I have two young boys who I love more than anything in the world. One of our favorite activities are board games. Monopoly, Risk, Settlers of Catan, Sorry, Uno, Skipbo, Scattegories, etc. etc. etc. The games are fun and the kids love them, but there is a caveat. Erin (my wife) and I DON'T LET THEM WIN. Now we aren't mean during the games, and we may go easy on them, but we don't intentionally lose.
Checkers is one of the more difficult games for the kids because it requires looking at the whole board, and they need to think several steps ahead, but they love to play against dad. When we play checkers in particular, I have a tendency to make my move to watch the surprise, then back the pieces up and ask them how they could have avoided the move (double jumps, triple jumps, king-me's etc.). The boys will look at the board and then show me how they could have avoided my move.
Here's where the not so nice part happens. I then reset the board to what it was after my original move and we continue the game. The results, thus far, are that the boys are getting better at checkers and thinking about the whole board. I'm not mean, but I'm definitely not "nicing" them in the game. Hence the picture of one of my son's hands on a checker's board with this quote.
In a similar vein, are you helping your team grow or are you being nice? Are you letting the team face the challenging situations, or are you bailing them out? It's a fine line between letting them experience the challenge but not letting them fail. Are you attempting to walk that line, or are you bailing the team out the moment they hit a speedbump?
Enjoy the weekend and look for an update next week from Europe!
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