By Stephanie Prial, Public Relations Director
On our last night as a group, Chief General Counsel Joe Schohl asked us to reflect on the lessons we learned from the spirit of the ride. He asked us to share with each other how we would describe this experience to our teammates when they ask us about the trip, and what we would take from this for ourselves.
I’m not that good at thinking on the fly, and as I was working the Tour as a support person, I chose to sit back and let others share their thoughts – and they were wonderful thoughts!
But I’ve spent some time thinking about that question, and I have some answers that I thought I would share.
Lesson One: It’s a Ride, Not a Race
From the beginning, we were told, “it’s a ride, not a race.” If I had been riding, I would have been concerned, as others were, about keeping up with my group and not falling behind. I could also understand those who had set a goal for themselves, such as riding 50 miles, who might have felt the urge to pull away from their group in order to reach their goal of speed, distance, or whatever.
At DaVita, we’re a very goal and metrics-driven company, which is something that fits my personality very well. I like to set a goal and work to achieve it. We have tremendous ability to Get Stuff Done (GSD) at this company. It is something that has benefited our patients and is something that we recognize and reward in each other.
However, I have found as an individual and as a manager that there can be a conflict between GSD and the value of team. It is possible to push so hard for the stretch goal that the value of team gets undermined.
I talked to several riders who realized on that first day that by leaving people behind to push for 50 miles, they missed the fun and camaraderie they would have enjoyed if they had slowed down and stopped at 48. I’m a slow learner, so it took until the second day for me to figure this out.
I was sitting in the ESO, our traveling office, working on my laptop after dinner, when I heard my dear friend Cindy Collins get called out from the group outside for her hard work. I stepped outside to listen and I realized in my race to get one more task done, send out one more email, answer one more question, I was missing the ride!
I packed up my laptop and went outside to listen to everyone’s wonderful stories. We sat in the rain together, sharing a beer and a laugh, recounting the day’s adventures and discussing what lies ahead. Country music singer Michael Peterson joined us for an inspirational concert, and at the end Senior Vice President Steve Priest invited him to cross an imaginary bridge and join the village.
The rest of the ride, I still had to get my work done, but I also made sure I was there for the important parts, cheering folks home, visiting with them afterwards. And of course, the paradox of Team and GSD is that when you do slow down for others, the energy and insight that you get makes the final product better, just like those riders who stuck together on Day Three and rode 92 miles, farther than they had ever dreamed possible.
Lesson Two: You Ride as Far as You Can
On Day Three, the 80 mile day that was actually 92 miles, KT told us the following story over lunch. One year at the Special Olympics, a boy won one of the races, beating the others by quite a distance. A reporter covering the race came up to the boy and asked him how fast he had run. “As fast as I could,” he answered. KT challenged us to take that simple wisdom to heart. Instead of asking each other how far they rode and measuring themselves against each other, the riders decided they would ride as far as they could.
Now, you may have been to Nationwide or one of our other meetings and been surprised at how smoothly everything is going. I always say it’s like looking at a duck glide across a lake – it looks calm on top, but the legs are frantically swimming underneath.
It was my job during the ride to make sure the politicians and media showed up. That whole week, while I was on the ground at the ride, I was being supported by a team of about five people back home, who were working hard calling over fifty different media outlets trying to get them to come, and who were taking my daily dispatches and sending them out to the media who had confirmed they would cover the event.
We put a major push on the Nashville press, calling them daily. One person on my team talked to the four major Nashville TV stations, and at 9 am on Saturday morning, they all confirmed that they would send a camera crew over at 10 am to film our finish. An hour later, not one crew showed up – they had all been reassigned while on the road.
Clearly this was a big disappointment to the team, some of whom had risen at 6 am on a Saturday morning to get this done. And we knew when the ride was over we’d be asked how much media coverage we’d received. But I knew we’d tried our hardest. So how much coverage did we receive? As much as we could.
I think this happens to all of us, just like it happened for the riders. You set yourself a goal and get on the bike, but then maybe your knee starts hurting, or your derailleur breaks. You do as much as you can do, and then you let it go.
I want to thank Paul “Radio Voice” Dorsa, KT and the steering committee, Cindy Collins and her amazing crew, Steve, Gina, Angie and Dave, the local clinics, and their great red shirts, CAPA, my team back home, and especially the 211 Tour DaVita riders for creating the spirit of the ride, for teaching me to respect the spirit of the ride, and I will always remember the spirit of the ride.
Steph
