Author: Mike Urgo
For those that don’t know, I am a father of two daughters who are ten and twelve. As most parents know, one of the biggest weekly battles is chores.
Is your bed made?
Is your room clean?
Did you put away your clothes?
For us, as adults, these are simple tasks and for kids with no real adult stress or responsibility, they are very realistic expectations. In our house, sometimes it feels like we are asking them to move mountains. In a way to help, what I try to do is: explain ‘the why’. For instance, this past week during spring break, with everyone at home, we all committed to doing some real spring cleaning. My oldest was so distraught when it came to taking a break from screens to vacuum the house.
I saw this as a teaching opportunity and proceeded to step on a familiar soap box and reminded her that the reason we enforce these chores is not just to have a clean house, but to create good habits and muscle memory for the future. So that when she lives on her own, she doesn’t struggle to keep her house clean. We also expect a high-level job when cleaning to create a habit of doing the right thing to the best of your ability so that she is set up to be successful in whatever career she chooses.
The response: *Eye Roll*
She’s twelve.
What I was attempting to do was pull her out of her micro vision and think of the situation from a macro lens. The intent being for her to embrace the task for her belief in the future benefits. The reality is that whatever she was doing on her Nintendo Switch was far more important at that moment than any profound message I thought I was delivering.
I then started to reflect on this situation on an even broader macro level for myself. How do I as a parent and as a leader decide when it’s appropriate to take a macro approach as opposed to a micro approach. This is not about “Micromanagement”, that is a whole different can of worms that I have added to the list of future episodes. What I am talking about is the level of focus we bring to a conversation or a point within it, which can be applied both inside and outside of our professional lives.
What I should have done when she rolled her eyes was just remind her that the quicker she does her chores and does them well, the quicker she is back on the Nintendo. The time she is wasting arguing with me and or having a bad attitude is only delaying her Nintendo time and has no real impact on my life. That would have been far more effective for both of us. Then, later, when she is calm and open to hearing a more macro level thought, that is when I could explain the bigger picture. Because, her brain would be open to hearing it, instead of being closed off, because all she was thinking about was her game.
It's important for us to do these two things as leaders professionally and it just takes a few things to keep in mind. The first and most important is knowing where the recipient of the message is when it comes to being able to digest the message. If your employee is battling a fire that they may or may not have contributed to, they don’t want to hear the higher-level lesson. That conversation should be saved for a later date. Knowing where the target audience is mentally and emotionally is key.
The second thing is to recognize what you are focused on and why. Back to my daughter, I have to meet her where she’s at as well. I have to remind myself that she’s twelve. I remember what it was like to be twelve. So, if her room is clean, but not immaculate, that’s ok. And while I as a parent am always thinking about her future, that’s my job; I don’t need my twelve-year-old daughter losing sleep over how clean she will be able to keep her future house.
As leaders it’s important to know what information to share with our teams and what information is stressful for us as leaders to keep to ourselves. We also need to know what level to low and have we started to dip our toes into micromanaging (coming next week). Being able to understand the situation is important. One thing I have always encouraged my teams to do is keep themselves educated about current events at the company. It helps see the bigger picture of why certain projects are prioritized over others or why there is more or less budget during a given fiscal year.
Just as it’s important for leaders to pick the correct leadership style (another future blog, see the tactic I am using to entice you to read more?), it’s important for leaders to understand both the macro and micro view of a situation and which one is important to focus on when. Usually both are important, but the timing of when each one is addressed should depend on the situation and when it will have the biggest impact.
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