Cleaning Up Messes

We spent most of last week visiting my son’s family in Georgia, including spending quality time with four grandchildren ranging in ages from nine years to seven weeks. The day after we got home, we spent most of the day with my daughter’s three children, ranging in age from three and a half to five months.

We love our grandchildren and love spending time with them. During these recent visits, I was reminded of a simple truth about children. If you’ve been around children (or been a child yourself) you know this is true.

Kids are messy.

This is true regardless of the child’s age, personality, or upbringing. Even the best babies spit up and create incredibly messy diapers. Toddlers can’t seem to eat without leaving evidence of the meal on the floor beneath them – and sometimes all over the house. Older children leave toys and games strewn across the floor (and somehow my bare feet always seem to find the Legos left in public spaces). We don’t have teenaged grandchildren yet, but we know from our own experience the kinds of messes teens leave in their wakes.

Still, children are worth it. As I thought about the messiness of our grandchildren, I also thought about the good, contributing, productive adults my formerly messy children have become. Sure, we’re messy in different ways as adults. Take a look in my backyard shed if you want evidence. But adults generally clean up after themselves.

This realization got me thinking about my first jobs. As a new employee – both as a teenager and fresh out of college – I made some messes. I’m not talking about destroy-the-company types of mistakes, but I made some missteps that my managers had to help me clean up. I burned some food as a short-order cook. I let some typos slip through some publications. I was young and inexperienced. I made some messes.

Fortunately, I had good leaders who recognized that I had some potential. They didn’t take the messes as a sign that I was hopeless any more than you look at a child’s mess and think they’ll never grow up to be responsible. My managers helped me to see how to fix my errors, clean up my messes.

As I grew up in the workforce, I still made some messes. But I learned to avoid a lot of mistakes and how to clean up after myself when problems arose. I also learned the value of helping newer team members to anticipate, prevent, and clean up their own messes. As a manager, that takes some extra work. But just as with messy grandkids, the effort is worth it as these employees turn into high performers in their careers.

Don’t get frustrated with the messes new employees make. They’re learning. They’re exploring. They’re trying. If there aren’t any messes, they probably aren’t doing anything more than the bare minimum. Help them stretch and grown and learn through the messes.

Yep, youngsters can be messy. But just like my grandkids, they’re worth it.

Mark Carpenter is a consultant, facilitator, coach, and co-author of the best-selling book "Master Storytelling: How to Turn Your Experiences Into Stories that Teach, Lead, and Inspire." www.master-storytelling.com