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Are your employees acting like kids? Do you put your employees in positions to lie? Do they challenge your patience by asking too many questions? Do you continually remind them of deadlines? Employees will behave like children if you persist in acting like their parent. Managers must consider themselves teachers if they want to develop a team that is successful. Listen to an expert’s advice on how to do that and make it simple, not time consuming in this episode of the Manager Mojo Podcast.
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Today’s topic is “Are Your Employees Like Kids?” Now I know that’s a different title, “Are Your Employees Like Kids?” and some of you are already saying, “Well absolutely they are.” Let me explain what we’re going to talk about today. Our topic is going to be all about examining our mindsets towards our employees. So let’s dive in.
First, let’s start with children. Even if you don’t have children yourself, I believe that there are things that are common to all of us. Each of us has most likely had these experiences. For example, we know that some children are naturally curious and some are not. Those that are curious, they want to know the in’s and out’s about everything and they will ask you one question after another until you’re frankly just totally exhausted from answering their questions. And they just aren’t happy with a short response. They keep digging and digging and digging.
One of my favorite examples of that is when they start asking, “Where do babies come from?” And you could tell them, “Well the stork brought them,” and they say, “Well okay, how did that happen? Where did the stork get them and how did the stork know to bring it here?” They just keep asking one question after another so then the parents would say something like, “Oh it’s when mommy and daddy love each other and they come together and that’s how babies are made,” and that’s not usually good enough for a child at that point. They just keep asking and they want to know more.
I’ll bet you’ve had employees that are exactly the same way. They’re not happy with that short response that you’ve tried to give them and they keep asking one question after another and you’re like, “Gee! Just go away would you? I mean come on, I’ve had enough!” And you know that short response for those that are curious just won’t work. We know that.
Well what about those children that are naturally stubborn? Now I think these are the ones that drive most parents nuts because they push back against everything that you want them to do. As a parent, you have to figure out how to get them to do what they need to do and hopefully you get them to do it without you losing your temper. But I have to tell you, as a parent, and now a grandparent myself, that’s really difficult to do because you want to lose your temper, and after a time you will lose your temper. What happens when we lose our temper with those stubborn ones, we’ll just tell them the same statement—I’ll bet you’ve heard it too— “Do it just because I said so.”
And it’s that “I said so,” that signals to the child that, “Hey I’ve won. I’ve ticked them off. Now I’m in control because they’re upset and I’m not.” And the child has you at that point. I know some of you are thinking, “Gosh I have an employee right now that does that same thing to me and they push me right over the edge until I just can’t handle it anymore and I say, ‘Do it because I said so! Because I’m your boss!’” You know it doesn’t work, and we’ll talk about that in a moment.
Let’s talk about those children that will avoid everything—they’ll just do anything to avoid trouble. They’ll even lie to you. My youngest daughter was a little girl, she was barely walking but she loved to color. She loved to have her colors and pencils and she would draw things. It wasn’t that we were trying to discourage her creativity but the problem was she didn’t know where she should draw and where she shouldn’t. So we would catch her drawing on anything and everything. She’d draw on the walls of her bedroom. She’d draw on the walls in the house.
I remember walking down the stairs from our home. I grab the stair rail and all the way down the stairs there’s a line drawn right above the rail where this little hand had drawn all the way down the stairs. It wasn’t just a little piece; it was the entire stairwell where she had drawn on the wall. So I went to confront her about it because I knew she’d done it and I said, “Did you draw on that wall?” And she just looked at me dead in the eye and she said, “No. I didn’t do that.”
She had me in control at that point because it was then that I lost my temper and I said, “I know you did it because it’s right at your height. You were the one that did it! Now you’ve got to tell me you did it.” And you know, the bottom line is it was so hard to discipline her because I was trying to keep from laughing because she’s lying straight to my face.
Sometimes we put our own team members in that kind of position. We don’t let them tell the truth because they know that the wrath is coming. They get all worried about, “Okay now what is he/she going to do. Are they going to fire me?” So we’ll lose our temper with them.
