The virtues of going both ways

Manti Te’o and Charles Woodson have nothing in common.

Actually, they both had spectacular college football careers, for two of the most storied football programs (and finest universities) in the world.  So there’s that.

But Charles Woodson won a Heisman Trophy.

And Manti Te’o hasn’t.

Yet.

And I say, give it to him.

The catch is, he only plays on defense. 

It might help his case if he could run back a kick or two or line up as a receiver and catch a couple of passes for touchdowns.

Offensive players get all the glory in football because they score all the points.  When it comes time to vote for the Heisman, the most glorified award in college football, it’s extremely rare that a defensive player wins.

Well, OK, it pretty much never happens.  Charles Woodson (University of Michigan, 1997) did it, but he’s all alone.  Out of 76 Heisman winners, he was the only primarily defensive player to ever win the award. 

But he wasn’t only a defensive player.  He also ran back punts and played receiver, and scored key touchdowns from those positions.

They call it playing on both sides of the ball.

It’s extremely infrequent in today’s era of sports specialization.  It does happen at some smaller schools and in high school, where the most skilled athletes are sometimes asked to play on both sides of the ball.

Putting aside fear of injury for a second, why wouldn’t you have more people going both ways?  Theoretically, wouldn’t you want your best athletes out there all the time?  Don’t you think they could access different aspects of their physical abilities to make plays all over the field, in all different situations?

I use the same theory when it comes to using creative thinking to solve challenges.  Regardless of the type of challenge—be it strategic or executional—wouldn’t you want to put your best people on it, and put both sides of their brains on it?

You do have two sides, you know.  You may not access one as much as the other, but they’re both there ready and raring to go.

Don’t let people convince you that you’re good at only one way of thinking. You may have been told you’re more inclined to be an organizational, controlling, logical left brainer.  Or an imaginative, artistic, emotional right brainer.

I say you’re both.

Or you could be.

When it comes to working through a challenge, think all around it.  Expand your mind.  Go places you didn’t think possible or worthy.  Read inspiring (and easy) books like A Technique for Producing Ideas.  Or intellectually provocative white papers on big data.  Go to an art museum.  Read the New York Times.  Or Cosmo.  Or People. 

Play Halo.  Play the Piano.  Play Sudoku.  Go somewhere else, physically or mentally.

Be like Charles Woodson.  Make your brain go both ways.  See what glory comes to  you. 

And Manti Te’o, you’d have my vote right now if I had one.  But it sure would be easier if you could catch one little pass for a touchdown…