Last week I spoke at an industry conference. In the trade show area one of the exhibitors was running a competition – the objective was to put 100 g of salt into a cup. The closest person to 100g was the winner.

The exhibitor challenged me to have a go. Why not? Being the only competitor in the vicinity at the time, I began to think out loud my process of working out how much salt I needed to spoon into the cup.

The exhibitor hosting the table immediately offered to give me a clue, and I had to say ‘no’ twice to stop her.

Turns out that my process was pretty good. When the scales revealed I had put 97g of salt in the cup, I won a prize! I never win prizes so I was pretty chuffed!

Would I have felt so pleased with myself if I won through being given a clue? Of course not!

How often do we do this as leaders? ‘Help’ too hard? Give people clues that rob them of the reward of working it out for themselves? (And how often do we do this as parents?)

Where can you enable the gift of discovery today?

Go fearlessly