In my final two years at high school I had the same teacher for Legal Studies, Accounting, and Economics. I thoroughly enjoyed all three classes, and as is often the case the reason was my teacher. I have vivid memories of completing questions in Accounting only to find that my answer was different to the one in the book. My teacher’s response to this wasn’t to tell me I was wrong, but rather to work through questions with me, and more often than not he would agree with my answer over the one in the book. This finding was subsequently supported by the others in the class who would also come to my conclusion (I tended to work very quickly and so their independent work would corroborate mine). In my (no doubt inaccurate) memory this led to my answer being assumed valid.

People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel — Maya Angelou

The feeling this left me with was one that “my thoughts and views are valid, even if they’re different to the textbook”. This is one of those moments in my life that set me on a particular course. As my education progressed through university I found less opportunity to discover my own path, and ended up deciding that neither Law nor Accounting had space for the flexibility that I’d enjoyed in my high school studies of the same topics. The freedom to find our own answers (or to discover existing answers our own way) is something that has stuck with me throughout my life, something I attribute to memories like those from my year 11 Accounting class.

Of course when we parent we tend to take a different approach as our children go through different stages. Without realising it we apply a situational leadership telling style, implying to our children that this is the only way to do it. If we aren’t careful, we limit our children’s ability to move on and develop their own abilities and confidence.

Think about your own experiences — are you leaving your children with a sense that “this is how I’ve been taught to do the dishes, but there may be other ways that I might discover in future”?

With the debate over before it started I’m informed that “even in test cricket the bowler gets the wicket” — something that made no sense to my primary school self.

This can’t be my first mistake for I’m sure I’d made many before this event. But for some reason it’s a memory that’s stuck with me, a realisation that a view I held was wrong. I of course continue to make many mistakes, no doubt far more than I’m aware of. To this day I continue to reflect on moments in my day where I’ve changed my views on something — sometimes something small, sometimes something material. To do this well I ask myself three questions:

1. What did I hear that changed today? What was it that changed my mind? What do I now need to re-evaluate having changed my mind?
2. What did I consider changing my mind about but didn’t? Did I truly listen with the intent of learning rather than arguing? Was there something that wasn’t said that could have changed my view?
3. What am I unaware of that I should be listening for? Surely there are interactions in which I am completely unaware that I position I hold is considered wrong to others. I am aware that I have a dominant voice, and that often others are silenced without me even realising it. Am I aware of when this happened today?

I love tying these back to my childhood, a time when learning was without ego and was expected. Why is it that we divide our lives into school (learning) and work (doing)? If we’ve stopped learning, how can we know that we’re doing it right?

Upon returning from Adelaide I’ve read a little of the recent publicity of free range parenting, sparked by the Netflix series Old Enough. The NPR article below expands on the virtues of giving kids responsibility and freedom from a young age, but only tells part of the story.

A 4-year-old can run errands alone ... and not just on reality TV

Free range parenting isn’t new. Lenore Skenazy made headlines in 2008 when she let her 9-year-old ride the NY subway alone. She instantly became my hero when that news broke! However, that only tells part of the story.

At the same time that I’m reading all of this, closer to home a parliamentary inquiry has recommended raising the age of criminal responsibility. This is something I’m very much in favour of (a longer story, part of a future piece).

Parliamentary inquiry recommends raising age of criminal responsibility to 14

All of this brings me to my point. How can I both support the free range parenting movement, having allowed my own kids much of that same freedom through their pre-school and primary-school years, whilst at the same time support raising the age of criminal responsibility? Surely if I believe in giving the kids freedom, they need to take the accountability that comes with it?

Our kids are constantly cooking. An interest I never developed. I love watching them cook, knowing that they’re learning a life skill, and doing something that has so many opportunities for creativity. Ruby’s cinnamon scrolls (above) are a recent example, or the gnocchi that Sam attempted last week.

Of course this results in the kitchen being perpetually “messy” (understatement of the decade), which in turn frustrates my lovely wife no end. This is where a category called shocking but not surprising comes in. I am constantly shocked by how messy the kitchen is, and that our kids whom I love so much, can be so hopeless at cleaning up (Mum, Dad — this is the point where I apologise for all the things I did as a kid). Despite the messiness, and my state of shock, I’m not in the least bit surprised. Nor am I surprised to find that one of our kids has done something they weren’t supposed to, or not done something they were. Typically the former involves screen time, whilst the latter involves chores.

The important point to note is that whilst I want my kids to be responsible, I don’t expect them be reliable. So I don’t build structures that assume my kids are responsible adults — they’re 13 and 14, they’re learning to be responsible adults, but they’re learning through mistakes.

