Sometimes you have to let them touch the oven door

Despite our best efforts to share our knowledge sometimes my wife and I have to let our children learn from direct experience. For example, three of my children listened to us when we told them not to touch the oven door while we were baking. As you can already conclude one of my children did not listen to our advice. This was a safe learning environment as the oven door never really become hot enough to cause a burn but it is hot enough to be uncomfortable.

Despite our best efforts to create Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and despite our best efforts to pass along our knowledge we sometime have to let folks try and fail on their own. Like my children, this should always be done in a safe way. I don't want my children to burn themselves and you do not want a person to make a mistake that could cause your company a lot of money.

So I often tell my customers, "sometimes you have to let them touch the oven door"