I recently shared this well-known TED talk (“Everyday Leadership” by Drew Dudley) with my students, and I’m trying to use this idea to promote positive, small-scale leadership among my students.

I was thinking about this talk – and “lollipop moments” – as I was clearing snow from my driveway.  We were lucky enough to have a medium-sized and well-timed snowstorm in the Chicago area this morning, and that created a Friday Snow Day, a long weekend, and only a minimal amount of snow to remove (and a long weekend in which to do it).  In other words, this was an almost ideal snow day situation.

The TED talk is great, and much more fun than my explanation, but here’s a short version.  A guy walking around during a college orientation gives a young college freshman a lollipop, and asks him to give it to the woman next to him, and creates a funny situation that helps the woman decide to stay in college.  Four years later, she finds him and thanks him for helping her make this important decision.  And he doesn’t remember her at all.

The point is that the little things we do can have a big impact on people, even if we don’t know it.  It’s a great feeling to be the recipient of those kinds of exchanges – “hey, you changed my life, thanks” – and sometimes better to be the giver of these.  The key is that handing someone a lollipop doesn’t sound life-changing or even very interesting.  It’s not even a good piece of candy.  (My kids don’t especially enjoy these, and they tend to be the last bits of Halloween candy left.)  But it can help.

Back to the sidewalk.

A few years ago, we had a snowstorm.  I had an old snowblower at the time, and it was tiny and cheap.  I have a massive driveway, considering that I live in the Chicago ‘burbs, and the day that we had a foot of snow and my snowblower stopped working was quite painful.  I shelled out about $500 for a decent snowblower in the middle of that winter – probably the worst time to buy a snowblower – and I’ve been using it since.  It’s self-propelled and pretty powerful.  It takes only a little bit of effort to clear my driveway.  In fact, the hard part about using it is not spraying snow on myself or hitting my neighbor’s house.

My neighbors are adequately equipped.  I haven’t examined their snowblowers too closely, but I can say that I’m often out clearing my driveway before or after them, and finding sidewalks or driveways that are not cleared.  The house on the end of my street is owned by a nearby church, and its sidewalks are rarely cleared.  So, a little after I bought this too-big snowblower, I started clearing the sidewalks for the block.  On a pretty regular basis, I clear my driveway, clear my sidewalk, then clear the sidewalks in front of the three or four houses near me.  Sometimes I’ll clear the whole block.  It’s not like it takes a lot of time or effort.  But it hasn’t been unnoticed.  After one early storm a few years ago, I cleared my neighbor’s driveway apron (I think that’s what it’s called – the piece of driveway between the street and the sidewalk).  After the next snowstorm, my neighbor cleared part of my driveway.

I’m not sure if I can take credit for it, but shortly after this experience, other people started clearing the block, or clearing sidewalks in front of other people’s houses.  I wasn’t the only one, but we started “taking care” of each other’s snow removal.  I don’t know who was doing it, and I think I’m happy not knowing.  I don’t need to be thanked – the fact that other people are doing things for the neighborhood is more than thanks enough.  This morning, one of my neighbors cleared snow from my sidewalk.  They did a good job, too.

It’s a little thing, but who knows what kind of impact it has had?