No Man’s Land

 

My good friend, Doug Tatum, recently authored an excellent and widely acclaimed book entitled No Man’s Land; the subtitle of the book is “What to Do When Your Company is Too Big to be Small and Too Small to be Big”.  Doug masterfully describes the dangerous chasm young companies must traverse after initial growth in order to reach the next level of success.  He offers insightful observations based on years of experience working with companies in this category. His practical suggestions equip leaders of these ventures to make difficult, but necessary decisions.  Doug’s message is essential because these young companies are the future backbone of our economy.

 

There is another “No Man’s Land”, a different chasm which is far more prevalent and just as dangerous.  Let’s call it “The Teen Years, When Males are Too Old to be Boys and Too Young to be Men”.  In the book Do Hard Things, Brett and Alex Harris remind us that the word teenager is a relatively new term.  Until the early 1900’s boys became men between the ages of 13-15.  Even our American Indians were on horseback in battle when they turned 14.  How did these boys become men?  By assuming the responsibilities of an adult.  There was no extended, fabricated transition time where boys hearts, minds, and actions were “put on hold” until they could finish a formal education sometime in their early twenties. 

 

Take a look at the following clip from the new video series John Adams based on David McCullough’s popular book.  In this scene Adams sends his fourteen year old son, John Quincy Adams, to Russia as secretary to a fellow diplomat. 

 

 

Did you notice Adam’s acknowledgement of his son’s adulthood?  Can you imagine 99.9% of today’s fourteen year old boys assuming such responsibility? Many, if not most, of our male youth today are shackled in apathy, addictions, and insecurity.  For many men “No Man’s Land” extends well beyond their teen years as they carry the habits and behaviors of youth into business and marriage.  In a time when “Black Swans” of all shapes and sizes (I’ll discuss this term in the next blog entry) have the potential to emerge at any moment and change life as we know it, our boys are preparing less to be leaders than they are to be Wii-miesters. 

 

We must rescue (there’s that word again) young mens’ hearts and minds from the perils of No Man’s Land so they can participate as (at least part of) the backbone of our future society. 

 

What’s Your Home Run?

I borrowed that question over a decade ago from my soul brother Doug Tatum (who, by the way, just released a great business book entitled No Man’s Land – check your local Borders).   I’ve used the question with corporations, friends, and family.   It’s great for a business creating new products or strategic direction – it’s also a “fog cutter” for an individual to help him or her verbalize their life dream.

Let me rephrase the question by borrowing from another individual I highly respect, author and consultant Bob Biehl:

If God told you that you could do anything; you had unlimited resources – time, energy, money, etc. – and you knew you could not fail, what would you do?

Popular author John Eldredge calls it our God-given “Desire”;   I have another friend who is building an entire ministry around “Dreambuilding”.   Young men need dreams – they need to have the freedom to think about how it would feel to hit it out of the park with their life, doing what they do best:

I want every young man to answer the question – “What is your home run?”

But first they need the tools to answer the question.