Communication, Delegation, and Instruction: Communicating With A Future Leader At Midnight

April 3rd, 2008 by Chris Stowell - International Business Development

Burning the Candle At Both Ends

It was 11:45pm. The light was off and my head just landed on my pillow. It had been one of those long and busy days! I was starting to drift into sleep when I hear my boy Talmage (3 years of age) out of his bed and moving around. I got up and walked into the hallway where he was lying and I asked impatiently why he wasn’t in bed. After giving excuses and nonsense answers I said in a stern voice “get back in bed.” This battle has occurred many times before. His response was “I can’t,” “why not,” I immediately replied? “Because I went pee-pee in my bed.” I let out a big sigh of frustration. It’s late, I’m tired and I now get to change the bed linens, give my boy a bath, and get him ready for bed again.

Before I tell you what went wrong, I need to provide you with a little more background. My boy has no probable in controlling his bladder during the day. It is at night when he’s in bed or a sleep where the problem exists. As I put him down to bed I explained to him that we need to keep our underwear dry. I explained that this makes Mom and Dad happy, our teachers at pre-school happy, and makes him a “big boy.” I made it explicitly clear that we DO NOT go pee-pee in our underwear, knowing that at his age accidents would at some point happen again. His response was a cheerful and loving, “okay Dad, I won’t.”

So after this late night discovery I asked the question “Talmage why did you go pee-pee in your bed?” He said “I needed to keep my underwear dry so I took it off.” I let out another frustrated sigh and thought to myself “you decided to wet the bed and that is okay in your mind, you did exactly what I asked which was to keep the underwear dry.” I love the simple thought processes of children.

As I finally made it back to bed, I thought to myself where did the communicating and coaching go wrong. I linked it to CMOE’s Eight Step Coaching Model and the well regarded Step 2: Define the Topic and Needs. It was very clear to me that because of my impatience and desire to get to bed, I failed to generate a clear understanding of the “Topic” which was keeping his underwear dry and “Need” which would be to use the bathroom to accomplish this.

The point of this story is when we are in a rush, impatient, or frustrated it’s easy to throw out our intended course of action without thinking clearly. Regardless, of how skilled or unskilled we are, these are often the situations when we need to pause and ask our self the question “Are we providing accurate coaching and effectively communicating to those who are in need or seeking our help?

Here are a few things I missed:

1. Taking the time to accurately explain the expectation or what some might call an assignment

2. Explaining the greater importance of fulfilling the expectation wasn’t fully explained

3. I failed to offer clear and effective ideas or suggestions to help him succeed

4. I was oblivious that a conflict of opinion or misunderstanding even existed

Every Conversation Is Important!

Forget the fad that only crucial conversations are important, every conversation is important! Leaders, especially, cannot be in a rush to communicate or provide instructions to individuals they work with or manage. By learning and developing a habit of effective communication, it will minimize conflict, improve efficiency, and will help you solve problems before they become unmanageable.