Hello, Whole Life Leaders

When I published the previous issue of this newsletter my high school senior son’s “regular season” of robotics competitions was over. They had been working towards a very high goal all year: qualifying for the state tournament. To do that, they need to be in a winning alliance of 3 teams at one of the regular competitions, win the top-level Excellence Award out of 30-50 teams at one of those competitions, or score very high in the skills competition.

They were getting better outcomes as the season progressed. They had made it into the elimination rounds in all competitions and advanced to the semi-finals in the last two competitions. But they hadn’t made it to the finals, much less won. They were improving their skills competition scores, where their robot and driver were tested in timed trials, but their score was well below the established cut-off. The positive takeaway from the season for them was enjoying the learning, being proud of continued improvement, and having great memories of spending several months doing something they loved.

That changed within a few days. The state competition has spaces for about 60 teams, so after the winning alliances from the separate competitions were invited and the teams with high skills scores were invited, they still had room for more teams. One way they added teams was to drop the skills score cutoff. Team 7110 Z had done well enough at skills that they were above the new cutoff. They were going to state!

A fairly conventional lesson
There is a lesson here that fits within my usual model of encouraging personal choice and effort around areas where you have control or influence. They had committed early on to competing at skills and working to improve their score as a way to get to the state tournament. That goal had worked out. But this is about as far as intention and preparation and self-regulation and execution, and all those other powerful leadership agilities, would take them in this story. They were headed into a much tougher arena. And unexpected things would define the day.

The state tournament wound up having some serious technological challenges. Savor the irony! A competition designed to highlight STEM programs, science, technology, engineering, and math, came to a grinding halt because of power disruptions and computer system crashes. About an hour of competition time was lost late morning and they had to reconfigure the qualification rounds. Once power and computer systems were back online for good, after a couple of brief false starts, they were able to complete enough matches that each team competed in 7 of the originally planned 8.

One quirky thing about the competition design is that two-team alliances are randomly assigned in the elimination rounds. That means when Team 7110 Z was partnered with a strong team or when they were going against a weaker duo they had a better chance of winning and vice versa. With random assignment the assumption is that luck should be sprinkled around fairly evenly and preparation and skill should make the difference. Unfortunately for Team 7110 Z, they started off pretty strong with some match wins early on but then lost the final few.

Just as we expected…
With that tough luck Team 7110 Z wound up in 38th place out of 58 teams after the qualification rounds. I had talked with my son about this in advance to help him prepare for the difference between a local competition and a state competition. We had talked through the idea that his team was around the middle of the pack in some competitions and in the top half but second quarter in others. When all the winning teams gather at state, I had asked him, where would his team likely fit in that group? He had imagined a little below the middle, in the third quarter but not at the bottom. And that’s where they wound up.

We had this conversation because the next competition after state is a world championship they like to refer to as “Worlds” in robotics. Hundreds of teams, literally from all over the world, will gather in Louisville, Kentucky in April for 3 days of competition to crown the world champions. Two teams from my son’s school had made it to Worlds in the past. Making it to state had been Team 7110 Z’s driving goal, the aspirational goal they knew would be difficult but kept them going. Making it to Worlds was the fantasy, the pipe dream, the wow-filled “What if?!” wish.

I didn’t want my hopelessly optimistic son to delude himself into thinking they were probably going to Worlds once they qualified for state. I wanted him prepared for disappointment so it wouldn’t be so difficult to face. There’s a lesson in that for me, around my own expectations of the likely outcome and my perceived role in breaking his fall. Lots to consider.

Still, I was disappointed for them
The elimination rounds began at the state competition with the top 8 teams getting to choose alliance partners. In these rounds, each alliance has 3 teams. 2 are on the field for each match and they have to rotate so each team competes at least once in each round. With 8 alliances, it starts with quarter-finals and proceeds to the championship.

