This is an email I sent to subscribers of my Ninja Employee Newsletter. You can sign up by filling out the form on the right or at the bottom of the page to get career and productivity tips send to your email address.
Working as part of a team is tough. Personalities clash, competing interests collide, and egos crash. Sounds like a car wreck, doesn’t it?
What you have to remember is this: it’s the end product that counts. Superstars become superstars at work because they care about the company/product/project more than anything else.
Sound familiar?
When you’re a parent, there are “projects” that need to get done: baby needs to get fed, baby needs to get a bath, baby needs to learn to walk, baby needs to be put to sleep, baby needs to learn to use a fork, and so on.
[for all you non parents out there, I'll try to keep the baby talk to a minimum]
These are all things that are tricky, especially when there’s two parents trying to help it along. The best analogy I can find is when two people try to put IKEA furniture together.
You just don’t do it unless you absolutely have to.
With a baby, it’s kind of like being at work, only different.
- Different because you love your baby.
- Different because there aren’t any instructions included in baby’s diaper (that would be sweet).
- Different because it’s another human being, not a piece of furniture.
The biggest difference is that anything that has to do with your baby takes out any kind of personal battles. That need to “win” or “get it right” goes out the window (at least in my experience–or at least it should) when you’re dealing with your kid.
The IKEA Analogy
Maybe while you’re putting together an IKEA sofa (or leading a project at work), you want to stick to the instructions but your significant other (or coworker) thinks it’ll be easier if you start on page 4 and work backwards.
After a some arguing, you give in and start doing it her way, only to realize an hour later that you were right: this is going to a pain in the ass now that you’re going rogue in terms of the instructions.
So you give a little smile and raise your eyebrows, which translates to “I told you so.”
Which is mean but can feel so good.
Throw in the crankiness and physical pain related to this kind of project, and you have a recipe for a fight.
This, of course, also happens with your baby. We are humans. We get tired and frustrated and worried that we’re “ruining” our child, so we get cranky and take shots when we can because it gives us a small comfort: I was right and you were wrong.
What does this have to do with work? At work, all this happens at a magnified level.
You don’t love the people you work with. You may not even like them.
The stakes are high: this is how you put money on the table for the aforementioned baby you love so much and would be willing to do anything for.
Plus everyone has a boss at work: someone that tells what to do. This takes away the power you have at home. There, nobody is your boss: you are the CEO of your home. Or co-CEO–however you want to slice it.
Oh, and you’re not going to get fired from being a parent regardless of what you do.
Connecting All this to Work
So what is it about being a parent and fighting these battles at home that can make us better team players at work?
Regardless of all the frustrations and pettiness and need for “power,” parents do everything they can in the best interests of baby.
If baby finally falls asleep even though it wasn’t your idea to try the angled pacifier, it doesn’t matter: now you too can sleep.
If baby finally eats broccoli not because you put cheese on it but because mommy let her feed it to herself, whatever. At least she ate it: baby will not starve to death.
If baby finally stopped crying because mommy gave her her bunny instead of the little fish you tried giving her, it doesn’t matter: the crying as stopped.
What matters is baby.
Substitute baby for project or goal or company and you’ve got yourself an ideal scenario at work. If everyone cared only about what’s best for the project, then that project would be in good hands.
In fact, it would be in the best hands.
But things quickly get derailed–other interests start seeping into the office:
- I hate this guy and will do the opposite of whatever he suggests.
- I don’t want the boss to think I suck, so I’m going to play it safe.
- I hate my boss and I’m halfway out the door anyway, so I’m going to sabotage this project.
- I’m tired and could care less right now, so I’ll half-ass it.
This is one of those cases where if everyone did what was best for the project, everyone would come out ahead. The quality would be better. It would get finished quicker. The whole team would look good, not just for the quality of the work but for being such good team players.
There’s a reason why “being a team player” impresses people: it’s nearly impossible to overcome our selfish tendencies. When it comes to our work, most of us are angry drivers willing to cut grandmas off in order to get to where we’re going. We have rage and we are reckless.
How do we do this? We focus on doing what’s best for the project.
I know it’s hard, but you have to try to divorce yourself from selfish tendencies that tend to sabotage projects.
The project is your baby, and if you consistently think this way you will develop a reputation as someone who cares about one thing above all others: the quality of your work.
Do that well enough and long enough, and you shouldn’t have any trouble providing for baby.
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