Protect or propagate?

My five-month-old daughter Milla is having her first bout of illness right now with a painfully sore throat. She’s only comforted in my arms or her Dad’s and is clearly in quite a lot of pain.

Right now, every maternal instinct in my body wishes that it were I who was sick and not she. It’s a natural desire for a mother to want to take away her child’s pain.

Let’s pretend for a moment it was possible for me to take away her pain and for me to “fix her” with a blink of an eye. If I could help to be immediately well right now with some made up superpower, would it be the best thing for her?

While it would yield a short-term gain to both her mood and my ears, she’d miss out on developing antibodies that her little body is making right now, and it’s unsustainable and impractical for me to be able take away every ache and pain for the rest of her life.

I once worked with an amazingly talented senior staff member who was a master at “fixing problems” in her workplace. If you had a problem you took it to this staff member and she’d “fix” it.

The only problem was, the team around the senior staff member didn’t develop their own “problem-solving-antibodies” – they didn’t learn the skills needed to fix their own problems.

If that senior staff member were ever on leave people weren’t equipped to deal with the problems that crop up (anywhere) on a day-to-day basis.

So the solution? At home, comfort Milla, look after her medically, but don’t look for a magic wand. And at work, teach the skills by working with my team in problem-solving, not trying to magic wand a solution there either.

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is Retired at 27, If I Can do it Anyone Can) and a passionate entrepreneur who started her first business at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Now Kirsty does lots of fun things which you can read about here. Her favourite current projects are Elephant Property, a boutique property management agency, Baby Teresa, a baby clothing line that donates an outfit to a baby in need for each one they sell andReallySold, which helps real estate agents stop writing boring, uninteresting ads.