The different hands of a clock !!!

I spend time with my younger daughter and usually we allocate time for an activity (eg. draw till clocks hand moves from 2 to 6 and the read a book till it moves to 10 etc) and when the time is up we switch to the next activity. On one such occasion during an activity she said 'I hate the small hand in the clock and only like the long hand'. I was a little taken aback with this blurt from her and prompted her with a 'why do you say so' to which she innocently replied 'the small hand moves very slowly and I dont like it' I only like the big hand as it moves fast and lets me do many activities'. I laughed it off and explained to her that the small hand needs to move slow.

It struck me how often we fall into the same trap at work, as team leaders or managers we end up expecting different outputs from different team members rather than understanding their strength and letting the members play on their strength. Like the 3 different hands of a clock we also have team members who are all different, some good in design, thinking & conceptualising, some others who are good in networking and influencing and others good at project managing delivery. We need to ensure we play to their strengths, their aspirations and motivations.

Else we end up hating the small hand because it moves slowly not appreciating it is designed to move slow and it plays a role in keeping time !!!!