Which brings me back to my trip to Adelaide with Sam. This basketball season has involved several discussions about the need to commit to one sport (he plays basketball, footy, and cricket — with multiple teams for each). At the start of basketball selections the club asked him “are you playing footy” to which he responded “no, just basketball”, which at that point in time was correct. The club are now frustrated that he’s missing training sessions due to football clashes, and he’s frustrated about the repercussions of this. Some of these repercussions involve him spending a lot of time on the bench. Here’s where things get interesting — I like the concept of him being held to account for his decisions, however what’s missing in all of this is the amount of time that I spend driving him around.

Him spending time on the bench costs me time too, but at no point prior to committing did anyone have a conversation about commitment levels with me. It appears that the club expected that a 14-year-old was reliable, understanding the questions, and being mature enough to make informed decisions. In my view, this is the black & white pattern of responsibility that we’ve allowed ourselves to fall in to.

In your discussions with your children, how are you balancing the need to give them responsibility to grow with the realities of how unreliable teenagers are?

But hiring the way I do has delivered reliable business results over many years, how can I be confident that I can make diversity a success in this role?

I’m going to offer three perspectives you should consider when hiring to maximise the chance of a successful and diverse outcome.

Attract

Is our problem that we are looking for people in the wrong place?

Do you have a standard procedure for hiring? A standard set of places you advertise, or recruiters that do the recruiting for you? Where are we looking for people? Whatever you’re doing — by all means keep doing it, and add to it. If your organisation has a gender imbalance consider Work180, if your organisation has an age imbalance consider recruitment agencies that specialise in the Restart program from DESE.

Of course there are many many lenses that cast different lights on our diversity opportunities — for most of us it is pretty obvious to see how homogeneous our organisations are. Consider what the right area(s) are for your circumstance.

Adjust

There are many very good reasons behind the way we do things. There are also many reasons that are simply habits, or worse still the result of “that’s the way we’ve always done it” thinking.

If you were to recruit for a mechanic your job specification would probably require them the work on a set roster. But if you needed to accommodate breaks for a Muslim mechanic, is that really something that would stop them from being successful? I could ask the same question about job sharing, physical traits (height, strength), location of work, and a range of other adjustments that can be made.

Note that I specifically talk about adjustments here. Adjustments do not lead to worse outcomes — they’re simply a different way of getting the same outcome.

The A-Team

Is our problem that we shouldn’t be thinking about people at all, but rather teams?

This is by far my favourite option to increase diversity — and it rests on a premise that diverse hiring is not simply about ticking a box so “they” can have jobs too. We’ve known for years that diverse teams perform better — the challenge is how to form them.

Hiring starts long before you’ve started hiring. Long before you’ve put the PD together. It starts when you realise you need more than you have. At this point we start thinking about what we’re missing, and then we think about a person to fill that gap. At this point we’re probably thinking of a person we’ve worked with previously, or a mix of people we’ve worked with previously. The problem with picturing a role as a combination of people we’ve worked with previously is that it limits us to that picture.

This picture we form in our heads, the person we need, it comes from a belief that we’re allocating work to individuals. If instead we allocate work to teams, then it allows us to think more broadly about whom we hire. When we think of teams we are more likely to think of a diverse range of people — it’s very unlikely that when you think of a team you think of a group of identical people.

If you’ve got this far, and you can see how you can allocate work to a team instead of individuals, then you’re ready to look at who’s in the team at moment and think about whether you have a diverse range of perspectives and talents on the team.

What to do next?

Before recruiting your next role ask yourself three questions:

1. Am I attracting a diverse range of candidates?
2. Can I adjust the role to suit a diverse range of candidates?
3. Should I be building an A-Team instead of looking for an individual candidate?

I could talk all day about diversity — over the phone, a coffee, or simply a comment below.

My daughter (of Taylor Swift infamy) tells me that my most recent purchase is a mid life crisis. She may be right, in which case it’s also incredibly selfish of me to indulge in a such an expensive bike.

If we listen to The Supremes we know that love’s a game of give and take. Does me splurging on a new bike equate to taking from my marriage, meaning that I now need to give back to my marriage to restore the balance? No — love is not a game of give & take, a marriage is a win-win relationship, and as long both people are winning, both people will enjoy the marriage — a la Simon Sinek’s The Infinite Game (which I haven’t gotten around to reading yet, but I gather covers the same point).

Continuing with the win-win approach, does that mean I should be selfish or selfless in order to create a happy marriage? What about my wife Clare — surely I want her to be selfless to enable me to be happy? No. I want Clare to be selfish, and I sure as hell want to be selfish. Like an elite athlete who is called arrogant for believing they’re the best, if you want to create a win-win outcome, then you need to first focus on the part of that outcome you have the most control over — yourself.

if you want to create a win-win outcome, then you need to first focus on the part of that outcome you have the most control over — yourself

The question here is what does selfish mean? Google tells us that selfish means:

(a) lacking consideration for other people;
(b) concerned chiefly with one’s own personal profit or pleasure.

