Let my people work

Someone recently asked me about my management style, and part of what I said is this: hire good people, coach them to become great, and then make it possible for them to excel at their roles.  For me, a big piece of that has been knowing when to not give instructions.  When to get out of the way and let people do their work. 

It isn't rocket science, and I am not the first person to say it.  It is, however, something that I learned not on the job, but off.  Or rather, on my second job of co-managing our four person, one pet fish household.  


Which is why I'm both cringing and laughing out loud reading this article about the lists that mothers make when they go out of town on business trips. 

I have always shared primary care-giving responsibilities.  JB is a musician and has a very flexible schedule.    For the past number of years, day times have meant me in the office,  JB mostly at home, and an incredible rotating group of free-lancers, students, artist and musician babysitters to fill in the many holes.  Breakfast is my meal; dinner is his.  I do the grocery shopping; he does the vacuuming.  He washes the laundry; I fold the laundry.  You get the gist.

All this to say - I've never written a list of instructions of how things have to be done when I am away from home.  I have, however, received one or two.  (And on the work front, I will admit to writing one too many vacation/maternity leave/transition memos).

JB and I have many times when we flip roles.  Once or twice a year, he spends a couple of weeks or so on tour and I am the one who struggles to get dinner on the table every night.  (Luckily, I learned early in parenthood that if you buy the hippy kind of mac and cheese and throw in some frozen veggies, it counts as a meal).

We have been able to share responsibilities because we have learned to trust each other.  That doesn't mean that we do things the same way, however, and over the years we have learned to, for lack of a better phrase, deal with it. JB has to deal with the fact that the kids are not going to practice the violin as much when he is out of town.  I have to deal with the fact that they might not put their napkins on their laps (or use napkins at all) when I am not at the dinner table.  He might buy the "wrong" kind of bread.  I might let the kids leave their legos out overnight. 

Because we share responsibilities, more gets done.  It might not get done "perfectly" in either of our eyes, but there are more homemade meals, more projects with the kids, more time for us both to pursue our passions, because we have learned to allow the other person to do things the way that they do them. 

In my experience, same thing happens in the office.  We might not love the way a Board President runs meetings, but it is his role, so we bite our tongues in the room, give gentle suggestions behind the scenes, and deal.  And the meeting still runs.  We might not like the way our staff person writes her to-do lists, but she gets the work done, so we deal.  I might be a prepare-in-advance person; my colleagues might be last-minute.  I might write everything down; they might keep everything in their heads.

If JB wasn't home with the kids most days, my career couldn't look like it does.  If I didn't have a job that gave us health insurance, it would be harder for him to be freelance.  We have to let other people do their work.  Because if we don't, we can't do ours.  But when we do - when we do our work and when others do theirs, things get done.  Even if the house is messier (or, in my very lucky case), cleaner, than it would be if we were in charge.