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A great way to strengthen relationships
When I was in my late 30’s, I was attending a 6-week leadership seminar and learned a valuable lesson: Be careful when you tease. The subject was teamwork, and the instructor brought up the topic of teasing. He said, “Teasing can be one of the most subtle forms of cruelty.” He went on to say, “Have any of you ever been in situation where someone said something to you in jest, you chuckled, and then later had second thoughts?” “You may have thought to yourself, “I wonder what he meant by that”.
We have our conscious mind and we have the sub-conscious. Our conscious mind is tough, and can take some pretty good ribbing. While all this is happening, our sub-conscious mind is back there taking pictures, and we don’t even know it.
As soon as our instructor explained all this, one man jumped up and said, “I disagree. I have a 17-year old daughter, and if I didn’t tease her, we wouldn’t even be able to have a conversation!” Don, the instructor backed away, and said, “We only introduce this as food for thought. It is up to you if you think you want to apply it”
On the way home, the Dad began to think about his daughter. Even though he disagreed with the instructor, he thought, “Hey, things can’t be much worse. Why don’t I give it a try?” He did. He totally stopped teasing his daughter. It wasn’t easy. They began having conversations without the element of teasing.
Weeks later, at the final session, he reported on his greatest success from the training. He said it was relationship with his daughter. As soon as he stopped the teasing, he could feel them begin to get closer. After just a few weeks, they were having quality conversations that he could not have imagined. The most powerful moment came when his daughter acknowledged his change of habit. She said, “Dad, thanks for just being my Dad”. W0w! That was powerful.
Think about your team. Consider your family members. Could this work for you? It’s worth a try!