Perseverance story: What do you think makes strong foundations?
Once upon a time, there were two neighbors living next to each other. One of them was a retired teacher and another was an insurance agent who had a lot of interest in technology. Both of them had planted the same plants in their garden. The retired teacher was giving a small amount of water to his plants and didn’t always give full attention to them, while the other neighbor interested in technology, had given a lot of water to his plants and looked after them too well. They both knew that plants need strong foundations to grow strong, but each of them had their own opinion of what those were, and how to make them.
The retired teacher’s plants were simple but looked good. The insurance agent’s plants were much fuller and greener. One day, during the night, there was heavy rain and a wind due to a minor storm. The next morning, both of the neighbors came out to inspect the damage to their garden. The neighbor who was an insurance agent saw that his plants came off from the roots and were totally destroyed. But, the retired teacher’s plants were not damaged at all and were standing firm.
The insurance agent was surprised to see it, he went to the retired teacher and asked, “We both grew the same plants together, I actually looked after my plants better than you did for yours, and even gave them more water. Still, my plants came off from the roots, while yours didn’t. How is that possible?”
The retired teacher smiled and said, “You gave your plants more attention and water, but because of that they didn’t need to work themselves for it and the plant couldn’t “build” strong foundations on which it would grow. You made it too easy for them. While I gave them just an adequate amount of water and let their roots search for more. That is what caused the plants to make strong foundations from which they grew. The plant’s roots had to go deeper and that made their position stronger. That is why my plants survived and yours didn’t when they encountered rough times.”
Moral of the story:
- Dealing with unpleasant situations or with different challenges makes a person more resilient and suited to deal with similar or harder situations in the future.
- Leaders and mentors always need to build confidence in each member of their group by slowly giving them more responsibility and harder tasks so that each of them grows with the tempo they can handle. Give your team strong foundations, and challenges with which they will grow.
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