adminZachary Aldwin Milkshake in the Boardroom
Perhaps it was to jump start this article. Childhood, generally, is a carefree place (of course as soon as I write that down a dozen examples of kids, the poor, the homeless, the oppressed, who do not have a carefree existence jump into mind). For the child life is a game, or at least it should be.The Atlantic published a fantastic article about the demise of the American playground and a revolutionary idea about a playground where kids could pretty much do what they wanted (think of a junkyard where kids are free to build anything they want with the bits inside).
The article made me grateful I grew up in Africa at a time when scrap was the next best toy, where rivers were safe to swim in and adventures were encouraged.
The article traces the demise of the playground from one of adventure to a “perfectly safe” environment of plastic and asphalt where injuries are minimised.
Minimising injuries sounds great, but at what expense? Does creating a playground where there is no risk, no challenge, no creativity really benefit kids in the long run?
Or does it just dumb people down a little more over time? People gave up the freedom to bring up their kids in an exciting environment in the interests of safety and avoiding expensive litigation. It made me think about some businesses.
We encourage our staff to be compliant, obedient to the checklists and protocols, perfect little minions dressed in company colours.
Have we instead crushed creativity, limited innovation and then wonder why nothing ever moves forward?
Naturally there has to be a balance somewhere, failure to adhere to basic safety in a mine shaft can get you killed.
I was running a staff training the other day, the topic was writing a killer email, the sort that stands out (more on that another time).
At the end of the presentation one woman raised her hand and asked “What about communication protocols?’
What communication protocols? Turns out there weren’t any. They existed in the minds of the staff that there was a ‘correct’ way to write an email and if you did not follow it all hell would break loose. Some companies have them though. Question is: what do they achieve? The perfectly attentive parent would never let their child fall off a slide, they would always be there to prevent it.
Sounds like great parenting; no bruises to kiss better, no scrapes to dab disinfectant on, no trips to the ER to see if there are any broken bones.
Too much control over your kids and they will never make a mistake. Chances are in life we will fall.
It is not the falling that matters; it is how we get up afterwards. I had a colleague who was a junior doctor, she was probably one of the best around, threw herself into her work whole heartedly.
She told me once of an experience that was set up to teach her a lesson. She was called to see an elderly patient who had suffered a heart attack.
She started cardio pulmonary resuscitation. Her senior did not intervene. Not for 30 minutes. Then exhausted she was forced to call it off, she could not carry on.
On post-mortem it was found that in her efforts she had actually broken some of the patient’s ribs (the breaks did not contribute to the death).
On debrief her senior she asked him why he had let her continue long after the point where it was obvious to an onlooker that the situation was hopeless.
The final conclusion: to teach her that she could not save everyone, to teach her that no matter how good she was sooner or later she would not be able to save a life. Sounds horrible, but it was a fantastic lesson in humility and resilience.
Psychologists who deal in the field of affirmation will tell you that if you want a child to perform at their best in a situation you have to help them believe that they can do it.
In addition there should be the idea that it will still be a challenge. If there is no challenge, the child thinks it will be too easy, then they will not perform at their maximum potential. There has to be an element of stretch or they just shut off and won’t give their best. Achievable but with that slight risk it may not work out.
Perhaps we could all treat our staff in the same way that great parents treat their kids. A few boundaries to keep the ball in play and avoid total disasters but with enough scope to enable exploration. Encouraging fun, rewarding innovation and resilience.
Telling stories that get buy-in, but allow them to develop the means to achieve the vision. Allowing them to work it out on their own even if it means that occasionally they scrape their knee. Then after putting a plaster over the bruise sending them out stronger to try again.
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