker of the House and the President Pro-Tem of the Senate. To ensure he got the votes for whatever the recommendations were, he insisted that the group be bipartisan and include both rural and urban members. He made sure there was open public testimony before each meeting and had forums in every major section of the state.
And when it came to getting the final recommendations for the group, he did something behind the scenes I haven’t seen before or since. As the final meeting began, we had ten recommendations on the table, too many for anyone to pay attention to. Erskine told the group they had to narrow recommendations to their top five (“If everything’s a priority,” he said, “nothing’s a priority.”) We served breakfast at 8 am, then sent teams away to narrow down the recommendations. By noon the groups had actually added two more recommendations while getting rid of none.
I told Erskine I was ordering lunch. “Oh no you’re not.” “But they’re going to get hungry,” I said. “Exactly.” 1 pm came; still 12 recommendations. No lunch. By 2 pm, we were down to 10 recommendations. “We’ve gotta feed them, Erskine.” “Nope; never underestimate the power of food.” One hour later we had six recommendations. Erskine declared victory (His words:“You gotta know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em.”)And the Task Force had a delicious 3 pm lunch. When a reporter asked Erskine how the group came to consensus, Erskine told him they all cared passionately about rural North Carolina.
I was reading an article this week about Gregg Popovich, the long-time coach of the San Antonio Spurs and the winningest coach in NBA history, who’s just been named to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The election is a tribute to his work building a Spurs team that was remarkable not just for winning five NBA titles, but for being the model of teamwork in a sport increasingly defined by individual exploits. Popovich cites two operating principles that have guided his success. He learned both, he says, during his days in the US Air Force:
Wisdom from Gregg Popovich (center): put in the work behind the scenes, get over yourself
1. Get over yourself. This is obviously important in the military, where personal goals have to be sublimated to the larger goals of a unit; it is equally important in a team sport, on a work team and in getting public policy done.
2. Pound the rock. If you are chipping away at a large stone, you might not see any impact with the first 100 strikes. But slowly, over time, a crack will appear. If you keep practicing, focusing, working away at the problem (a new basketball move, a new product, a new skill, a new approach), eventually good things will happen.
My Dad used to say, “It’s amazing how much you can get done if you don’t care who gets credit.” I saw that over a lifetime growing up with him. I saw that during my time working with Erskine Bowles. I see it now with the quiet effective work UNC System President Peter Hans is doing, fighting through the slings and arrows higher education is facing and finding a way forward. Erskine would describe that kind of approach as “plowing to the end of the row.” Later in her poem, Marge Piercy describes them this way:
“I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row to pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals or field deserters,
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.”
Let’s go into this week with a new commitment to plow to the end of the row and pound the rock, getting over ourselves, submerged in the task, swinging for singles. We may not make any highlight reel, but we’ll make a difference.
References:
Full text of “To Be of Use” here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57673/to-be-of-use
Bill Friday biography: William Friday: Power, Purpose and American Higher Education, by William A. Link, 1995
Rural Prosperity Task Force recommendations: https://clintonwhitehouse6.archives.gov/2000/04/2000-04-26-fact-sheet-on-new-markets-trip-to-north-carolina.html
https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/stories/2000/04/17/focus1.html
Gregg Popovich guiding philosophy: https://theathletic.com/4763216/2023/08/10/gregg-popovich-basketball-hall-of-fame/#:~:text=Yet%20at%20the%20hundred%20and,his%20time%20at%20the%20Academy.