To get to Worlds, a team has to be in an alliance that makes it to the final round. That means the tournament champion alliance and the runner-up alliance, 6 teams total, all go to Worlds. To have a chance at getting to Worlds, Team 7110 Z would have had to at least be chosen for an alliance. With 8 alliances of 3 teams each, it’s pretty typical that the top 24 teams are the ones that make it, or sometimes a team or two in the lower 20’s might be chosen. I was sure the team in 38th position had no chance.

I sat through the first round of selection to see where other teams from his school wound up. Plus it’s kind of exciting. Team 1 can choose team 2 or 3 or whoever as their alliance partner, and then that team can either accept or decline. If they accept, everyone moves up and team 9 now heads the 8th alliance. By the time the first round was done, the head of the 8th alliance was team 11 or 12. And 2 of my son’s school’s teams had been chosen for alliances.

The third position in each alliance is sort of the “filler” position. There are still good but not usually great teams to choose to fill out the alliances. It was proceeding with confusion and excitement, as usual. I was sort of lost in thought, making plans to leave soon and drive the hour and a half back home and deciding how I would spend the evening. I got up to get a drink of water and find my son to say goodbye. As I walked out of the gym the 4th alliance was choosing their third member. There was a long pause of uncertainty and confusion. I turned just outside the door to hear who they would choose. And finally…

“We choose Team 7110 Z.”

I’m sure my mouth dropped open as I froze in a blank stare, and then the chills flooded over me. Team 7110 Z’s driver walked out of the gym with his hands on his head and a look of total shock on his face and asked, to no one in particular, “Did that just happen??” I smiled a huge smile and said, “Yes, it did!”

They got to compete a little longer
They were elated. The team came running out of the gym, jumping up and down, hugging, slapping each other on the back, and expressing their disbelief in teenage eloquence, some of it understandably coarse. They were in the elimination rounds!

As the 4th alliance, they were up against the 5th alliance first. That would be expected to be a pretty even competition. And it was. The 4th alliance handily won the first match, but the 5th alliance clearly won the second match. It came down to a tie-breaker match, and the 4th alliance prevailed! They were in the semifinals.

If you’re familiar with tournament brackets, you may already have predicted that the 4th alliance was up against the 1st alliance for the semifinals. Excited to make it that far, but facing a huge challenge. The 1st alliance had two of the top-placed teams on it, teams from the same private club. Most of the teams are school-based, but some are from areas where schools don’t have programs so they form clubs to compete. These two robots are known as excellent competitors and had won many competitions. They are incredibly well designed, reliable, fast, strong, and even beautiful. The teams anodize their aluminum parts so one of the robots is red and the other is an electric fuchsia.

And yet in the first match, the 4th alliance prevailed. Their two robots on the field seemed particularly well suited to counter what the beautiful bots were doing. However, in the second round the momentum swung back to the 1st alliance. There was a sense of “Now that we’re awake we’re going to dominate.” There was a heavy feeling in the air as they entered the tie-breaker round, since both the beautiful bots were competing together again on their side. And the beautiful bots came out strong and fast, pulling ahead early on. Still, the 4th alliance kept working and didn’t fall too far behind.

I was drafting the next life lesson…
And then a miracle happened. The team 1 robot fell over. Not forwards, like many do when carrying a load, where they can usually get back up. Not backwards, where it’s harder to get up but possible, especially with help. But over on its side. It was down for the rest of the match. The 4th alliance had 2 functional robots agains the 1st alliance’s 1 functional robot.

Team 7110 Z’s bizarre luck was in play again. A well-balanced, incredibly well-designed, compact robot that should have no reason to fall over had fallen over.

The 4th alliance won the match. So they won the round. They were going into the finals.

Which meant Team 7110 Z had just qualified for Worlds…

Team 7110 Z had just qualified for Worlds!!!! They were going to WORLDS!!!!

There was frenzied, discombobulated excitement running through the gobsmacked group of teams and parents from my son’s school. Another team from his school was on the 2nd alliance and would be competing against them. That meant at least two teams from his school had qualified for Worlds, and one of them would be a state champion.

