Amazing how we can struggle days, weeks, months in a relationship before we’re really willing to have the critical, high-risk discussion about an offense, an area where we feel we were wronged, about a behavoir we feel is unacceptable but we don’t stop and confront it with love. Instead, we treat it like the leftovers at my house that seems to stay in the fridge way too long…we pull them out, look at it, can’t imagine eating them, and stick them right back in the fridge, somehow believing they’ll be more attractive in time, or they’ll magically get better. Truth is, disfunctional relationships are like leftovers; the more they sit and fester, they get worse, and when they finally begin to stink after being passed over for better options, they get thrown away and replaced.
Life’s too short to approach business and personal relationships that way. As leaders, we owe it to those we lead to cultivate an environment that encourages “living without a net”: In other words, being willing to walk the relationship high wire, taking risky conversation walks with those we care about and those to whom we’re assigned to lead, to quickly address frustrations and problems so everyone has the chance to be heard, understood, and restored.
My kids will fuss, whine, throw tantrums even, when I suggest slowly peeling off a band-aid that’s been on so long the underlying cut has already healed. As most parents know, most of the crying & emotional pain could be avoided simply by swiftly, quickly and with love “ripping the band aid” so the wound can be exposed to the air it now needs to finish healing. There’s a time to cover a wound, there’s a time it needs to be re-covered so it can continue to recover. And yes, there’s a time to let it be exposed so that the next phase of healing can begin. Leaders recognize which is appropriate for which stage of the wound, and always has the wounded’s best interests in mind. In most cases though, we keep them covered too long…more times than not, sunlight is the best disinfectant. And more times than not, confronting the problem openly, quickly, with love turns out to be nowhere near as damaging as the anguish we put ourselves through putting off ripping the Band-Aid.
