Rising through the management / advisory ranks early in your career, comes with a predictable downside; you are less relatable to others. One aspect of that timeline I look back on with a slight grimace, is the disconnect I had between being a 30 year old GM without kids, and the diligent 'Mum and Dad' workforce in the project teams around me.
In a commercially hard-nosed market, myself and my direct team certainly strived for creating an inclusive culture and effective workplace. But when it came to the parenting juggling act, which whirred in the background behind the occasional late entry into the office, bout of PCL days at "peak delivery" times or sudden WFH request (context: this was circa 2014 - 2016), I was an empathetic advocate...but I just didn't get it.
Now, thanks to a five year old and a two year old...I very much do. Having gratefully enjoyed a (multi-generational) Happy Father's Day yesterday, I sharpened my reflective thoughts into four personal favourites from #Dadlyfe:
Fun over fear - you ever glance away from your kid for a brief moment, only to turn around and find themselves in quite a precarious situation (randomly climbed up something, picked up something that could hurt them) and grinning wildly about it? Children naturally approach the world with curiosity, exploring possibilities without the constraints of fear or preconceived limits. Whilst parent you needs to be on guard for genuinely reckless / life endangering behaviour...other times, its inspirational watching them piece together the world in a new and imaginative way. Organisational life will always be more constrained than that...but it is stark reminder that anything can be respectfully challenged or experimented with - especially if you can have a sense of fun about it.
"New is what I do" - every day, both of my kids learn something new. Every. Day. They share it to our family with enthusiasm and adapt to new routines / lessons / friends etc. at an admirable rate. At a deeper level, it reminds me of my favourite (heavily paraphrased) change advice from James Clear - you start with your identity. As an example: my kids get better at leaping and jumping...because in their minds, they are Spiderman! For my kids at least, they see learning and growing as who they are...so, they get pretty darn good at it! As adults, the fact we made it to adulthood is proof we are great at change - sometimes, we just forget its who we are.
We all love to get lost in what we're doing - at this point, I should demonstrate my sanity by reality checking that some of parenting downright sucks. One low point for me, is having to tear my kids away from something they are loving doing, for the mundanities of life. That's because my inner child hates getting pulled out of the joy of immersion. And now I have to do it to the ones I love! (Plus they are deafeningly noisy in their displeasure, then surprisingly heavy when they have to be forcibly moved.) As a "manager", both in the parental and organisational worlds, I've always tried to set up bursts of "free time" - work on the things you love, experimenting and 'learning by doing'. True change leaders put the effort in, to create space for their people to do what they do best; it might never seem long enough, but it's always appreciated at some level.
Parenting is patience over perfection - there are deeply coded skills I've learned in legitimately high-stakes, career defining moments from facilitating strategic leadership sessions for Executive teams in conflict, or at "crunch time" in whole of enterprise change management projects...that I completely botch in 12 seconds, in the comfort of my own home, with two little "stakeholders" who mean more to me than my career ever will (Sorry, clients...I still love you as a friend). Of course, I sort myself out and get back to being the Dad I want to be. But it strikes me that the patience that every parent requires, to continually emotionally regulate whilst communicating simply and clearly...that's almost "unteachable" in a formal organisational change management sense. Not to mention the adept, multi-layered key messaging development that's required, ahead of 38 questions of "...why?"
Each of these insights (and in truth, many more which didn't make the 'editing for brevity' cut of this article) was unexpected. People have children for a variety of complicated reasons, but I doubt 'to excel at leading change' is listed often, it certainly wasn't my motivation.
You don't have to want to excel at leading change or be a Dad to relate to my own insights. But if you are a Dad (or Mum / some form of carer): keep going, you're doing great!
And if you aren't doing so great on that front...listen, watch and learn from your kids. They are living proof that change is innate to all of us, so you can improve too.