Half asleep she picked up her very wet baby girl. Now Mom knew why baby was crying so loudly. Her pajamas were soaked. Did the diaper not work? What happened? Mom quickly discovered that Dad had put the diaper on inside out. If you aren’t familiar with disposable diapers, one side is absorbent and the other is covered in plastic to avoid leaks.

If you want help, you have to allow for the occasional inside out diaper. A lot of people would ban the Dad from ever changing a diaper again. The baby would certainly be more comfortable, but Mom would forever do all the diaper changing. Mistakes are the wet baby, and they come with training. What do you do when someone tells you the baby is wet? Do you blow up? Yell?

Feedback is a gift, but it isn’t always pleasant. Without feedback you can’t survive. You must correct course based on feedback. I worked for a good man, and he cared for his people. He was lousy at receiving bad news. He would shoot the messenger. If mistakes were made, his first response was to explode. Shortly after he would regroup and realize what had to be done. He would even thank the person for the feedback, but the damage was done. Feedback seldom came and was only after being filtered to the best possible scenario.

Over time this leader collected only tough-skinned characters that could handle his first explosions. He was fired when the pace of change exposed his lack of feedback, and he couldn’t keep up. Remember the wet baby is a gift.