On the way home from a Southern road trip to show our youngest daughter a few colleges, our front tire unexpectedly blew out somewhere in rural North Carolina.

Uh-oh.

I managed to pull safely off the road, which allowed us to move immediately into that time-honored family crisis-management strategy: the blame game.

Had someone noticed the tire looked low? Was I driving too fast? Should someone have heard something?  Why hadn’t I checked the tires?  The questions were getting circular and the bare lightbulb was increasingly pointing at me.  Is anyone else getting hot in here?

After several minutes of spirited discussion—we of course concluded that I was guilty.  Irregardless!

We got the girls safely situated in an Uber to a more civilized destination and I waited for help. Eventually, a tow truck arrived, driven by a guy who looked like he had been sent straight from central casting. Thick beard. Huge shock of gray hair. And the gift of gab.

It was a long ride to the tire wholesaler, and on the journey, I learned about his side hustle as a Repo Man, along with enough colorful stories to fill several seasons of reality television.  But then he told me one that stuck.

Years earlier, he had worked with a large wealth management company, visiting underperforming offices to figure out why sales and morale were falling behind.

At one struggling branch, he interviewed the manager and asked him for some details on his lackluster results.

The manager had answers.  And they were all negative. His employees played solitaire on company computers. They used office equipment for personal projects. They wasted time. They stole supplies from the closet. They came in late. They left early. They weren’t making enough calls. The list went on and on.

My tow-truck philosopher listened patiently, furrowed his brow, and finally asked one simple question:

“That’s a long list. But when was the last time you caught your employees doing something right?”

The manager was confused.  And that was precisely the problem.  We tend to find what we seek. 

Change the Lens

When we look for mistakes, we’ll find them. When we look for reasons to be annoyed with our coworkers, we’ll probably find several before lunch.

When we look for evidence that our boss doesn’t appreciate us, our employees aren’t working hard enough, or somebody on the team isn’t pulling their weight, we can usually build a pretty compelling case.  But what happens when we reverse the lens?

What if we start trying to catch people doing something right?

The employee who stays ten minutes late to help a customer.  The assistant who remembers the small detail everyone else forgot. The salesperson who helps a struggling teammate even though there’s nothing in it for them. The manager who takes the heat when something goes wrong and gives the team credit when something goes right.

These things happen around us every day. We just don’t always acknowledge them.

Seek Out the Positives

Of course, the same is true in our personal lives.

Our spouse loads the dishwasher incorrectly once, and suddenly we’re building a case for the prosecution. But how often do we acknowledge all the times the kitchen magically gets cleaned?

We spot the wet towel our kid left on the bathroom floor from twenty yards away. But do we notice when that same kid helps a sibling with a tough homework assignment?

We get impatient when our parents repeat a story we’ve already heard six times. But do we remember how many thousands of our stories they patiently listened to?

We’re remarkably good at noticing what’s wrong. Maybe resilience requires becoming equally good at noticing what’s right.

Resilience Needs Fuel

Resilience isn’t only about surviving adversity. It’s also about building the emotional reserves that allow us to handle adversity when it inevitably arrives.  Trust, encouragement, gratitude, and recognition build those reserves.  When people feel valued, they tend to stand a little taller, work a little harder, and bounce back a little faster.

None of this means ignoring poor performance, pretending problems don’t exist, or handing out participation trophies because someone managed to show up for work wearing pants. Accountability matters. Standards matter. Performance matters. But accountability and appreciation aren’t opposites.  There’s plenty of room for both.

There is no shortage of people pointing out what’s wrong these days. But maybe the world needs something different from us.

Look harder for effort.

Look harder for kindness.

Look harder for progress.

Look harder for goodness.

And when we see it, say something.

I started that afternoon in rural North Carolina looking for someone to fix a flat tire.

Instead, a bearded former Repo Man with wild gray hair reminded me of something much more important.

Let’s work hard to catch people doing something right.