I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t consider other people, but I am going to say that we should be concerned chiefly for our own happiness. As only after “fitting our own oxygen mask” can we look after others. I’d also suggest that if you’re constantly putting the needs of others before you two things happen:

1. You train others to feel entitled to a level of happiness they haven’t created for themselves. In doing so you erode their resilience.
2. You will build up a resentment debt as we all have the same 168 hours per week; if you’re spending yours on others, you’re not spending on yourself. Who’s looking out for you?

This is all very interesting (or perhaps not), but where’s the useful part of this.

The real question is how can we be build our own personal profit without taking away from others. So let’s go back to my bike (it really is beautiful, and yes there may be a small element of mid-life crisis in it). By me buying a bike it isn’t taking away from my wife’s enjoyment, she isn’t resentful of me buying it (she actually endorsed me spending much much more than I did). So what happens — it makes me happier, which in turn makes us happier. At the same time she’s resumed her gym membership at Bodyfit Training, which has made her happier, which in turn makes us happier. Needless to say — we’re happy.

Now before all you endorphin junkies like us try to point out that this is simply the benefit of exercise, I’m going to challenge you to suggest there’s more to it than that. Endorphins are real — I’ve had an addition my whole life — but if you only look at that part of the equation you’re missing the personal cost of measuring your own self-worth based on your contribution to someone else’s happiness. This is what I’m referring to when I use the term resentment debt.

Now that you’ve made it this far — sit back, close your eyes, and think about what you can do for yourself without taking away from others. In the meantime — I’m going to enjoy my bike ride in the morning.

How many times have I had an interaction with my emotionally charged teenage daughter that ends with the slamming of her door? Every time it happens I wish the interaction had gone differently. We all struggle with the emotional extortion of our teenagers, and internally we might think that our children need to suck it up, but what about us? We also need to suck it up — we need to accept that parenting includes uncomfortable interactions, we need to stop giving into our unspoken desire to be on good terms with our kids all the time. And when I say “we”, what I really mean is “I”.

It has dawned on me recently that the real issue here is not my teenage daughter, it isn’t my approach to the situation, rather it is my foolish belief that every situation has a calm and rational outcome.

Telling myself that I don’t care about my kids’ feelings in that moment of conflict has been my newfound key to peace in conflict.

This has put an end to the emotional guilt that I’ve felt so many times, the emotional guilt that has led to me folding when I should have held, or worse becoming emotional in the situation myself. And the best part… once my kid settles down, they learn from the situation.

When I was a kid I didn’t have a say about the topic of what was played on the car radio. But somehow we’ve allowed our kids to have voting rights (no doubt motivated by some over-enthusiastic democratic ideals). This works ok for my wife who likes pop music, but not so much for me — I’d rather listen to different music, or worse still from my kids’ perspective, podcasts or news! I’ve generally managed this situation with balance — but on Friday night with my patience tested I took over the music and played what I wanted. I didn’t care how my kid felt at the time, and sure enough it was a pretty uncomfortable drive — apart from my wonderful music! But the best part came as we were getting into the car for the drive home…

“Dad, I’m sorry for the way I behaved on the drive here. Can we find some music we both like for the drive home?”

Needless to say the drive home was much more enjoyable. And best of all I’ve learned through the experience that it’s ok to not care how my kid feels. Sometimes.

Like most parents I was pleased to see my children returning to school this year. Whilst some children’s education thrived in the remote learning world, mine did not. What did thrive was my son’s mullet. And I know his is not the only one.

So what happens when there’s a flurry of teenage boys sporting mullets returning to the classrooms? The usual of course — stories of boys being sent home with directions to address the offending hairstyle, along with many opinions about whether mullets (or other hairstyles) are acceptable among students. Fortunately we’ve made it through the return-to-school season without a repeat of 2018 when a deputy principal was fired for trimming a student’s hair.

Merryn Porter writes about the paradox of hating and supporting her son’s mullet for different reasons. However I don’t think any of the writing I’ve seen gets to the heart of why this is such an important topic — this isn’t about mullets, it isn’t about hair, it isn’t even about uniforms.

It is about wanting people to be the same as us, and forcing those that are different to change or go away.

There are many examples in history of those in power seeking conformance and uniformity. In some cases plausible sounding reasons have been presented (e.g. left handed writers being made to write right handed to avoid smudging ink). But on the whole we have come to recognise that differences make us stronger, not weaker.

Whilst I am not pretending that my son’s mullet means anything to him beyond what he sees in the mirror, Jennifer Eberhardt writes in Biased about how these policies can become unintentionally discriminatory. I should note that whilst my son’s school policy includes an explicit statement on this topic, I don’t see how it isn’t discriminating against Hindi or Muslim students.

