The Bench

Recently, Kaylyn called me to say that a neighbor had some yard furniture at the end of their driveway for anybody to take for free.  I like FREE so I piled the kids into the truck and drove down the street.  This bench was one of the two items they had.  At first glance, I wasn't too interested.  The wood that makes up the seat was rotting and had bird junk all over it.  Nobody would want to sit on it.  But, I looked closer and the metal was in good shape and very heavy duty (sturdy).  I looked underneath and saw it would be easy to take wood slats out.  I was hoping I could sand all the existing wood but saw that replacing a few slats was certainly an option.  So, I took it.

I tried sanding the wood.  Sanding worked well on the wood that made up the back of the bench but the seat pieces were rotting and needed to be replaced.  I was able to get replacement pieces for under $5.  It took about an hour to cut and sand some wood to fit it.  I sealed it with some sealer I had in the garage.  So, for about $5 and an hour or so of work, I now have a perfectly good bench for the back yard.  I have been looking at benches like this at stores for over a year but wasn't willing to pay $100+ for one.  Now I have one.

So, what is the lesson?

Sometimes when we are leading a team or creating a team we look for the perfect person to do the job.  The perfect bench was a sturdy bench with a nice decorative metal frame and wooden slats and cost less than $50.  The "perfect person" is often not available just like my "perfect bench" wasn't available.  Sometimes we are better off taking the best we can find and working with them to develop into what the organization needs.  A person with a good foundation but with some rough edges or some rot may just need to be encouraged, given a few new tools and allowed to show us what they can do.  Our perfect bench may be right in front of us disguised as a rotten old bench.  Our perfect person for the job may be right in front of us disguised as a bored, complacent team member that just needs us to find that strong frame and willingness to invest a little time and care in them.