It’s one of the all-time classic recurring bits from the Peanuts comic strip. Charlie Brown charges full speed to kick a football held up by Lucy. Right at the moment he’s about to make contact she snatches it away, causing Charlie Brown to flip into the air and crash spectacularly to the ground. Part of what makes it funny is the way Lucy repeatedly manages to convince Charlie Brown to ignore past experience and try again. But, of course, in the end she pulls the ball and Charlie Brown once again plays the role of the hopeless sucker.
No one likes being jerked around or played, but the gag resonates so well because it’s a perfect comedic metaphor for a fundamental truth of the human condition: at some point all of us feel that someone or something is just out to get us. At one time or another we cross paths with a “Lucy” who seems to have our number. And just to be clear, these are character archetypes that transcend gender. Players and suckers, “Lucys” and “Charlie Browns,” come in all shapes and sizes.
Today many working in corporate America feel like the football is being yanked away. Across our economy, employees of business of all sizes are confronted with managing in brutally fast-paced environments where technology and ever-changing marketplace conditions seem to change the rules of the game daily. The ball that we were charging for yesterday is gone tomorrow, without warning or notice. Or to use another football metaphor, the people who control our destinies at work seem to be constantly moving the goalposts. No matter how hard we try, it never is enough.
Maybe our boss is the “Lucy” type (again gender is irrelevant) who told us for months that relief was coming for our over-worked and under paid team. Instead at the last minute we are informed that the extra headcount we were promised was pulled back. That’s right before “Lucy” adds, “Oh, and one more thing, tell the team there will be no bonuses or merits this year, times are tough, people should be happy to have a job.”
Every Charlie Brown has a Lucy to blame. It’s only human to direct our anger and frustration at the person we feel is jerking us around yet again. It could be the boss, maybe the boss’s boss, or the CEO. Or that fickle client or outside partner who once again let us down. In the end it doesn’t matter who the Lucy is, having someone to blame just makes us feel better.
And perhaps this person is richly deserving of our ire. Sadly, there are people in positions of authority who are so self-consumed and narcissistic that they don’t think twice about yanking the ball away when it suits them. All that matters is what’s good for them in the moment. If that’s your reality the only move is to get away from that person.
But let’s take a moment and give the “Lucy” in the office the benefit of the doubt. “Assume good intent” is one of the mantras of high functioning teams. That means rather than allowing disappointment or anger to dictate our responses, we take a moment to try and understand why this person would make such a decision.
Perhaps our Lucy is just the messenger. Or, maybe, Lucy has been fighting intensely behind the scenes and they only reason you and your team weren’t screwed earlier is because of their efforts.
Of course, maybe your Lucy richly deserves the blame. Typically, however, these situations are nuanced. More than one thing can be, and often is, true at the same time. If we invest all our energies pointing the finger elsewhere, we miss an opportunity to learn and grow.
Just like in the comics, it’s easy to fault Lucy. But it’s also fair to ask why Charlie Brown keeps setting himself up to fail. The same is true in our careers. When setbacks come, often the hardest thing to do is to acknowledge our own mistakes. Did we, like Charlie Brown, ignore data and past experience and become willfully blind to the obvious?
It’s the executive who is convinced that despite all the company’s troubles that they are just too important to be laid off. When it happens, their friends tell them how shocking it is, that they every right to be pissed for getting screwed. But usually those same people don’t share what they’re really thinking: how in the world did this person not see it coming?
When we end up flat on our back, more than anything a little humility is in order. We must be willing to look in the mirror and consider, however tempting or justified we are in blaming our “Lucy,” that on some level, like Charlie Brown, we had it coming. It is impossible to learn anything and grow from experience without acknowledging that each of us has our blind spots.
Humility is a valuable lesson, but there’s something more important we can learn from Charlie Brown and his never-ending pursuit of the football: the power of persistence and hope. Despite everything, Charlie Brown still believes better outcomes are possible. He is relentlessly optimistic, willing to risk failure again and again in pursuit of a dream. That level of self-belief is essential in our professional lives, especially when we are trying something new.
In the end we may still conclude that Charlie Brown is a forlorn sucker. However, on a deeper level he inherently understands that a world without hope and optimism would be a pretty dark place. That’s a better way to go through life in my view. And something all of us should keep in mind the next time we we start charging towards the ball.
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