What Can Our Business Learn from Family?
June always reminds me of family. Yesterday was my mom’s birthday and Father’s Day.
So June brings thoughts of family and me wishing Texas and Missouri were a little closer geographically. Since living over 1,200 miles away from my family I’ve created family-type bonds with friends and even in my business.
Working in an industry based on trust and compassion it is natural for a family atmosphere to be created in our businesses. However, this also creates challenges in knowing when and how to draw boundaries. This was definitely a struggle I had as a business owner. One of the benefits of being a small business is flexibility to bend policies and help employees that have challenges. Watching employees grow and develop while working in my business was one of the best rewards I had as a small business owner.
I did realize over time that there is a very fine line between helping someone help themselves and enabling someone to avoid making tough life decisions to help themselves.
Unfortunately, I never found the exact line, but do think over time I got better at drawing boundaries for the business. I also improved in communicating clearly and directly my own expectations when policies were bent in an effort to help an employee. In hindsight, setting clear expectations for employees in your business is an important step to managing the helping versus enabling line. Employee management in our center improved when we set these expectations clearly and consistently:
- Positive environment – complaints required a suggested solution
- Respect – treat all co-workers as you want to be treated
- Business needs come first – pets and clients are the top priority
- No drama – leave it at home or discuss with management in a private meeting
- Be a team player – don’t let your team down by being late or failing to do your best
The real change in our team came when we raised our expectations of performance levels for all employees. We would no longer settle for less than your best just to keep a body in the business. This meant we spent time with each employee letting them know we had confidence that they could achieve our expectations. We asked what we could do to help, but kept true to our raised bar of expectations. In many meetings I felt more like a mother than a boss, but helping employees improve was key to the success of my business and my own sanity. My experience taught me that instilling confidence in themselves is often the key in raising employee performance.
This was something my mother taught me. From a very early age I remember my mom telling me and my two siblings that we would achieve three things as a member of our family: earn the grade school life-time reading certificate, learn to swim and graduate from college. These were non-negotiable expectations she set for all of us and every spring I learned that failing to write and turn in book reports was not an option in our family.
Looking back there was no reason to believe any of us would go to college as I grew up in a very small farming community and my parents worked in blue collar jobs. However, my mom believed we could, set that expectation for us and we were too naive to think any differently. Today she is very proud that all three of her kids not only graduated college, but all have advanced degrees. The credit is hers for setting the expectation, encouraging us as we struggled, and convincing us we would be college graduates.
Mom’s formula works in business. You will find joy in the success of your employees as they grow and exceed your expectations. As a result your business will be more successful and you may just retain your sanity!
