Pretend Monsters and Squirrels
Mike Ditka is a little too cool to take a selfie at the bookshop, but still I try.
About a decade ago, I decided to start reading comic books. It was a totally geeky thing to do of course, and the impetus had nothing to do with superhero movies. It was even geekier. I found myself obsessed with folklore and mythology. I set a goal of reading 500 comic books over the next five years. It was going to be super geeky.
Best laid plans and all, this endeavor quickly went astray. Here is the deal— I found that I genuinely really liked comic books! I grew fond of the characters, and when I think back on those books- Saga, Silver Surfer, Howard the Duck, the Fantastic Four, and so many others, they play like television shows in my mind. There of course were parallels, but the exercise failed to compete with the enjoyment of just getting lost in the story.
It was fortunate that I found myself drawn to comics around that particular time, because one afternoon in January of 2015 I picked up a comic book that would change my life. It changed how I viewed collaboration and competition in the professional environment, and this is why it changed my life. The book written by Ryan North with art by Erica Henderson was titled “The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #1.” It was published by Marvel, and only a couple dozen pages in length, but it along with the seven issues that followed were lessons in leadership, conflict resolution, and creative problem solving.
By March when I found myself rolling difficult situations around in my mind, I would genuinely ask myself, “How would Doreen Green approach this?” You see, Doreen Green is Squirrel Girl’s non-superhero-sounding name. In my mid-career mind as the director of an education department, it sounded way more professional to me to be pondering about how “Doreen Green” would do something than how “Squirrel Girl” would. Plus, I could quote Doreen Green in meetings. Folks would naturally assume that she was an academic from a TED Talk or an author like Daniel Pink or Brené Brown.
Squirrel Girl, I mean Doreen Green, is not like other superheroes. Sure, she has all the superpowers of a squirrel. She can climb trees with ease. She can talk to squirrels. She even has a tail. She’s tough too. She eats nuts and can kick butts. She is reasonably smart and clever. She has all of these powers, but they are not the power on which she relies. Doreen relies on a power we can all have. She really listens and empathizes. She is unbeatable because she knows people are dynamic. She knows all people change. She knows that if we shift how we think about rivalries, we can find a way in which we all win. You see, Doreen Green says, “Wait. . . maybe the question isn’t ‘How do I beat him?’ Maybe the question is “Dude, why are we even fighting in the first place.”
You can learn your lessons from Sun Tzu and Niccolò Machiavelli if you want to, but I will continue to look to words of Doreen Green:
“. . . . I don’t believe in monsters. Beneath that cold metal mask, you're still human. Human like me. I believe you’ll listen to reason. And I don’t believe humans stop being human even when they pretend they're monsters.”
Sometimes when Mike Ditka the dog and I are walking, we give a knowing head nod to squirrels we pass. We want them to know that we know about Doreen and that together we are better.