I wasn’t awake for the first phone call. It was midnight. Why would I be?
I was awake for the call at 4 AM. I was leaning into my older age and saw my wife’s phone light up from the bathroom.
I was surprised her phone was buzzing at 4 AM and even more surprised that it was my son’s number, so I answered.
Two weeks earlier we moved him into college in Chicago, which is a good eight hours away from our hometown of Kansas City.
His stomach hurt and he hadn’t slept. His mom told me that this had been going on since midnight. You know, when normal people are asleep. I wasn’t exactly empathetic and asked him when was the last time he went to the bathroom. (C’mon kid … it’s a stomach ache)
We all decided to give sleep one more try. It’s 4 AM, right?
At 5:30 we were figuring out how to get on the earliest telehealth appointment and I started looking at hospitals in the city that we might choose if the doctor agreed with what we thought it was. How do you decide on a hospital in a city where you visit for fun?
The next 24 hours were a whirlwind.
He Ubered to the ER.
So, he did that. (merge, everybody merge, I’m only imploding)
The 18-year-old who can’t close any of the drawers on his dresser. Seriously, all six are halfway out all the time. Why? More efficient?
The 18-year-old who can’t figure out which clothes on the floor are clean. Wait … are the one’s in the basket clean? No wait … those are dirty. No, the ones on top are dirty. The ones underneath are clean because they are folded.
So the 18-year-old is signing consent forms of all kinds about who knows what.
Real quotes:
“Will I have to pay for this today?”
“I think it will only cost $330. That’s what I saw on one of the forms.”
He calls us back and tells us he needs his appendix removed and surgery is scheduled in two hours. Where was THAT consent form?
…
I drove directly to the airport to catch the next direct flight to Chicago. Thank you Southwest, for flying to Chicago so often.
I arrive several hours after surgery is done and make my way to his room.
His girlfriend’s best friend is sitting on the visitor chair … couch … bed, chair-couch-bed or whatever it is they call that piece of furniture that you think you can sleep on but you really can’t and it’s almost comfortable, but, no, it isn’t.
Um, Hi! I say being all parent and fatherly.
It turns out that his girlfriend (who goes to another school) didn’t want him to wake up alone and called her friend (who does go to his school) and came to the hospital to be there when he got out of surgery.
He wasn’t alone.
Wow.
We didn’t orchestrate any of that.
And then one of his buddies from over an hour away (who happens to date said girlfriend sitting on couch-chair-bed) also showed up. He had visitors!
When did all these kids who needed all this help two weeks ago grow up?
We left that evening around 8.
No seriously.
Laparoscopy is an amazing medical feat. An 18-year-old body must also be amazing to live in. Imagine the possibilities …
If I’m being honest, I wouldn’t have let my son do or decide anything that happened if he were at home. He can’t even shut his drawers to his dresser!
The only reason we let him do this at school is because we didn’t have a choice. It all happened so quickly that we were along for the ride, not driving.
Isn’t this a CEO and Ownership blog?
Fine … I’m pouring my heart out here all proud and stuff and you want a payoff.
So … can you see it coming?
It makes me think about fear. You don’t delegate because you don’t trust or are afraid of the results. The fear leaders have for keeping all the control and management on a micro scale is because they either don’t trust anyone on their team to do anything, Or it’s that they can’t figure out a low risk scenario to test giving out autonomy and authority. The stakes are always too high.
Or is it just easier to do it yourself? Why take all that time to explain it?
Well here’s the rub. The stakes are too high for you to NOT let others grow. Don’t let an emergency, accident, death, disability, disease, disaster, complication, absence or other challenge become the first time you let your team figure it all out. That’s WAY more stressful than in a controlled environment.
Try it.
Pick someone and something that you have been worried about, concerned out, tired of doing, shouldn’t be doing, and try it.
They’ll surprise you, like the college kids did. They just needed the opportunity.