Teach One

Since I was a little boy I have loved to cook. Growing up in a working family with three boys very close in age, food (and competition for food) was always a big deal. We all three learned to cook well enough to survive on our own, but I really loved it. Granted this was not a very manly thing to tell your buddies in junior high school, so I really kept my love for cooking to myself. “Dude I baked a really nice pineapple upside down cake last night, it was really moist”. That doesn’t sound weird now, but if you grew up in the 1970’s you would understand.
I’ve made several career changes over the years, but my love for cooking is one of the few things that has remained a constant. My wife of 25 years didn’t know how to boil water when we married, and while she is a pretty good cook now, I have been the one to feed us since the very beginning. I don’t mind because she does most of the cleanup, the smoke detector batteries last longer and we don’t eat at midnight. An excellent delegation of duties!
Since my daughter was very young I’ve let her help me prepare meals. I hoped that she would share my love of the kitchen, but she is now fourteen and I’m not so sure she has. The older she gets the more important it has become to me and I often feel like she thinks I’m leaving or dying when I tell her, “you really need to know how to make this” or “come watch how I do this part, I won’t be around forever”. I know this sounds morbid, but I have always thought the more she knows how to do for herself, the more independent she will be. Parents!
This makes me think of something I recently learned in an OSHA class. It was presented as the surgeon’s axiom and it is as follows; “See one, do one, teach one”. This is naturally what we do for our children, but this is also a wonderful approach for your business. When you take the time to help co-workers or new employees by answering the “there is no such thing as a stupid question” questions; you will be rewarded with a productive office and some karma bonus points. Teaching others is the best way to teach you!