Robert Hargrove

About two years ago, I received a phone call from Rabbi Stuart Slammer, who having been inspired by reading Masterful Coaching, asked me to coach him. It turned out that Rabbi Slammer lived and worked less than a mile from my office in Brookline, Ma. I agreed to take him on and we enjoyed many conversations—something which caused Stuart to compliment me by saying I was prone to “knessed,” (random acts of kindness).

Stuart turned out to be a fascinating and intriguing individual to work with—if he were not a rabbi in the tradition of the great Rabbi Soloveitchik, he might easily be mistaken for a Fortune 500 business executive. His conversations would run from the Bal Shem Tov words of wisdom to Jack Welch’s leadership style, from the Talmud to Blue Ocean Strategy, from the work of Rabbi Soloveitchik (who ordained over 2000 rabbis) to The Fifth Discipline, The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization.

Stuart was certainly ambitious; he wanted to become “Head of School” (grades 1 to 12) at the Bal Shem Tov School  where he worked as an elementary school principal. Having said that, his ambition often led him into a state of perpetual angst and anxiety, as well as worrisome behavior. It wasn’t long after I began coaching Rabbi Slammer that I began to feel as if I was smack dab in the middle of a Woody Allen movie.

Stuart’s main hurdle to vault over was something I call the “Kvetch Factor.” What’s the Kvetch Factor? Imagine Woody Allen going on in his sing-song voice about how his mother’s high standards (nothing’s good enough) traumatized his sense of self-esteem, or how his psychologist emasculated him by questioning the size of his penis, or the how the studio manager cut his 30 page script to 3 pages, and so on. Oy vey!

Admittedly, Stuart’s continual kvetching was less Freudian than neo-Dostoyevskian or Rodney Dangerfield in nature. “I can’t believe what the Board just did to disempower me,” “The Head of School didn’t return my phone call,” “I gave the assistant principle a bad Performance Review and now she is out to get me.” “I shouldn’t have sent that email to the board, almost demanding a promotion. Now what should I do?”

The visible angst that would appear on Stuart’s face as he fretted over these concerns caused me to feel compassion for him. Having said that, I found his continual kvetching very annoying to say the least. Stuart would begin our coaching sessions by talking about his goals and priorities than default to kvetching about the state of his life in the Bal Shev Tov School World.

For example, one day he came to me visibly upset about the Board refusing to shorten summer vacation due to snow days. I would interrupt and say, “Stuart, I love you and you’ve got great potential as a leader, but digging in your heals about something that is bound to be unpopular isn’t going to do you a damn bit a good, and by tomorrow you will probably act out in ways that get you in trouble. You have got to learn to manage yourself better.”

We tried everything to get him to “master his mind,” starting with me interrupting him every time he started to kvetch. “Stuart, stop talking about what’s wrong with you, what’s wrong with them, and what’s wrong with the school. Start talking about what positive action you can take.” Yet as I couldn’t be there all the time with Stuart, I encouraged him to practice self awareness. I asked him to wear a rubber band on his wrist and to snap it hard every time he found himself kvetching.

It took at least a year of coaching conversations about his goals and aspirations and kvetching patterns before we made any progress. The conversations started to be 80% goal and execution oriented and 20% kvetching, rather than the other way around. Then in perfect synchronicity with the growth Stuart was making inside himself, opportunities for growth started to show up in the world around him.

He was contacted by a head hunter who opened some doors for him. He was offered positions to be Head of School in Los Angeles and Montreal, and finally in another big school in New York with 1100 students. He took that job and today a much happier Stuart and his family are planning to move to the Big Apple and beyond. I want to wish Stuart all the luck—“muzzle” (Yiddish expression) in the world. It has been great knowing you.