While it is true that I don’t have children, I do have children in my life, and I have furbabies. Having dogs is like having toddlers for life, with a bit more freedom.
The topic of children came up with a client recently in relation to their business and being a good manager. We came up with a few “rules” that are best applied to raising toddlers/dogs and having employees. (Basically, these are the rules I use with my pups.…)
1. Be willing to be the person in charge.
Be willing to be the alpha in your pack; the leader who will lead the forces; the buck stops with YOU.
It’s not always easy to hold the reigns… but someone has got to, so why not you?
It’s not always comfortable to hold to your values or decisions, but hold your ground!
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I have a close friend who raised her kids with the rule of “no R Rated movies” until they were 18.
It was a principled decision for her. It was not always easy to have that fight when the kids were 17 and clearly watching anything at their friends houses already. It was a stand she took with the first one and held strong. Yes, her kids resented the heck out of it at the time.
Her kids are adults with kids of their own now. While they may continue to not agree with the “R” rule, they do understand why she enforced it and why she chose to follow the guidelines of the MPAA. They now respect just how hard it can be to hold onto your decisions and keep the commitments.
2. Listen – but make the final decision.
We want to balance “listening” and being considerate of others with the constant need to hold strong to our decisions.
It’s been shown through research in so many areas that women tend to want an even power structure, while men tend towards “top down” power structures. Consider the military, most big corporations, and oligarchies as male driven enterprises. Women tend to work more cooperatively, so collectives, job sharing, co-ops and the kibbutz structure favors female influence.
The bottom line is that someone has to be in charge and make the final decisions. That decision can absolutely include discussion, input and options, but one path forward must be chosen.
What does this mean to your small business? If you are an entrepreneur who really wants to be friends with your employees, and have everyone get along and like you, then you are going to find this concept a challenge. Someone must be in charge, and that someone is YOU.
Ultimately, the success of your business depends on you creating a viable, sustainable enterprise and the risk all falls on your shoulders (as does the reward) – so own it!
3. Constantly be reinforcing your leadership.
Leadership isn’t “one and done”. Raising children doesn’t look like telling them “stop that!” once and having your directive obeyed.
I have a nervous terrier mix, Buddy. You probably have figured out that I structure much of my life around the comfort and happiness of my pets. He’s a very good dog and wants to be a good dog, but sometimes he has “dog brain” though and just wants to follow his nose and not my directions.
We are constantly in a state of training. I am always reinforcing his good behavior and correcting his bad choices.
Reinforcement can be praise, a C-O-O-K-I-E, play time or a toy. Every day I make sure I praise him and recognize when he responds like I want him to.
Correction is stopping the bad behavior in its tracks. Right now. I don’t wait until later, I don’t put it on a list for another time. It means that if he doesn’t come when I call him, I call him one more time and then go get him. I don’t stand there and expect that he’s going to respond to me calling his name sixteen times. If he doesn’t listen to my “recall” when out and about more than once, he gets put on a leash.
Correction has to happen right now. It must be quick and can be over almost as soon as it started. It doesn’t have to be a big deal: it doesn’t mean you hold a grudge or have hard feelings about it.
If an employee does something wrong, show them the right way or ask them how they want to correct it. If they repeat the error, reinforce the correction. If they repeat it multiple times, then it’s time to be the boss and maybe part ways. You don’t need that kind of stress or worry when there is someone else out there who can do the job right.
With people – I like the “praise sandwich” approach. Correction sandwiched between 2 good things or praise. It tastes better going down but still gets that layer of correction delivered.
4. Communicate clearly and simply.
It can be easy to make it complicated. Inevitably, the easier it is to understand your request, the easier it is to deliver on a promise or commitment.
I have an exercise I do with clients to help them understand and communicate their core values. It’s critical to building a team that aligns with how you want to work and attracting clients who value your products and services.
Values need to be simple commands that a kindergartner could understand – not a paragraph. It’s harder than you think sometimes. “Do what you say” “have fun” “do great work” are all examples. There’s a lot to unpack here… but the initial round is always much more complicated than these simple concepts.
Say what you want… A clear request sounds like
“Please do __X , by __when_ and let me know it’s done by __method__.”
They then accept or reject your request. If they accept, then they let you know when it’s completed on the agreed upon time/date in an appropriate way.
We aren’t really trained to make clear requests. We are trained to assume someone understands us, or we talk about what we want done in a round about way, or we don’t get the agreement part and assume they’ve agreed when really they haven’t.
If you want something done, spell it out. Get their agreement. Follow up and offer praise or correction.
Again, I’ve just mentioned a really complex training here and if you want to know more, just reply to this email and say “more please!”
Be that leader on your team. Listen. Observe. Evaluate. Be willing to take a stand and do it your way. Make the hard decisions and commit to them every day. Communicate clearly. Reward and offer corrections.
The buck stops (and starts) with you –
Jenell
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