There’s a Hebrew proverb that says:

“Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.”

What is your reaction to the comment, “Messiness is necessary for growth.” How does that make you feel? Do you agree? Do you disagree?

If a situation is messy, at work, at home, in your relationships, I might argue with you to say that this is necessary to produce the relationship, the reward, and the depth that you truly desire. 

Even saying that I think, no, that can’t be. Isn’t life supposed to be smooth? Aren’t we all supposed to just get along?

But even saying that out loud, we know that we don’t live in a fairy tale. Life is series of tensions. We all deal with differing personalities and temperaments every day which challenge our way of thinking, our hidden motives—yes, even the motives hidden from ourselves. Biases hidden deep within that reveal themselves in subtle ways, sometimes because someone else calls us out.

Oh, I hate being called out.

But I love what it produces in me.

Recently I had a conversation with a fellow leader about some dynamics in our respective organizations. We needed to get some things out there about how we were running our areas of responsibility and, well, it didn’t go so well. We disagreed on a method of execution, where I challenged the validity of the product in the market, he adamantly insisted this was the way to go. We disagreed. It caused some interesting challenges in the work we both had to do together. It was messy, but it was worth it.

What came out of some of that messiness?

1. Clarity of purpose. It caused us to ask the question, what are we really after? Why are we doing what we are doing? Does this partnership, this work, this content, does it really help achieve the work we’re giving our lives to? These are good questions to ask. By challenging each other’s perspective, it provided clarity for the work ahead. 
2. Focus of work. After this conversation, it was clear what we needed to do. I didn’t mind we needed to have a messy, challenging conversation, because now we knew what was in front of us to do. We had learned why we were doing what we were doing, and I learned what to do to get there. It provided focus.
3. Deepened our relationship. There’s nothing like going through the fire with someone to come out closer on the other side. Marriages that can work through their differences, challenge each other, yes, even have good, productive fights, are always stronger. It might get messy, but the cohesiveness and alignment it produces is worth it.
4. Sustainable results. The mess that we worked through provided results in the future that came because of our disagreement. By living in the tension of differing views, talking them out, arguing through our points, we were able to move forward and realized results we otherwise would have missed.

Maybe you’re in a messy situation at work, or in your family, or in a relationship. Maybe you would wish it to all go away and peace and calm come back to your life. May I challenge you to consider the proverb above? It might be nice to have a manger that is spick and span, clean and tidy, and smells great, but if you don’t have an ox, you’ll never receive your abundant crops.

Your manger might get messy, but the ox is necessary.

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Photo by Ryan Yeaman on Unsplash