Pay Attention
If you could only give a new parent one piece of advice, what would it be? Mine would be simple: pay attention.
Interesting stuff is happening beneath the surface, and you don't want to miss any of it. Here's how Ryan Holiday put it in his excellent newsletter The Daily Dad (which every parent - including Moms - should subscribe to):
One of the most important forms of love you can provide your kids is to pay attention. - Ryan Holiday
In my experience raising our boys, paying attention often meant being willing to take the indirect route to the place from which I could see what was going on with them. Here's how I put it in Surf the Seesaw:
The most interesting and important things going on with our kids are like tiny details just before dawn when the light is very faint: it is hard to see them by looking directly at them. Often, we can only see the most important things in our kids’ lives indirectly, out of the corner of the eye. In those situations, the goal is not to extract an answer directly from the child, because we cannot see clearly enough to articulate a precise question about the underlying issue. Instead, the goal is to get kids talking about whatever they want to discuss, giving us indirect hints about the issues they are grappling with right now.Â
One of the most effective tactics we used around the dinner table many nights was simply asking them to tell us about the best thing and the worst thing that happened during their day. We called it Hi/Lo, and it regularly revealed (indirectly) priceless insights into what was occupying, rewarding, and frustrating them.
As I was talking with a manager this week about spotty strategic communication from his team, it struck me that he would benefit from the same sort of patient, indirect, inquisitive attentiveness with his team. Sometimes we need to stop controlling the conversation, the topics, the agenda. Instead just get them talking, and pay attention as they reveal what is really going on.
Have a super week!
Scott
Keep reading on this thread…
Improvisation Requires Total Focus
Get the book that started this adventure. Amazon carries Surf the Seesaw in paperback and e-reader here.
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