Musings from the CU Suite

Today, I have the pleasure of sharing some thoughts from my colleague, Carrie Hunt.

Written by Carrie Hunt
NAFCU SVP of Government Affairs

I received the email below from my daughter’s ballet teacher.  She is four, so “ballet” is loose term for what goes on in class.    

Dear Parent,

We had a fabulous first class last Sunday, and I hope your child enjoyed class as much as I did!   

If you or your child have not worn ballet slippers before, you may not know that tying the elastics into bows is not the best idea.  Although bows look pretty, they can easily come untied.  Untied elastics are a distraction, at best, and can trip your child while s/he is dancing in class.  And, time spent tying and retying bows (24 feet in a class of 12!) is time we can't spend dancing.  

So, I thought I'd tell you the best way to tie the elastics to shape the ballet slippers to your child's current foot size, but still enable you to retie the elastic to fit your child as s/he grows and/or passes those slippers on to a sibling or friend.  

1)  Pull the casing (that encloses the elastic ties) smooth so that the ballet slipper is NOT gathered to fit around your child's foot.  (This is how the shoes came when you purchased them, before you pulled the elastics and tied them to fit the slippers to your child's feet.)  

2)  Cut the elastic ties so that 3 inches emerge from the casing (which is NOT gathered to fit around your child's foot).  

3) Put a slipper on your child and gently pull the elastic ties until the slipper gently gathers to your child's foot, THEN tie 2-3 knots in the elastic and teach your child to tuck the left-over pieces of elastic inside the ballet slipper before s/he puts the slipper on.  

4) Please write your child's first name and first initial of last name on the bottom of their ballet slipper (or inside on the instep).  

5) Repeat #3 above for other foot/slipper.  
Congratulations!  You now have ballet slippers with ties that will not come undone and will neither be a distraction nor a hazard to your child in class.   

If my instructions are unclear and/or you just aren't comfortable cutting the ties yourself, I will be happy to fit your child's ballet slippers myself.   Please send me a quick email giving me permission to cut/tie the ties for your child's slippers.   If you can come to class a bit early, or stay a bit after, that would be great, but if not, I can work on shoes during class for the next few weeks and get them all in great shape.

If your child's ballet slippers do not have a casing to gather and rolled elastic to tie, no need to do anything!  (These are usually cloth dance slippers.)  

Wow. 

I think the following would have sufficed:  “Please fix your kid’s ballet shoes so they don’t come untied or trip on them.”   I especially liked the final instruction informing parents that if the shoes don’t have ties there is no need to shorten them.  

As a manager I have noticed that communication can be very difficult.   Communicate too much and there is no room for your team to think and act on their own.  Communicate too little and staff is left guessing with no direction, and pretty soon no information is flowing back and forth when it needs to. The more people you manage the more complicated communication can get. 
 
I don’t think there ever is a perfect balance, but I think that how we communicate needs to something that managers should think about every day.  It leads to better work product, better collaboration and better decision making. Communication is something that I certainly will be working on all the time.  

As to the ballet:
Step one:  email teacher giving her permission to fix ballet shoes….