Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life: Some Things Can’t Be Undone

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it teaches us that there are some things that cannot be undone.

I was reminded of this when my granddaughter was playing with Play-Doh. We were sitting at the table, with all the different Play-Doh colors in front of her. She had a variety of molds and was using them to press the Play-Doh into different shapes and then telling stories with what she made. At some point, she took two different colors and squished them together. After a few minutes of playing with it like that, she handed it back to me and asked me to fix it and take it apart. But (if you have ever played with Play-Doh), you know very well that that was not about to happen. Once it has been mixed together, there is no way that you can completely separate it again.

The same is true for a lot of things. I can remember when I wanted to bake a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies to impress my bride early in our marriage, but without realizing I mixed up the measurements for the salt and the sugar. When the cookies were done, I gave one fresh out of the oven to my wife, excited for her to try them. She took one bite and asked me why it tasted like she was licking a block of salt. I didn’t want the cookies to go to waste and thought they couldn’t be that bad, so I decided that I could put up with salty cookies and was going to eat them anyway. It only took me one bite to realize that they were inedible, and there was nothing I could do to change that.

You probably have some examples of your own that illustrate the same thing: that is, some things can’t be undone. There are some things that, once you do them, you can undo, or put back to its original state, or restore to what it was. But there are other things for which, once they have happened, there is no going back. When hurtful words come out of your mouth, you can’t unsay them. When you spend resources on something that failed, you cannot recoup that loss. And when you make a bad decision, you can’t avoid the consequences.

So, if you cannot undo it once it’s been done, then what can you do? There are steps that you can take, and usually in this order:

1. Take responsibility. You made a mistake, whether intentionally or not, and now you need to take ownership of it. Acknowledge what happened and the mess that it made.
2. Learn from what happened. You need to reflect on what happened and determine what you can learn from it. Then take those lessons, and use them to grow and be better.
3. Restore what you can. As much as is possible, repair what you can. Whether it’s relationships, resources, or processes, do whatever you can to restore what was damaged.
4. Do something different. Once you have owned it, learned from it, and fixed what you can, now take what you’ve learned and do something different.

That’s the lesson of leadership from this little thing in life, from my granddaughter mixing two colors of Play-Doh together that could not be unmixed. You will make mistakes and do some things that cannot be undone, and, as hard as you try, you’re not going to avoid this ever happening. But Proverbs tells us that a righteous man falls down seven times and rises again. Just because you’ve done something that is irreparable does not mean that you can’t learn from it and be better. When you have done something you cannot undo, then do the right thing in response. Own it, learn from it, repair what you can, and do something different to move forward.