Be a kid?

What does a kid prefer which organizations don’t?

Simplicity – Kids say what they feel, enjoy all little emotions, laugh when they are happy, scream when they are angry, cry when they are in pain, sleep when they are tired and run around till they drop to the ground. They will also pester you for the last chocolate chip till you give in.

They just un-complicate (if that is a real word, if not then a real word has just been coined) issues and handle them in the simplest possible way. Organizations on the other hand, like to complicate things.


They need to make sure they don’t end up calling spade a spade for reasons best known to them. They want HR to appease disgruntled employees and build bureaucratic processes, multi-step escalation points and at times deaf ear to displease them in the first place.

Kids would have had it simpler. They would just stop talking to each other, not share the toys and openly confess that they hate each other’s guts. They would be found playing together after 10 minutes and would not hold any grudge. No repercussions.

What does a kid do which organizations don’t?

Help – Most kids will go out of their way to help others. Collaborate with new faces to build extraordinarily ridiculous things and feel pride in doing it. They would tell even strangers, what to do, how to do it and also at times why not to do what they are doing. They never say, that’s not my job. They take it as a challenge and more often than not, trump it in style. The only exception to this may be the 10 minute period when they hate each other guts.

What does kids have which organizations don’t?

Belief – Kids would believe that they can achieve anything. They could fly. They do when they jump off the bed to their daddy’s arm. They could ride a truck at 4 and they do when they sit on the shoulders. They dare to go to any girl and tell her on the face that they would kiss her because she is so beautiful. They don’t have the fear of failure. They don’t judge things by how ridiculous they sound. They don’t kill an idea. They would put everything they have in translating the thoughts to action. They too fail but they don’t stop believing unless we tell them to.

What does kids feel which organizations don’t?

Ownership – Have you ever seen a kid whose greatest hero is his neighbor? Probably not. It could be their brother, sister, mother, father, grand parent, may be a teacher. However they will always feel proud of what they consider their own. Their teddy is always better than someone else’s teddy. Their train is always faster. If for some reason they realize it’s not, they don’t play in the same league.

What organizations need to learn?

If only organizations could build this simplicity, sense of ownership, belief in what they are doing and a collaborative culture to co-create. You could never imagine an employee who had been shunned by another team member really coming to terms with the treatment. Well on the face of it they may pretend that nothing happened (they would call it real professionalism, other would call it think skinned).

Most employees in organization do stuff because they are supposed to not because they want to. There is hardly any sense of ownership. They may say the project is their baby unless something goes wrong and then they suddenly distance themselves saying “I told ya so”.

The organizations do not need to be more sophisticated, layered under teams and processes. They just need to be simpler.