And then you’ll have other children that will do their chores without being prompted. Now isn’t that wonderful when you have that, whenever they will do it. But I’ll bet you most of us were the type that needed to be reminded all the time that today’s the day you have to take out the garbage, you need to go make up your bed, and go clean up your room. We needed to be reminded all the time.
So I’m sure you have team members that you have to remind all the time. “Hey that report’s due today, I need that.” You feel like you spend most of your time reminding them of things that they should know. I’ll bet, because of these examples I’m giving you, you’re beginning to feel like managing people is a lot like parenting. You tell them, you remind them, you scold them, you encourage them, and sometimes nothing seems to work or at least it doesn’t work consistently. Well we’ve all been there.
I personally relate to this because, when I became a manager, for the first time I wanted everybody to get it right and let’s move fast. Let’s get stuff done. My attitude was, after all, that they were getting paid to come to work and to do their job. Because I was their boss they should do their job.
But, I have to tell you, even children get paid for their chores, but look how well that works for us with our kids. We fail to understand and recognize that the bad habits we create and develop as children that we grow up to become adults who take them to work. They show up every day with our employees. It shouldn’t surprise us, but we don’t understand this and often it takes years for most of us to get it. I know it did me; it took me a long time to understand it.
But as I’ve gotten older and been around awhile, I now tell people that I’m really just a kid. I’m not any older than I was when I was young, it’s just that I’m trapped inside this much older body. I’ll bet you feel the same way yourself and as you get older, I promise, you’re going to feel the same way. You’ll look in the mirror and say, “Who’s that guy/gal looking back at me? Is that me?” And you don’t think about those kinds of things because inside when you’re pushing and you’re motivated you don’t feel that way at all. You feel just like you did when you were younger.
I want you to know that the problem with having employees that act like children can be flat out exhausting to you as the manager and leader. It’s already exhausting when you have children and you’ve got to take care of that when you go home. But now you’ve come to work and you’ve got the same thing? You’ve got to spend 40-60 hours a week with adults who are acting like children? Yeah, it happens.
This type of conundrum can overwhelm a manager. The fact is, what we’ll begin to do is let the lines blur, and we’ll start to act at work the same way that we would act at home. We’ll resort to saying, “Do it because I told you to do it!” And the fact is, that’s when we run into problems.
Here’s the difference that it took me a little while to figure this out. I hope you’re a lot smarter than I am—but the difference is that adults can and will push back. They’re going to ‘get even.’ Unlike a child who can’t really do much against their parents because you have control over them, an adult can. They can get even. Your employees can find ways to undermine you, they can destroy your credibility, and they can destroy your leadership and influence. The fact is, adults don’t just get pouty, they get even and they can choose to do something about.
So as a manager and an effective leader it’s essential for you to monitor, manage, and control—not their mindset—but your mindset. This is all about us. We’ve got to figure out a way to control our own mindset. We have to guard against treating adults like children. You just can’t lose your temper. You can’t go send them to the office for a time-out. You can’t spank them. I mean those things are not going to work in the job. You can’t take the role of dictator because, the fact is, they don’t have to do anything.
If you are in a mindset where once you start to lose control that you start to take over with that dictator-type attitude, your effectiveness is going to go out the window. I know because that’s what I did and I promise you it didn’t work at all.
You see when people—your employees—they lose their initiative, you’ve lost them as a leader. They’re not going to work any longer towards meeting team goals. The real danger is that they’ve lost their initiative to achieve not only for themselves but for the team. And at that point as a leader you’re in trouble.
So you’ve got to watch your mindset. Instead I want to recommend that you consider yourself more as a teacher. Now, teaching requires patience. We’ve all had those great teachers that were so patient with us and they taught us through their patience. For those of us who don’t naturally have patience, this is a huge help in our own personal mindset, because subconsciously what it’s doing is helping us to emulate those that were our best teachers. Subconsciously we know the patience that they showed us, and now we’re showing it to somebody else. That helps us tremendously.
