Several years ago, I wrote an article with a colleague from Partners Healthcare. The article was the result of a conversation we had after a particularly complicated and energetic meeting. We noted that raising children had taught us much about management. The meeting attendees had wandered off course and had briefly got stuck in the mud of needless complexity but, with patience and a well-placed suggestion from time to time, the attendees returned to the issues and resolved them. Steering that meeting to the right conclusion felt like steering a teenager to the right conclusion.
What are the managementg lessons that one learns from raising one’s kids?
Directives are more likely to succeed if you respect them and they respect you. You do have formal power as a boss or a parent but most of the time staff and kids follow your directives because they want to and not because they are forced to. The degree to which both follow directives, and follow them well, is very dependent upon the respect that they have for you. And the respect they feel coming from you. Respect involves considering their needs and their input, making directives that are sound and, when appropriate, willingly revising directives and admitting that you were wrong.
Each person is unique; even members of the same family have different needs. Children teach us that every person is different in their beliefs, their view of the world, and how they learn. A key to management is appreciating differences in staff and learning what is needed to help them achieve their full potential.
The path taken is often less important than achieving the goal. Kids and staff do not always carry out a task the way that you would. The fact that the path is different than the one you would have taken is much less important than whether the goal is achieved. One should be careful about equating paths with goals. The application of neon colors to one’s hair is not equivalent to moral decay.
Honesty, always the best approach, is an action. We may not be completely truthful with kids in situations where we want to protect them from adult-size problems, but kids teach us that they typically know more from our actions than from our words. The same is true in managing, Truthfulness is a property and byproduct of actions, not words. Truthfulness leads to trust. And trust is a critical component in effective management.
Management requires values. Parents, through actions and words, communicate values. With values as backdrops, kids make decisions about specific actions. You can’t be with your kids all the time to make sure that they make the right decisions. You hope that values provide enough guidance. Similarly, you hope that management values of quality service, respect for colleagues, innovation and belief in organizational mission guide the day-to-day decisions of staff.
Firmness and fairness matter. Kids need structure. Structure helps them feel secure and provides a roadmap for decisions and actions. As kids grow older and wind up on your payroll, structure shows them you care, provides direction and establishes boundaries. Kids and staff appreciate firmness and fairness in decision-making, values, behaviors and rewards.
You can always find something to laugh about. Kids can find something funny in every situation, and it is often the way they connect with others and with you. Humor plays an important role in managing. Humor can be used to lighten a tense situation. Self-depreciating humor can be used to make your stature less intimidating to those you manage. Humor amongst team members is an indicator of how well a team is bonding.
Sometimes we portray management as a complicated collection of skills, talents and experiences. Being a parent is often portrayed the same way. And while complicated, management and parenthood involve the same fundamentals, learning how to influence people.
In many ways there isn’t that much difference between a six-year-old and a thirty-six-year-old. If you doubt this, observe a group of middle-aged males for an hour.