How do you handle the spilt milk?
When someone messes up do you tell and yell or spray and pray all of your stress and hope they get it? OR, do you help them understand what they did, the consequences of it and how to do it better? Mistakes happen. There is a commercial I recall about a mom who taught her son about the physics of water and how things float all because he spilled an entire gallon of milk on the floor. Wow, that could have turned out differently! Coaching someone, a leaders’ role, involves talking with them, not telling them all the things they did wrong. Those who are telling us what we “need” to do or “should have” done are usually the ones who are yelling or punishing us for that very behavior.How many times do you punish those who “spilt the milk” instead of making it a lesson they’ll remember having learned and wish to do differently?
Then again, if playing with the spilled milk was that much fun, I wonder if the boy did it again the following week, maybe even with something more colorful? Kool aid? Hehe!