The finals were exciting and intense, but the intensity amplified the fun instead of bringing it down. Since they were both headed to Worlds, winning state was like the cherry on the sundae. And it was a close competition again. The 4th alliance won round 1 pretty strongly. The 2nd alliance won round 2 pretty strongly. So again it came down to a tie-breaker match.

The robots were going non-stop, full-speed, executing incredibly well, with a flurry of competition pieces flying around the field. Time was up and the robots stopped and the referees started counting up points. It took several minutes to get the score. And then they announced… that it was a tie. The finals were going to a 2nd tie-breaker!

What a finish! All 3 rounds included tie-breaker matches for the 4th alliance, and now the finals had a 2nd tie-breaker. They lined back up, set the field, and started.

At the end of the match, the 2nd alliance prevailed. They were crowned state champions. All 3 teams in their alliance were awarded a banner to hang at their schools, so my son’s school has a robotics state championship banner to show off. His team didn’t win state, but they were in it until the very end, an incredibly close extended finish.

Members of 7110 Z were a little disappointed, but they were very happy for their friends on the other team from their school that won. And the disappointment was short-lived. Thoughts quickly shifted to a new focus.

They were going to WORLDS!!!!

The third week of April we’re going to Louisville for the robotics world championship. The pie-in-the-sky fantasy came true.

At the parents’ meeting about the trip the teacher was explaining that there are around 600 teams competing so it will be incredibly hard to qualify for elimination rounds to try to place in one of the divisions. She said of course they want the school’s teams, now including a third team because of skills scores, to do their best. But the experience of meeting teams from all over the world should be a top priority, too.

I heard her lowering expectations, just as I had done for my son when his team qualified for the state tournament. I remembered saying, “The level of competition will be much higher. You’ll probably not be in the middle of the pack, much less at the top.”

So I reminded her, and all the other parents in the room.

Team 7110 Z is going to Worlds!!!

So anything is possible at the tournament.

Lead it forward: What do we do with this kind of outcome? The lessons for me show up as this experience bumps into and wrestles with my expectations, my beliefs around how the world works. The opportunity for me is to be more open to unexpected good outcomes instead of staying in a “pragmatic” mindset of lowering expectations or discounting the highly unlikely as impossible. I encourage you to consider how this story interacts with your own belief system. Does it confirm it, does it inspire you? Or does it awaken your inner skeptic, your “yes-but” nature? How are you called to grow whenever outcomes are unexpected, especially surprisingly good?

I’ll be observing my skeptic nature with mindful awareness. I notice myself already looking for possible challenges with the trip:

… how coordinating travel for all could have glitches that require quick “heads-up” responses, even though it’s not my responsibility;

… remembering that all-day competitions are tiring and this will be 3 days in a row of competition;

… and wondering what it will be like spending time in a group of around a dozen parents when I don’t know any of them very well.

It’s definitely an opportunity for me to look for the good and enjoy what is coming my way; to set aside the worry and the skepticism to be fully present to the experience and all the excitement, fun, and rich learning it has to offer. This will be my focus in Louisville.

Wish me luck with this. And wish Team 7110 Z luck at Worlds! They’ve taught me luck can be a very powerful ally.

May you be well, may you do well, and may you Thrive!

Take Care,

Stephen Coxsey, MA, LPC, PCC
Whole Life Leadership Coach

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About Steve Coxsey

Steve collaborates with people to design and implement a customized Whole Life Leadership plan that promotes success, fulfillment, and well-being for themselves and the people they lead. They thrive on a personally meaningful path and promote a culture of thriving wherever they are in charge, from families to professions, from small businesses to organizations.

Steve is a supportive ally. His typical clients have to juggle competing responsibilities in a variety of roles. They have a compelling vision of what they would like to create or accomplish as leaders in their families, careers, or businesses and are committed to turning their vision into reality. To make that happen, they develop the Leadership Agilities to be able to empower and direct themselves, design and guide meaningful work, and inspire others.

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