Ancient 3-steps formula to create a champion team! And making sure they don’t hate you in return…
In the 16th century, there lived a prosperous fisherman named Subba in Andaman Islands. He used to catch fishes in Indian Ocean. He was old and he knew his end was near. He had three sons but they did not have any interest in taking care of the prosperous fishing business after his death.
Subba had tried very hard to teach his sons how to do fishing. But now he had just given up. He thought that his sons were useless, inefficient, and simply morons.
One day he became very worried that soon he is going to die. So he visited the wise old woman of the village — “The Oracle”. He entered the sacred cave in which the Oracle lived and told his sad little story.
Oracle asked him if he had ever tried to teach fishing to his sons. Fishermen with a lot of disdain in his eyes replied — of course yes! I have tried thousand times and failed miserably every time. Oracle asked for details. Subba said, I had taken my sons on my boat to Indian Ocean many times. Indian Ocean ocean is full of fishes. I gave them all the necessary equipment — fishing rod, net, bait, hook. I gave them the liberty to do the fishing on their own in the ocean. But they were not able to do it so I took the fishing rods from their hands into mine and taught them how to fish. I repeated this exercise hundreds of times and still those morons don’t understand how to do fishing. On the top of it, no one is coming forward to take ownership of this business. And they think of me as a mad dictator. I want to see them prosper and increase this business 100 times. But I am afraid they are just going to ruin it and live rest of their lives in poverty.
Oracle had understood the problems — she knew the three mistakes that fishermen was making.
Oracle touched the orb lying near her and it started glowing. Fisherman was amazed. He kneeled down and begged Oracle for a solution. The old sage nodded and shared the first step of her ancient magical formula.
1. Give them purpose
Dear Subba! earlier you were forcing your sons to do fishing in ocean. They were simply terrified. You need to involve your sons into small chores and tasks first. Tell them, that you are becoming old and need their help. This would be their purpose. For example, ask one of them to lay the net. Ask the other one to fix the bait on the hook. Ask the other one to simply count the fishes being caught. And ask all of them to take care of the boat and fishing equipment in rotation.
You need to do this for next one month. And then report back to me.
After one month Subba returned with lot of excitement. He said — thank you Oracle! My sons are very interested in the fishing expeditions now. They are highly qualified in taking care of the boat and equipment. It is really helping me also as I have some spare time to take care of my old body. Now please tell me the next step of this magical formula so that I can turn them into champion fishermen.
Oracle started speaking…
2. Give them autonomy
Ask your sons to fix their respective equipment and start fishing in shallow waters. They would be sloppy and they would make tons of mistakes. It might seem very inefficient to you. But let them take time and make mistakes.
When they are done, first of all congratulate them and praise them that they were able to do fishing on their own without any external help. Take them on the shoulder and kiss their forehead. And when they are relaxed, tell them that you could share a few tips on how they could take their newly found skills to the next level. And then without patronising them, share your observations lovingly. Oh Subba! do this for next 30 days and come back to me.
Subba returned back this time almost jumping in joy to Oracle. Very happily he announced that his sons had turned into promising fishermen. They could efficiently do fishing autonomously in shallow waters. Oracle smiled and asked Subba to continue the same process and return back after 30 days. But after 30 days, Subba returned with lot of anger. He started yelling that his sons are not at all interested in fishing anymore and they are useless as always.
This time Oracle burst into laughter. She told Subba that he was making the age-old mistake of not enjoying the journey. She said, fisherman was not praising and appreciating his sons enough. Subba said, but why should I praise them for fishing a handful of fishes in shallow water? I will praise them when they have increased my business by 100 times and when they are able to catch the great fishes of Indian Ocean. Oracle said lovingly, dear Subba — you need to celebrate small successes in life. Because when you celebrate even small successes, our mind releases feel good hormone called dopamine. When this happy chemical is released in our blood, we become excited to repeat the same activity again so that we can have this happy hormone again. And soon even difficult tasks become a happy habit.
So this is the third step of this magical formula.
3. Stop caring so much about the destination and simply enjoy the journey.
Because the lessons and learnings in the journey, make you happier and wiser.
When Subba started implementing the third step of this magical formula — soon his sons started enjoying the process of fishing a lot more. They became curious and were not afraid of making mistakes. In fact every day at the supper, they used to discuss the mistakes they had made with Subba. Subba would teach them that what they could have done better.
Epilogue: After few years, Subba was no more in the world. But he would be a proud father in the heavens. His sons had increase business not by hundred times — but by thousand times. Amazingly, they still enjoyed fishing and learning from their mistakes. They still missed their wise father dearly.
