Surrendering control can empower Airmen

  • Published
  • By Col. Rhett Champagne
  • 821st Contingency Reponse Group
A few years ago, my daughter told me she wanted to paint her room. 

In truth, it needed a bit of touch up as she had marked it up, changing the layout of her room every few months since we moved there. However, on that particular day, I already had a list of things I needed to do around the house and painting a room was not on it. 

During the next few weeks, she continued to ask to paint her room and it continued to fall below my prioritized cut line. Finally, she told me that she was going to paint her room by herself if I would just pour the paint for her.

Realizing she was serious about doing this and confident in herself to do a good job, I got out the tape and ground cloth, helped her move the heavier bits of furniture, showed her how to protect the places we didn't want to be painted, poured the paint and turned her loose. 

During the next couple hours, I occasionally popped my head into her room to see her meticulously taping edges, covering furniture and painting her wall. Except for a little advice, she painted her room entirely on her own.

Truth be told, she did a fair job. There were a few spots that were missed and a few spots that I wish would have been missed. Her jeans had paint all over them, but the furniture and carpet were pretty much unscathed.  For an 11-year-old without any experience, she had knocked it out the park.

This turned out to be a positive experience that could just as easily never have happened at all.  Because of her age and inexperience, I initially discounted her ability to do the task.  As the experienced person, I made it about my ability to be on hand and guide the entire process to get the exact result I wanted. 

In reality, though, she just needed a little help getting started, some techniques to avoid getting paint everywhere and then for me to get out of her way. The end result worked well for both of us.  She was extremely proud of what she had done and I was proud of her, too.  During the next few months, she was also very careful not to mess up the walls she had painted. The pride in her work had extended to its up keep as well, and she was invested in it. 

By giving up some control, I empowered her to grow as a person, to take responsibility for a task and enjoy the satisfaction of a job done well.  It also reaffirmed a good lesson learned over the course of my career: If you give a motivated person the tools, parameters/guidance and room to maneuver, they will often amaze you with their results.