Baby Spoons

Learning on the Job #2

Have you tried to feed a baby?

Consider a bowl of mashed peas and carrots. Much of the food ends up on their face, hair, and your floor. What does get into the mouth, you have to be careful doesn’t cause choking.

The trick is to do it slowly. Put a little bit at the end of the spoon and bit by bit, slip it into their mouth. You avoid the spillage and allow them to get used to the flavour.

I call this the baby spoons approach.

It works because it overcomes a baby’s often natural state: squirmy, limited attention span and adverse to trying new things.

I’ve found clients, my team and myself can be like that too: we change our minds, get distracted by shiny objects and don’t like change.

It’s with that realization that I’ve tried the baby spoons approach to accomplish goals, morsel by morsel, bite by bite.

Getting clients to be successful

This is where the notion all started. When a client signs up for SoapBox, they buy an employee ideas program. However, it is impossible to expect right out of the gate employees to share insightful ideas on how to improve the business and leaders to promptly respond and take action on ideas. They need to build a taste for it.

As a result, the guidance we give is doled out in small morsels. First a baby spoon of advice on how to encourage sign-up. Then, another baby spoon on how to obtain quality ideas. Then, another baby spoon on how to implement ideas, followed by another and then another.

The key is to give them bite sized information right when they need it. This means they remember the pertinent information and can make tangible actions to move forward.

We then have to go back with another spoonful of advice shortly after. But that’s better than them biting off more than they can chew.

Getting the team to meet goals

All organizations have annual and quarterly plans. In previous experience, though, I noticed that things often don’t go as expected; teams got off track, targets were missed.

At SoapBox, we add weekly and daily planning that keeps us moving in the right direction at the right speed.

Each Monday we commit to what will get done by Friday. This is inspired by the agile software development method. Like hamburger sliders, I find it is much easier to finish more when things are bite sized (don’t tell me you’ve never marvelled at how you were able to plow through a bag of two-bite brownies so fast).

Again, taking a cue from the agile approach, each team scrums on a daily basis. Going around the circle, each person shares what made yesterday a success and what will make today a success. The outcome of this is that each individual is focused on what they need to accomplish and we can clear up blocks or alignment issues right away.

Weekly plans and daily objectives enables us to baby spoon our way to our quarterly and annual goals.

Getting me to meet my personal goals

When it comes to professional and personal goals I often think a) there is such a long way to go before I’m ‘there’ and b) I’m not making progress.

Lately, I’ve started to take my own advice and chunk life out into baby spoons. This is similar to the best practice of celebrating small wins. But there is more to it.

1. The bowl of life is never empty: I’ve realized there is no one pinnacle status of achievement. There is no ‘there’. The minute I’ve arrived I’ve been somewhere else.

And so I’ve switched my perspective. I look at life as a bottomless bowl of goodness. I enjoy each bite, look forward to what I can see and know that as I progress my bowl of life will refill with more to consume.

2. I can only digest what I have today: There is no point in worrying about what is about to come. Who knows how old I will be when I have children. Who knows if I will get pushed out, promoted or pissed off at work a year from now.

Instead, I focus on what I have on my plate right now. Spoonful by spoonful, I work my way through life.

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What do you achieve through baby spoons?

This is what I’m learning on the job at SoapBox. I believe learning = fun = success. Share your thoughts and this post to multiply our learning.