The ‘kids’, bright and involved professionals, boarded the plane to entertain clients at a tropical resort  – lending us (and a cooperative of Grandparents) their teen and pre-teen for the week.  Balancing the perceived burden (which turned out not to be a burden at all) of orchestrating responsibilities, homework, after school sports, piano/violin practices, amongst the elders.  We were the “guardians” scheduled for Super bowl Sunday through Thursday, the majority of the week, for a number of factors, we live next door, are flexible, and occasionally we’re even patient and tolerant.

The week was reminiscent of a modern digital-aged Norman Rockwell scene with Aiden introducing us to new music off of Spotify and jamming to some tunes on his violin, Chaz facetiming her friends as she created a soft sculpture.  The anticipated and understood ‘handful’ that the kids prepared us for seemed to be from perhaps a parallel universe.  These Grandkids were delightful, we truly had a fabulous time and were thankful for the opportunity.

Originally, Thursday evening was to be the first Grandparent transition to their ‘Oma” leaving their Grandpa and me to join our friends for an evening of competitive card play, and lively banter.  Here’s the scene. Our 12 year old has early dismissal.  As she pops into her house to tend to her cat on the way here, she is lovingly greeted by her Oma. They walk over (after the ice storm, no one can get up our driveway), and upon arrival at our house is told to get her things together.  The three adults catch up as the dogs, who adore each other, wrestle playfully.  Twenty minutes or so pass and we start to wonder what the delay is in her packing her stuff.  She looks perplexed as she appears on the other side of the room and asks, ‘just throw some things into a bag?’.  “Just get your stuff, come-on, what’s taking so long!”. Alarming, high-volume responses surround her. It awakens me to an uncomfortable feeling.  Rather than joining in, putting together that there is a piece missing here, after I initially utter her name across the room, I chose to walk over to her. My eyes met hers and softly I inquired again what she asked, because I couldn’t hear it mixed in with the other chimed replies.  I get it.  She did not know or synthesize that plans had changed, or even what the plan was. 

Mike looks at me quizzically after I turned to him sharing that she just needed to hear the plan. “What plan, she just needs to get her suitcase packed to go”

Think of this application beyond the boundaries of your home/family - what of your business, or team members, or in any group setting. Some of us have been involved in the entire plan, and then ask someone to do just a specific piece of it, not providing details that they may need to synthesize or understand the big picture  Next, we get impatient because we don’t understand why they fail to grasp it, or act, and we may interpret the inquiries that arise as stallers, delays, or a desire to upset the momentum.

In my world, communication like this is the subject of many a phone conversation, recommendation, or managing change in business and interpersonal relationships. Providing the environment, the bigger picture -- sharing the plan allows for others to desire to make a difference, contribute, or, at the very least, to do their part appropriately and in a timely fashion.

Sharing the plan is often-times an oversite yet, is so vital to the success of the objective.  It is an easy enough adjustment to include, with monumental potential toward desired outcomes.  Remember this, on your next opportunity to create understanding.