The family was the world's first "organization". Wise men and women down through the ages have discussed the vital role families play in society. Most societal ills can be traced back to the breakdown of the family unit. Debates rage about what defines marriage and family. Families are a big deal to everyone because there is so much at stake: A nation or society is only as strong as its familes.
Isn't it funny how as kids we would fight tooth and nail with our siblings. I can remember a few fights I had with my brothers - name calling, cruel insults, eye gouging, bloody noses, body slams - you name it. But if someone outside of the family were to threaten or bully me or one of my brothers the other two would be their to defend the other to the last breath. That's what families do. What is it about families that makes us so invested emotionally - both good emotions and bad emotions? Well, I don't understand all of the science but I think it's part of the grand plan. It's at home with our family that we first learn the lessons we'll need to be successful in life. And yet it seems we sometimes compartmentalize or differentiate our "family self" from our "professional self". Perhaps there are things we've learned from our families that we could apply to our organizations?
Isn't it great how your family loves you unconditionally? You can be the world's biggest bonehead and your family will still accept you. You can be in between prison terms and you'll still get invited over to your parents' home for Thanksgiving dinner. You can continually fued with siblings, possibly even coming to physical blows, but if someone else threatens a family member all of sudden you'll rush to their defense. Blood truly is thicker than water. Except in very rare occasions, a person's family will love and accept them no matter what. Familes don't give up on each other.
Our workplace organizations are different. First, we get to choose the people who will be in our organization. Second, if things aren't going well, we can always ask people to leave. We have all kinds of metrics we can use to determine a person's "worth" to the organization. If they aren't measuring up, we don't have to keep them around. And when we "let someone go" there's always a supply of new people waiting to take their place. Imagine if familes had "performance plans" like organizations have. "Sorry son, but we're just not seeing the type of performance we need from you so we're going to have to let you go." I'm sure my parents felt like having that talk with me once or twice!
At the risk of sounding very touchy-feely let me propose this little exercise: Imagine your team at work is "family". You didn't get to choose them, they're imperfect, and you can't get rid of them. Some of them have difficult personalities. Some of them are lazy. Some of them do embarrassing things in public. Some of them disagree with you and will tell you right to your face! Some of them belong to a different political party, church or bowling league than you do. If some of them are underperforming, too bad. You can't just replace them with a new family member. To put it another way - for better or for worse - you're stuck with them. If this were the case, what types of things would you do differently? How would your "performance management" change? Would you be more creative about finding a good fit for each of your employees? Would your focus be more long term than short term? Would you be more forgiving? Would you put yourself in their shoes a little more often? Spend a little time pondering this scenario.
In one of the CORE training classes I regularly facilitate I ask the question "what has made our company successful in the past?" In almost every class I'll have a tenured employee say that one of the keys to our company's past success was that our work environment was "like a family." What makes a work environment "like a family"? Do we feel accepted? Do we feel like folks we work with care about us? Do we feel like we are valued unconditionally?
Obviously we have a job to perform and business needs to be met. Businesses exist to drive profits and build stockholder wealth, but I think there can be a balance between bottom-line needs and the emotional needs of our people. People may choose to "give up" on themselves and, let's be honest, sometimes our organization may not be a good fit for everybody. If that's the case, that's okay. Hopefully, though, we as leaders will not be the FIRST one to "give up" on an individual. Here's where the "family" model really comes into play. Your family continues to accept you and root for you and even invite over to Thanksgiving dinner - even if you are "underperforming".
What can we do as leaders to keep the positive aspects of the family relationship alive in our workplace? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
2 comments:
I agree with this. Coming from a family of 8 and having to figure out a way to play with the toy you want and 4 others wants is a big challenge. I really learned on how to work with them and come up with a way that all of us could play with that ONE toy! I think its the same it should be with a company oriented team. If you all can work it out than everyone will get their way and get to the goal. Leader or not of the group you need to fullfill their needs as well as yours and in the end you get to your goal and they get theirs. So in the end maybe some leaders of an orginizations should not only take leaders in because of their volume of their voice or how hard they are on their employees but take some in on compassion, understanding and even persuasion. I can definitly say that in regards to me that I had to work with me siblings and not in a negative way but positive and understanding way. I think that since you spend everyday at work with your team they are pretty much like family (personal relationship or strictly proffesional). Personally with my son I never yell at him or expect anyhting more than what he can do but I definitly help him develope to become smarter and learn new things (not to be conceded but my son is very well behaved and is very smart for his age and also listens to me very well) which I would believe would be the same as a team. you treat it like you developing child and if in fact you have the leadership you could definitly tone your team to and have it perform to expectations or even exceed them. You definitly cannot change the people in your family that are blood and you have to deal with it so treat your team the same way and everything will should end up the same way "fair" in a sense. I don't know if this will make sense to everyone but it does to me in how I develope in a way.
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