It’s Bring a Parent to Work Day!

When I think about bringing my parents to work, I start to cringe. First, it would be difficult now because they are both deceased, and I think it would be messy. Secondly, my mother never thought I had a real job and so I would imagine she would have been very critical and upset.

But I am not talking about literally bringing your parents to work, I am talking about bringing your parenting skills to work.

Let me explain.

My wife and I work with parents teaching effective communication skills to use with their children. It is part of a bigger program where we help change parenting to improve family dynamics. What we have found in changing communication is that you also curve behavior and anxiety issues dramatically. It builds a stronger relationship between parent and child and that is something that has long term affects.

One of the catch phrases we tell parents is “which would you rather have a 15-minute conversation or an hour long battle that gets no results?” Affective communication can get you the 15-minute conversation and end the battles.

Having been in my own business, and now in practice with my wife, I have learned that the same communication skills we teach parents fit just as well for adults.

Probably a big reason this is true is that in reality business communication and personal communication are not different skills. With our business life and personal life quite intertwined, with so many people working from home, our communication skills run in parallel often with no separation.

So how does communicating as a parent play into speaking as an adult at work? How can we do that and not treat others like children?

We’ll start by looking at the categories we cover in our communication work with parents, then apply those same principles in business.

The topics are as follows:
✓ Helping Children Deal with Their Feelings
✓ Engaging Cooperation
✓ Alternatives to Punishment
✓ Encouraging Autonomy
✓ Praise
✓ Freeing Children from Playing Roles

Those might sound a bit esoteric for a workplace but before you pass judgement we’ll talk about them in relationship to business. Dealing with feelings is all about listening, attentively listen to where someone is coming from, and what is behind what they are saying.

Understanding how someone is feeling about something, can make a world of difference on what the response should be. Sometimes it is a matter of just letting someone vent.

What we have found as parents is that if we are quiet and listening, many times our kids will figure their own solution to the problem or situation they are in. Isn’t that what a good business leader wants from their employees? For them to think on their own and come up with solutions.

Engaging cooperation gets kids to do the things they need to do and what parents want them to do. It really is another name for teamwork. In business we want our employees to work as a team, to cooperate and get along with each other. There are entire businesses that exclusively do team building with professionals and executives. In my own practice we actually do team building practices with families in order to get cooperation and family unity.

Alternatives to Punishment to a parent it is about moving away from harsh punishments (such as spanking or yelling or abuse) to find ways that actually build confidence and stop bad behavior. Of course, at work it hopefully is not about spanking, but there are many demeaning ways bosses correct their employees.

As a kid I was never spanked but a friend was pretty harshly spanked (nearly beaten). Those spankings for my friend only led to long term resentment and hatred of his parents. They may have gotten initial change but the long term affects were detrimental.

In business, screaming or heavy or harsh criticism, may get instant results, but can have long term detrimental effects on employee morale and productivity. We should all  find ways to correct someone, and allow them to find ways to amend or solve the situation themselves, without destroying their self-esteem or confidence.

Praise is one thing that I never thought could actually be detrimental to anyone. I have since learned that if not done properly it can either have no real positive effect or it can actually work against you. Think about this for either a child or someone at work. It is easy to throw out “good boy” to a child who just cleaned up their room or “you’re a good worker” to an employee that just finished a project. The phrase “good boy” or “good worker” seems appropriate and affective for the moment.

The next day when they aren’t so good (the child doesn’t clean his room or the employee messes something up) it just negated your “good” statement. Instead, it is about praising what that child or employee has done, being specific. To the child might be said “Wow, you stacked all your books neatly, you swept the floor…” and to the employee it might be said “I really like the statistical data you used in the report and I found you did a lot of research…”. So, you talk about what they did specifically without addressing their character.

Finally, dealing with roles. Oh, she’s the smart one! He’s the muscles! She is just Miss Devious! Labeling people only makes them take that role or label as who they define themselves to be. Soon they become that role and it can affect a child or even an adult negatively. Some childhood roles we accept can continue to adulthood.

These few aspects of communication play a huge role in how a family operates or how any business operates. They can make families and businesses work more efficiently and dynamically if put into practice. Remember business and personal life are not mutually exclusive and need to work together.