In addition to patience, teachers also understand that learning is a process. There are steps to follow. There are steps to learn. There are steps to practice. That’s why teachers gave us homework. They gave us homework so we could practice and become proficient.
I believe that the reason so many employees fail is simply because they haven’t been taught in a way that makes sense to them and they haven’t had the time to practice properly and to master the skill needed for their particular level. I want you to think about that.
I’ll give you an example: I’ve worked with many companies and most companies will prefer an applicant based on having experience. As a matter of fact, the vast majority will put in their ads, “Need to have one year, two years, three years experience.” I’ve even had them require five years of experience. Why are they looking for this experience? I believe it’s because companies are lazy, managers are lazy, and managers don’t understand the importance of teaching their employees. You have to teach people the basics and the fact is most managers, most leaders, don’t want to dive into the basics. They think it takes too much time and they’re not patient enough to take that time to do it.
But my experience has shown that if you will take those people who don’t have experience that they can be your best employees if you take on the mindset of a teacher. If you will show them, you will give them homework so to speak—in other words, give them tasks to practice. What you’ll do is you’ll reinforce learning. And the cool thing is that you aren’t having to un-teach them stuff that they learned the wrong way from some prior employer. I can’t tell you how many companies spend so much money training people to unlearn what they learned through that prior experience that they advertise for, they bought, and they got. And now the manager’s got to un-learn or un-teach that to the employee.
And by the way, there’s nothing more frustrating to a young person that’s worked their tail off, who has just graduated from college, when every job ad says you’ve got to have one year, two years, three years, five years of experience. These are bright, talented, motivated people that will absolutely work and do a great job. And they’re frustrated because all of these jobs are cutting them out because companies are looking for experience.
Well I believe that what you’ve got to do is take on the mindset that the key is to understand what needs to be done, what order, what priority, it needs to be done and then teach it.
What does that mean for you as a manager? I realize I’m talking about teaching. I’m talking about investing time in people and training them yourself. It requires you to dig into how they can be effective in their job.
Does it mean that you can’t have the title, go to your office and let all your ‘worker bees’ get stuff done? Absolutely — you can’t do that, and I want to tell you why you don’t want to do that.
Your personal success as a leader is completely dependent upon the actions of your entire team. It’s about them; it’s not about you. You have to learn that lesson; it’s about them, not you. When you do, great things will happen for you. They will lift you up on their shoulders and they will promote you through the ranks.
It is the tool of being patient, teaching and controlling your mindset so that you’re not treating them like children that begins to develop the team. And the most important part of the team? As the manager—the leader—you’re the person that’s taking on the responsibility and you’re accountable for the actions of the team. Then you have true influence. In my opinion, you will win more often by teaching than any other method.
When you’re teaching you can hold people accountable because you know they’ve been taught the exact, proper way to meet their goals. That’s how accountability is done, by the way. It’s because they know exactly what to do and if they choose not to do it, then they’ve failed that objective. And it’s a much easier situation to hold people accountable.
Maybe you’ve had the experience like I’ve had where people have said, “I didn’t know I was supposed to do that.” And you know what, they probably were right because nobody ever taught them. But if you took it upon yourself to teach them, take the mindset of a teacher, be patient, explain the process, show the steps, go through it one, two, three so that they get it, then you can hold that person accountable. You can say, “Hey, do you remember we said that we needed to do this step, this step, and this step? Remember we went through that?” And you’ll see them, “Yeah you’re right. Gee I’m sorry I missed that. I got it now, I think I can do it.” You see it’s a different way of holding people accountable. You don’t have that defense mechanism.
I want you to remember that being the teacher is a far better way to operate. Ad I hope that you will consider that in your own career so that you can do these things really well. I promise you, if you’re the leader and you help them understand—if you do this—then you’re going to be well on your way to becoming the leader that others want to follow.
