I was on a vacation this past week when in just a few seconds my four-year-old daughter gave me some of the best advice I am sure any parent has ever received. We were at a water park and she was trying to get across the pool using the monkey-bar like rope and the floating plastic rocks. She was not tall enough to reach the rope in most areas of the course so she was going to need my help unless she just jumped from rock to rock. She was struggling to reach the rope and the rock was sliding out from under her so I grabbed her and assisted her and she yelled, “Dad, I got this.” Then she yelled that she needed my help, but then again followed up that she didn’t want my help. I just couldn’t seem to do it right.
So, as we got ready for her next turn I reassured her that I was only there to help, but knew that she could do it. And she turned to me and said, Daddy, I got this, BUT sometimes I might need your help to make sure I got this. And then sometimes you just need to let me fall.”
There it was, summed up in one little beautiful rant. We as parents need to be there for our kids to support them, but they can do a lot more than we think. And finally, sometimes they actually do need to fall in order to understand the importance of getting back up and overcoming that challenge in life.
- In business, management is often willing to invest in training new and young workers, but often does not know exactly what direction to allocate their resources. My daughter gave me a pretty good idea on what she wanted her dad to do as she attempted to take on new physical challenges. Sometimes at work the feedback isn’t quite as clear. At Cyber Advisors, we are committed to growth and employee engagement and I want to share an article in INC. that share some great training tools companies like us are using to train the new wave of employees in a way that fits their style.
- If my daughter decided that I just didn’t have the skills to be her dad, she does not have the ability to swap me out for a new one. She must train me. She seems up to the challenge. For businesses, the challenge is met with more options. Forbes has this article on deciding whether this person in a new leadership role is truly a leader or if a company needs to make a swap and look to the outside.
- Kids have basic survival needs just like you and me, but our children have other needs that we as parents are constantly trying to meet. A few of them include the need to feel safe, need for compliments, to feel understood, the need to know what’s going on and ultimately the need to feel loved. Well, according to this article in the Baltimore Sun, your employees have many of the same needs.
- The Minnesota Gophers announced this week the hiring of a new softball coach Jamie Trachsel. Coach Trachsel, or Jamie, as I knew her, graduated from my high school two years before me. Her family is a well-known athletic family from Duluth. My dad grew up playing sports with her dad and uncle and would tell many stories of their neighborhood dominance over other neighborhoods in town thanks to the Trachsel family. Jamie was one of the best athletes to ever compete at my high school lettering 17 times in four sports while also being a nine-time racquetball national champion. Everyone at our school admired her athleticism and competitiveness and she was adored by teammates and classmates as a leader and friend. Congratulations Jamie. Check out the link here.