A six year old with a chain saw

Do you overprotect your staff cos they are ‘not old enough’ or ‘experienced enough’ yet?

On Saturday I was cycling up a long hill in the countryside when I saw people trimming back hedges and trees. As I got closer I noticed a man and child, who was no more than five or six years old, each with a chain saw cutting back the growth. My immediate thought was “wow, that’s dangerous”. The hill was steep so I had time to observe as I passed by. The boy was fully kitted out with safety gear: helmet, ear pads, goggles, steel toe capped boots, gloves, high viz jacket and trousers and was under close supervision by who I assumed to be his Dad. A little further up the hill was a parked van with “tree surgeon” written on the side. So I surmised the kid was working with his Dad on this Saturday morning.

I then thought “what a great experience, to spend time together, father and son. They will probably remember that for the rest of their lives and who knows what will become of the child in 30 years’ time and the stories he will tell of working with Dad on weekends”. I’m still not sure about the chain saw, though I bet the boy has been expertly trained to use it as the rest of the set up looked very professional.

Further up the hill I started to think of the limitless potential of humans, a six year old safely using a chain saw, young prodigies: Mozart, Michael Jackson, and Tracey Edwards who sailed single handed round the world at seventeen. And a fifteen year old girl who set out on a similar mission and was taken into care by the authorities when she landed in an English port only to be taken out of care by her father and set to continue her journey. Theo Walcott and Wayne Rooney played for England and Boris Becker won Wimbledon all soon after their seventeenth birthday. Amazing.

And you are doing it all yourself cos Stuart is ‘only’ thirty two.

When I was thirty they told me I’d have to wait till I was forty to get to the next level “cos that’s how old you have to be” so I left. In my new company I got to that next level within a few years. I really struggled at first though my boss supported me and six months later was doing OK.

I sometimes wonder about experience. Is thirty years of doing broadly the same thing “experience” or repetitious complacency or does it take forty or fifty years to truly master one’s craft? Malcolm Gladwell in his book “Outliers” says it takes ten thousand hours to master something and gives notable examples: The Beatles, Bobby Fisher the chess grand master and Bill Gates

The Dad may have learnt his trade from his father and who knows fifteen years from now the boy will be a master tree surgeon and take over from his Dad, keeping the lineage going. That would be a great story.

And what about you, are you persuaded to free yourself and challenge your young report to step up, much sooner than you expected? With your support he won’t let you down, though if you keep him down he will. And for all you know he may have been doing this since he was six on a Saturday morning with his Dad and is much more capable than you will ever know unless you let him.