This week we are going to start a series about lessons I’ve learned being a dad.  We’ll start with building Lego Jeeps and seeing more than imperfections.

Alice (10) loves Legos.  She’s built all kinds of cool things over the years.  For Christmas she received a set to build a Jeep.  The set had hundreds of pieces and was pretty tricky to put together.  She basically locked herself in her room for a couple of days and didn’t come out until it was completed Alice was so excited and proud of herself.  She rushed downstairs to show me.  Now, I’m not proud of what I’m about to say.  The first thing I did when I saw it was comment on how one of the wheels wasn’t right.  That’s right.  I ignored her enthusiasm.  I ignored how hard she worked.  I ignored that she managed to do something very difficult 99% correctly.  Instead, I focused on the 1 thing she missed.  Not going to lie, it kind of crushed her a bit, and then I was sad because I made her feel that way.  After I realized what I had done, I apologized and switched gears to make sure she understood how excited and proud of her I was.  After she understood that, we worked together to rebuild the wheel.  By the end of the conversation, she felt better than when I initially crushed her heart.

What does this have to do with anything?  Have you ever been Alice at work?  I know I have.  I’ve had things that I’ve worked on, been super excited about, and then brought them to someone only to have them point out all the flaws without acknowledging any of the effort that went into this.  When this happened, I felt crushed.  I felt like I hadn’t been seen.  It also made me wonder if I really wanted to share things with that person again if they were going to crush it right away.  To be clear, I’m not saying we should avoid giving criticism.  What I think we can do a better job of is seeing the progress and effort vs. only focusing on imperfections.  If we can recognize the initial effort and progress first, then I think it opens us up to have a more honest and meaningful conversation about where we can make progress and address flaws.

The challenge: How can we better balance recognizing progress vs. focusing on imperfections?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry