Failing…

Yesterday, I kindly reminded a participant in practice that he is “leading the witness.” He thought he was helping. He was not. His leading questions were led by his desire to help his struggling teammate find her voice in front of her team and extended team. He was trying to lead her by giving her some layup questions to get her going. This would be a virtuous thing to do to a newbie, to our struggling son or daughter, but not to our peer and prominent leader in front of her team. When you attempt to lead the witness in this way, it is most often because you want to help and you don’t believe they can help themselves. This is nice.

Instead, be kind. Stop your floundering leader and give them some truth in love. Do not lead them along like someone who cannot think for themself. Tell them the truth. Make them do what they can. Or, let them fail trying to figure it out. You do remember how you learned to ride your bike, don’t you?

One of the toughest jobs of a builder is being a consistent teller of truth. Truth tellers are rarely thought of as nice. Truth tellers are tough and tender, remember. The truth, when someone is failing right in front of you, is what they need to see. Hit them with it. Believe they have what it takes and, therefore, can take it. If they fail, so be it. As a peer or virtuous builder, you are going to help them separate themselves from the fail. You can do this after they’ve cried over their skinned knee and injured ego. Help them up, tell them what they did wrong, make them get back in the saddle before their fear overwhelms them. Remind them we all fail, not on our way to becoming a failure but on our way to moving forward. We fail forward. Failures fail to get up.

If you plan to build another human during your lifetime you had better get comfortable that you’re gonna be in a lot of acute pain along the way. It is the toughest job in the world to hit another human with hard truth. Don’t softball them with leading questions. In the real world they won’t have it so easy. So, be kind. Help them up after you let them fall. Make sure overtime and through adversity you build the kinda team that embraces failing – failing forward.

Good…