“If he wants breakfast before he gets dressed, let him,” my wife advised me.
“No way,” I retorted. “He’s got to learn to do what we say. I want them to get dressed, brush their teeth and then come down for breakfast.”
“You’re going to have a really bad time and you won’t be able to get him to school. You’ll fight with him. He’ll melt down and you’ll never get out the door,” she said, specifically referring to our four-year-old Parker. (Tyler, our 6 year old, is pretty good about listening at this point.)
At this, I paused. It was about a week ago and we were discussing how I’d be handling the kids in the morning since my wife would be starting her new job on Monday, July 27.
A few hours after I went to work that day, she sent me this picture, with a message that could have come from (or should go on) one of those motivational prints: “Flexibility will be the difference between your success and failure. Remember that!”
Now, I have to admit that flexibility is not quite in my nature. My mother is German, very German, with all the love of order, punctuality and precision that implies. For example, on Christmas days, we were presented with an itinerary of activities, which, I’ll never forget, noted we’d be opening presents at 10:20 AM — not 10, not 10:30, but 10:20 precisely. I am a creature of this indoctrination.
In fact, this was one of the principal points of debate between Nancy and me when she came on board. I was always trying to put everything we did into a scalable and repeatable system, which could be documented, referred to, and updated as necessary. Whenever something happened, or whenever a decision had to be made, I wanted to be able to enter it into our system and the pre-established rules would tell us exactly what to do. Nancy would often balk at this, saying something like, “Well, I think we’ll need to take it on a case-by-case basis.”
Now, to someone like me, “case-by-case” basis means chaos. But over time, I have come to understand that everything cannot be template and repeatable; there are one-offs and individual decisions that do not conform to the norm. The world has lots of gray, even though I prefer black and white.
So with my more flexible approach to life (and with my wife’s advice in my head), I crept into Parker’s room on Monday morning at the anointed “first wake up time.”
“If he’s cranky,” my wife had said, “let him go back to sleep for another 10 minutes. He won’t really go back to sleep, but if you force him up on the first try, you’re doomed.”
“Parker,” I said gently. “It’s time to get up.” At this, he turned over and covered his head with Bear Bear. As advised, I let him go back to sleep for a few minutes and tried again. This time playing the Everly Brothers’ “Wake Up Little Susie” on my phone, replacing Susie with “Parker.” At this point, I was joined by Tyler, who found all this immensely amusing.
It worked, and Parker got up, but was nary in the mood to get dressed.
“I’m too hungry to get dressed,” he lamented.
And so it was my moment of truth, my test to see if I’d either be German or flexible. I thought of my wife’s advice, I thought of my mother’s schedules, I looked deep within my soul.
And everyone got to school on time.
Karen says
Dealing with employees who need a bit of a unique approach to get them jump started or to comply is always an interesting topic/debate for leaders who manage people and this piece is so appropriate for putting the dilemma in perspective. I observed (and I stress “observed” since I was not in a position to change the outcome unfortunately) a recent management decision whereby a very knowledgeable, very respected employee was deemed eligible for separation primarily for her inability to complete time and expense reports by a certain hour on Fridays. Just not that good at the housekeeping stuff but truly amazing at the work she was hired for. So instead of finding another way to get the housekeeping stuff done, the manager, who was so irked by this employee’s behavior in regard to timesheet deadlines, continued with the process to separate the employee as fast as possible. Result? A huge hole in a necessary and hard-to-find skill set. A big blank space in our stable of technical thoroughbreds… all because the manager just could not live with this employee wanting to eat breakfast before getting dressed. A crying shame. Thanks Anthony for another great article that makes me think everyday about my actions and how they affect others. So important.
Anthony Guerra says
Thanks for your note Karen. It’s very shortsighted (and usually junior) managers who need to have things all their own way — for “underlings” to follow the letter, and not only intent, of the law they lay down. Either the manager in question will grow, leave, or continue to damage the institution.