Welcome to the Daily Dad podcast where we provide one lesson every day to help you with your

most important job being a dad. These are lessons inspired by ancient philosophy, by practical

wisdom, and insights from dads all over the world.

Thank you for listening, and we hope this helps.

Don't teach them what to think, teach them how.

Clayton Christensen, the author and business

philosopher, tells a story about an early meeting with Andy Grove, the CEO of Intel.

Grove wanted to know how one of Christensen's theories applied to Intel's business. He was a busy

man, so he kept asking Christensen to give him the 10-minute version of the

theory. He kept asking him to cut to the chase. Christensen refused and insisted on delivering a

full 30-minute lecture on a steel company that had disrupted the market by tackling the lowest

end of the market. And then, as Christensen describes when I finished the mini-mill story, Grove said,

okay, I get it, what this means for Intel is. And then he went on to articulate what would become

the company's strategy for going to the bottom of the market to launch the Celeron processor.

This was a pivotal moment for Christensen. He realized that even though business leaders

often want direct and clear advice, was actually far more effective to show rather than tell.

When people ask what I think they should do, he explained, I rarely answer their question directly.

Instead, I run the question aloud through one of my models. I'll describe how the process and the model worked its way through an industry quite different from their own.

And then more often than not, they'll say, okay, I get it.

And they'll answer their own question more insightfully than I could have.

And so it goes for our kids.

It's tempting to tell them exactly what they can and can't do.

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