It’s one thing to be told what you’re about to do is a mistake, it’s another to make the mistake and learn the lesson yourself.
I don’t like to be told what to do. I never have. Rather if framed as a suggestion but ultimately given the autonomy to make my own decision, I’ll likely come to a similar conclusion to the one of a ‘command’ bestowed upon me.
“Let’s teach them what not to do so they don’t make the mistakes I made” is traditional wisdom at its finest. In theory it makes all the sense in the world but that’s not how the real world works. The real world is made up of personal experiences and nothing teaches you what NOT to do better, then doing it yourself.
I have personally watched as people on my team were careening toward a mistake (that I’d made in the past) and I intentionally didn’t stop them. Why?
I could interject and tell them not to do that but I know they would have the mindset of a four year old who is told not to touch the stove. Instead, I’ve let them touch the proverbial stove and learn for themselves the mistake firsthand. That is 100x more powerful than telling them to avoid it in the first place. You know they didn’t make that same mistake twice!
The stove is personal pain. The stove is emotional pain. The stove is a learned and earned lesson, not a theoretical one.
The flip side to all this is the bravado of someone willing to prove you wrong…and I love it. I love when someone tells me not to do something because of some lesson they learned in the past (when circumstances were very different) and then I do it anyway and prove them that it can be done (in a different way or that times have changed). I see this all the time and I revel in it. Those examples look like this:
Don’t work with that installer, they’re terrible and always drop the ball…then my sales rep calls on them any way to partner on a deal and they deliver with flawless execution.
Don’t bring in a third party financing partner, it’ll slow down the deal and kill our chances of growing the account…then my sales rep brings them in and and it builds faster credibility then trying to control the narrative ourselves that we may have otherwise lost.
Don’t run after rebates in the Seattle market, it’ll slow down the deal and kill our chances of winning…then my sales rep navigates their political connections, loops in a channel partner who secures the rebate and BOOM, bag secured and customer is over the moon with us.
Don’t respond to that RFP, it’s a waste of time, we don’t do RFP’s, and then we win the deal.
A business is built on learned lessons. Often times we want to grab our team and say DON’T DO THAT! In my opinion a lot of commanding advice falls on deaf ears and leads to resentment when people lose their free will to make the final judgement call.
It’s also easy to say, “I told you so” but that’s a gaslighting comment that further leads to greater resentment. The ultimate vindication moment is when they too learn the same lesson you learned and you can both commiserate touching the stove together.
I bet they’ll ask you next time what you think they should do before putting their whole hand on it.