The Hardest Thing to Teach
The hardest thing to learn, but even more so to teach, is which rules can be broken and which must be followed.
The hardest thing to learn, but even more so to teach, is which rules can be broken and which must be followed.
I’m not talking about laws or being a societal outcast, I’m talking about the subtler side. Anyone who has been in a position of managing a big outcome or people learns on the first day that it’s not as simple as “ask for a thing” and then “receive a thing.” More frequently you ask and if you get anything back at all, that’s some form of progress.
Every single day, each of us, regardless of role or title makes dozens of decisions about whether to actually follow through on the asks we’ve received. Similarly, sometimes it’s not an ask at all but rather a decision about whether to conform to a given social or business cultural convention. I’ve noticed that everyone has a dramatically different tolerance for doing something they disagree with — some people will carry on for months without raising a fuss and others won’t do a single thing they don’t believe is their highest priority. At its heart though, all of us eventually make these choices based on our own rational choice decision-making which ultimately is separate from the norms or asks we live in or receive.
Overwhelmingly we teach our children to follow the rules because in most situations, most of the time, it pays off to avoid the consequences and be a team player. The trouble is, often the most innovative and disruptive advancements require revisiting the rationale of some of these core rules that we follow.
A mentor of mine once reminded me of an ever so critical thought on this in the form of a question: “Do you think you’ll be rewarded more for producing the result or for doing what was asked when the two are at odds with each other?” It’s pretty clear from experience that the result gets rewarded. I wish I could say in one blog post how to decide when we should adhere and when we should buck, but we must stop to ask the question of ourselves and then use our judgment to decide.
Originally published at http://adamjudelson.com on November 11, 2016.