I find myself being more curious about things these days. It could be the waiting in the waiting room for treatments, driving for treatments, or sitting around a little more because I am so tired. No matter, being curious is excellent! It makes you think more! For example, it is like this string dangling from my shirt and the purpose of it. One pull, and before you know it, your hand is holding a ball of string that once had your shirt together. Oops! Maybe I should not have pulled it.
I have heard the phrase, “Let me pull a few strings.” Have you ever wondered what that means? The phrase is used to influence others to help out someone else. This phrase originated with puppets. Puppets are operated by someone pulling the strings behind the scenes. People pull the strings behind the scenes to do favors to help others. I think we have heard about strings being pulled in the government from different sources?
“Hanging on by a string” is another phrase I have heard and may have used by stating it differently. “I am hanging on by a thread.” It means you are in a dangerous situation, a life-threatening situation or you are exhausted.
I think about watching shows where kids have cans connected with strings talking into them as a way to talk to each other. We learn about how the string was used to tie sharp rocks on the end of sticks to use as weapons.
What is it about strings?
The critical lesson from strings is one word…..connecting. A string connects things, people, and everything. I challenge you to look at how strings are utilized in our world.
The most touching of strings is our heartstrings. When you hear someone say, “My heartstrings are being pulled right now,” what do they mean? It means you are pulling on their emotions and making them feel sad, empathetic, or deeply. I can feel my heartstrings being pulled every time I hear someone at the cancer center ring the bell, see a picture of a new baby being welcomed by their loving family, or see others I know succeeding. How are your heartstrings pulled?
Connecting, Networking
Take a spool of string to your next staff meeting. Start it with one person and ask them to begin to pass it around. Then when everyone has a piece of string, ask the last person to bring the spool back to you. Now everyone, stand up and see how you are connected to the string. Sit back down. Ask five people to come to the front without their strings. Now everyone stands back up. There are gaps now. What do we do? Ask five more to come up without the string. More gaps. What do we do? The string may be connected in a way that is not easy to move around. However, the string still connects to each one.
When we have gaps in our connections and networks, we can tie them up by stepping in to help support. We see when we have connections missing, a gap is visible. Each one of us is important to our network. We can tie up these gaps when collaborating to support someone who needs to be gone. Tieing these strings to keep the networking helps us connect as we move forward. Do we help to tie up the gaps in our network strings? Do we know what others do to help our organization work?
Everyone working together, knowing how to do other jobs, and support will help keep us connected even when part of the string is pulled. When the string was pulled on the shirt, it did not take long to unravel; we do not want this to happen in our organizations when a piece of our network is pulled. Work daily to strengthen every part!