Let people wobble
I’m watching my daughter do a Turkish Get-up with a kettlebell overhead and as she wobbles on the lunge I fight the urge to step in and correct her. She finishes successfully. I breathe a sigh of relief and we move on.
And I think: A year ago, I would never have stood back in that moment. I would have jumped in, corrected her, stopped the wobble, tried to perfect her technique, and enjoyed a LOT of eye-rolling in the process. I would have also stopped her from learning.
But here’s an insight that I learned in certifying as an instructor for Strongfirst: you must let your students wobble. The wobble is the learning.
When I first encountered that teaching, it was an epiphany for me. I have spent a career stepping in and trying to perfect people’s skills in consulting and management. I think many of us have a tendency, either as leaders, or parents, or teachers, or coaches, to jump in at the first sign of wobbling on the part of our charges.
To many of us, wobbling is a sign of impending disaster. We know what a skill should look like, and rather than endure the shakiness, we either step in quickly to correct it, or we — at our worst — take over.
How many times have you stepped in as a parent to take over from your kids, or stop them from wobbling? How many times as a leader have you taken over from a team or charge who was being hesitant and “wobbling” in their presentation or leadership? It’s distinctly uncomfortable when YOU have mastered something to watch someone else struggle with it. Perhaps because that discomfort is rooted in a remembrance of your own sense of inadequacy while you were learning.
But to intervene is to deny someone the magic of learning for themselves what works. Wobbling is what happens when your nervous system is in unfamiliar territory and has to keep course-correcting. Wobbling has to happen for people to learn. When you first wobbled on a bike, as you were learning to ride it, your body’s proprioceptive systems were firing in full. And each wobble sent signals to correct your center of balance and steady you. It’s because you were off balance that you could then find your balance. That’s one reason training wheels are a bad idea — they don’t teach you to balance on the bike.
It’s the same for facilitating a meeting for the first time, or presenting to a room full of executives. The wobble may look different — it may look like stumbling over the thread of the story, or being flat, or hesitating. But it’s all still a form of wobbling.
And what about preventing disaster? Surely you can’t just stand by? Well in the case of kettlebells, you “spot” someone — you stand close to the bell and are prepared to catch it if someone genuinely runs into trouble. But you are forbidden from touching it until that point.
The same is true for us as leaders or parents. You can be there to catch a kid about to face-plant into the corner of the coffee table. But you don’t have to stop them from wobbling near it. Or as leaders, you can be there to take over if someone is completely stuck. But don’t step in if they’re just stumbling over their words. Let them experience that struggle and go over it afterwards with some friendly advice, and you will see someone truly blossom and learn.
Key points:
Wobbling is evidence of learning
Resist the urge to intervene
“Spot” people — be there to prevent complete failure, not to stop the wobble
Related links:
Teach a child to ride a bike in 30 minutesProprioception: the sixth senseStrongfirst school of strength