There’s nothing more pliant (or compliant) than a child with a cold.
They’ll do anything you tell them. They prefer keeping quiet. They accept “just soup” as an entire meal. They practically put themselves to bed.
It can be almost…better this way?
For, like, a day … two days, max (if they’re particularly boisterous souls). And then you start to crave the pushback, the willfulness, the opinions, the noise.
As our house enters what seems to be round three of one-child-then-the-other sickness in less than two months, I’ve had a lot of time to analogize this phenomenon.
Tonight it struck me:
Health = resistance, self-determination, independence, and collaboration.
Sickness = compliance, rule-following, dependence, and one-sided control.
And this has its manifestation in all families, businesses, organizations, and nations. (Both internally and externally.)
As business owners and leaders, we owe it to our clients, customers, contractors, and employees to think on this. To make sure we’re prioritizing their health – even if it could be easier for us (in the short term) to do the opposite.
Because…
If your client can’t take their code and move to another platform or provider;
If your employee can’t make their own voice heard for fear of reprisals;
If you use contracts to undermine your contractor’s ability to grow;
If your customers can’t stop using your product because they’ll lose their (now) primary connections to people they need in their lives…
…then you are valuing sickness over health.
And I’d ask you not to do that.
Sick sucks,
James
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