Controlling Goats

My office has a great view of the neighbor's thatch-roofed house on the hill next to ours. Today, I watched out my window as a boy, probably around 8 years old, tried desperately to pull a very stubborn goat up the hill to his house. He tugged, and pulled and shouted for a number of minutes. He was about halfway up  the hill and in desperation, he threw the goat's rope on the ground and started running down the other side of the hill. As soon as he started running, the goat followed him. In fact the goat was so eager to keep up, that he actually overtook the boy!

I laughed a little, at this view out my window. But it reminded me so much of what it's like to work with people. We can be quite stubborn, when others are telling us what to do. Even if that thing they are encouraging us to do is good and better than what we are currently doing, sometimes we attack it with surprising amounts of resistance anyway. But then, if we can glimpse someone excelling and enjoying their way, we will do all we can to attain that thing... especially if no one is pushing or pulling us along.

Sculpture of a girl attempting to pull a goat

I often tell our staff that working with people is not math. There is no one right answer all the time. Even for the same girl. Sometimes one approach works, sometimes that same approach will make the situation worse. We never really know. But we do know, that when we communicate to a person that change and growth are in their control, and only their control, and step back to watch and see how they do it (encouraging and prompting along the way), well, then it's often amazing to see what transpires. The trick is, teaching someone, empowering someone, to find hope, to believe that the future is better and bright and theirs for the taking.

When someone believes that, really believes that they have hope; that's when it becomes impossible to keep up.

Current favorite game: The Slipper Game...

Think of kickball using flip-flops (slippers) instead of a ball.