What really concerns me about this discussion is the point of principle that we must all be uniform for the sake of it.

I would like to see schools review their uniform policies against the following guidelines:

1. Provide for the safety of students others on school grounds
2. Do not inhibit the student’s individuality when not in school uniform
3. Students in uniform should present the school in a suitable manner

If a uniform policy meets the above guidelines (in that order) then I feel we would be in a better place. If not, I fear we’ll continue to close our doors to anyone who is different to us — something a Brisbane School has already been trying to do.

For those who see different points that I’m missing — please let me know what they are. On items like this where I feel “right” I would really like to learn where I’m “wrong”.

Disclaimer first — I’m a parent, a volunteer coach, I grew up in sport, and I’m a reader. I am not a professional coach, I am not a trained psychologist, and I am not a parenting expert.

I enjoy Lisa Damour’s writing and speaking on the topic of parenting. However I think her recent podcast episode about Raising an Athlete is incomplete. The episode includes Lauren Bay as a guest (three time Olympian, bronze medalist), and covers some points that I wholeheartedly agree with, but leaves a number of key threads dangling.

Lesson #1

At younger years (pre-teen) the focus on kids in sports should be enjoyment & exploration. Trying different sports includes several important facets:

1. Physiological development is enhanced by a broad range of activities
2. Different people enjoy different activities — try before you buy
3. Sport is not about weight loss, and people of all weights can enjoy sport
4. Not all children will find sport enjoyable, and that’s ok

The key tenet of this lesson is to put your child in control of their own destiny. Ensure they have an opportunity to try a sport before committing to a season — and then explain to them what they’re committing to. Does the coach or club require them to attend every training session? What’s the policy, written or unwritten, about the time they get on court or on the bench? What other sacrifices they will need to make in order to play the sport. They should know and understand all of this before deciding to commit to a season. And after the season is over, it’s ok for them to walk away and try something else. They can always come back in a few years.

All of this is covered by the podcast. What’s not covered is that this point doesn’t only apply to sport, it applies to everything. David Epstein’s book Range covers this point really well. Forbes described Range as The Year’s Most Important Business-And Parenting-Book — that headline explains perfectly why branching out is so valuable in everything, not just sport.

Lesson #2

Reena Ninan finishes the episode with a comment of “it makes you rethink why you put kids in sport to begin with”. This is one of the most important questions — as with everything we do in parenting. Have you or someone you know watched King Richard and come away having enjoyed it, but thinking that most of us would choose a different approach to raising our kids.

The transition into adolescence is the time when children form into adults. Just as rock formations differ based on the process that formed them, the adults our children become will be influenced by how they were tested as adolescents. This is where we should be allowing them to push boundaries in a healthy way, and in doing so learn about themselves.

Children in first world countries have very few challenges. The role of sport is to present challenges, and the opportunity for emotional and physical growth that comes with tackling those challenges.

Note that sport is not the only avenue for this; music and drama are among other activities that also offer challenges. The important lesson here is that our role as parents is not to remove hardship and discomfort from our kids’ lives, but rather to introduce hardship and discomfort in a way that enables them to grow and develop. But don’t take my word for it, Angela Duckworth has built her entire career on the topic of grit.

Lesson #3

Towards the end of the podcast Lisa and Reena wax lyrically about how professional athletes are built differently. They also coax Lauren into joining in with this worship session.

Professional athletes may be built differently, but they weren’t born different.

The suggestion that professional sporting careers are reserved for those blessed with the key genetic gifts at birth is rubbish. Sure — I’m not going to be a 100m sprinter because my muscles are more slow-twitch than fast-twitch. But does that mean I can’t be a professional athlete — absolutely not.

To be a professional athlete requires a combination of elements:

1. Your physical make-up must be suited to the sport in question (noting that swimmers, basketballers, marathon runners, and archers all have incredibly different body types)
2. You must have the right mental and emotional foundations for the sport in question (consider the differences between boxers and fencers)
3. You must enjoy the sport, and the training required, enough to train to reach your potential (it is simply not possible to do the volume of work required to reach your potential without enjoying that work)

I believe that if anyone is fortunate enough for all three of the above to align they will succeed in professional sport.

Growing Up

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to spent countless hours in sport. Those hours have made me the person I am today — sailing dinghies which brings accountability, and rowing which develops a combination of stamina, strength, and fitness. Whilst my “sporting career” never saw me attending the Olympics, the experiences have shaped me into the person I am today. Most importantly I was shaped by the experiences, not my parents. What my parents did was give me the opportunities to live those experiences. I believe that all of us should be presenting our own children opportunities for similar experiences.