I’m a father. Since 1.5 of a week. That’s why I can say, that I have a fresh look at the birth of a child. When the “dust has settled after the battle” – we can analyze this act. And… what’s really amazing, we can easily find the features of a good manager in it.
Birth of a child is a really, really hard work. It’s painful, it’s stressful or even frightening. You (and your wife) have a bad feeling. All the time you feel, that something is going wrong. You are scared about your wife. She is afraid for herself and a child.
It’s really hard experience. And after all… a huge relief and a a lot of happiness.
I truly believe, that in all madness there is a method. In the childbirth I found a recipe for being a good manager.
Alone? No!
In all important moments of your life, you should have someone else with you. You shouldn’t be alone. You should (or even must) have someone, who could hold your hand. You should have someone, with whom you can share your happiness and suffering. You should have someone, who knows what to do.
It’s like in a life of manager.
You need someone, who knows what to do. Who is a specialist in his field. If not – you won’t build anything, what would be worth of selling.
You need someone, who could hold your hand. Who is related to your company or product. Who is interested in developing it. Who wants to gain more customers and grow up your company or product. Who would say: “Everything is gonna to be ok. Don’t worry. If we won’t sell it, then we will create something better and we will sell it for a price, which will be a twice as big.” And what is most important: he truly believe in it. He wants it, too.
You need someone, with whom you could share all these hard moments. You need someone, for whom you work. You need someone, whom you care about. You need someone, without who you won’t see a sense of working.
The right people at the respective positions
When your car breaks down, you need a mechanic, for repairing it. If you want to build a house, you need to make a call to some builders. In the time of birth… at least one doctor and one nurse should be close to you. In our case, that was one nurse on the night shift and one nurse on the day shift. They were talking to my wife, they were caring about her, they were checking, is everything all right. In the time of birth, a doctor came to the room. And after all – two more nurses came to us. One to examine the child and one for filling the documents.
The same thing is with the projects, which you build. If you want to have a really good product – you can’t do it by yourself. You need to delegate some of the duties. You need to give a chance to some other people. Let them do, what they have to do. If all these people (and you, too) could cooperate – then you will achieve success. If not – then you will spend your time on the things, which were doomed to fail since the beginning.
Look at the our example: there was two people, who were taking care of a “client” at the beginning. Who were saying that everything will be ok, who were saying: “you’re gonna make it”. These people could answer for most of our questions, so since the beginning we know what will be done later. There was a one specialist, who came in, in time of realizing project (moment of birth). And two other specialists, who came after all. One to check is everything fine and one for fill all the forms and documents.
The right place
Finding the right place for living, working, etc is incredibly hard. Finding the right place for birth of a child is as much hard. It should be not so far away from your home, but it must offer appropriate standard. Employees should be nice and responsible. Rooms should be clean. Before you make a decision – you need to read lots of opinions, make some phone calls, ask friends about their impressions. At last, that will be the place, where your kid will be born and your wife would spend few really difficult days.
The same thing is in business. You need to analyze everything. You need to count all pluses and minuses of that place. You need to decide where your company or a project would grow up. Is it the right place for your company? Maybe you should move out to other city or even country? Maybe other place would be better for your cooperation with the main clients? Maybe this place won’t give you a chance to maintain secrecy of core aspects of your product? Think about it. It’s a really difficult decision. You should not decide rashly.
Time management
Birth of a child takes over a dozen hours. Sometimes less, sometimes more. You need to be patient and have a steel nerves. That will be one of the most difficult hours in your (and your wife’s) life. Your role (and people, that are with you – e.g. accompanying nurses) is to manage of this time the best you can. You need to distract attention of the pain of your wife. You need to find some things to do, in the time of waiting (not only for you, but also for your wife).
Our birth lasted about 6 hours. It’s not so long. However for a woman – it’s definitely too much. Nurse on the night shift told my wife, that she should jump on the special ball or go and take a bath. Nurse couldn’t say: “it will take few more hours”, when she saw, that it hurts my wife. That she’s on the brink of exhaustion. She has to say: “Go and take a bath. It will speed up a birth.” or “Try to jump on the ball. It won’t hurts you so much, thanks to this ball”.
In a life of business, you have to see when it’s a time for change. When it’s a time to say to the client, that he needs to wait few more days for something. When it’s a time, to fraternize with your employees. When it’s a time to work over the hours or to take a break. You need to have your eyes open all the time and react for all the signs, that are saying that you have to change something.
In a life of project, you have to see when it’s a time for do one functionality or another one. You need to know, that if developing of some functionality will take too much time – maybe it’s better to not doing it at all or change the requirements. You need to know when it’s a best time to delegate more people to one task, and when you should take some people from the task. At a glance: You need to plan a time of your work and a time of work of your cooperators to be as much productive as it possible.
Try to reach a target on a variety of ways
People are lazy from the day of born. Sure, they are. However in many cases of our lifes, reaching a target using the simplest possible ways, is not a result of our lazy nature. It’s a result of our analysis. It’s a sum of all pluses and minuses, which we found. Just like in a birth of a child… first they told you to jump on the ball. After that, they told you to take a long bath. And after that, they ask you to walk. At the end, they can connect you to the drip. Everything has it’s reason. Maybe something else than a drip could speed up a birth? That would be cheaper and “more natural” solution.
The same is with the projects. Why should you spend your time for building a solutions, which will handle a hundreds of millions visitors, when you need a solution, that will handle a hundred of visitors? Why should you spend a lot of money for offline advertising, if you could try cheaper ads in google adsense? Why do you want to hire other employee, when you could try to do it, by using those measures, that you already have? Think again about what you have already thought. Maybe you can do it faster, easier, cheaper?
Don’t try to automate everything. Sometimes it’s better to check something by yourself.
My wife were connected to KTG few times during the childbirth. However… although, that everything was fine on the monitor of KTG – when doctor came in and look at my wife he said: “It’s right now. I can see the head of a child”. Conclusion? You can’t trust machines in all kind of situations. Sometimes you need to do something by yourself.
Computers, web-based applications, programs… all of these things are a great way to speed up your work. All of these things cause that you are more productive, that you are more effective in your work. Don’t be afraid of automate some of your duties. However… remember that these mechanisms have been created to help you in work; not to replace you completely. Think about the things, which you can automate. Then – automate them. However don’t trust them immensely. Check them from time to time. All of the apps have some bugs. Human is still a human.
Pain does not necessarily mean something terrible
Childbirth is a great example of that rule. Sometimes something beautiful could be the result of a pain. Think about the future. You will have a child. You will have your own child. Is it not great? It’s worth of few hours of pain, isn’t it?
The similar situation you can find in a business. Not all of the faults are bad. Not all of the failures are the bad things. Try to think another way about all the troubles, which you have. Maybe the client is not worth of your time? Maybe you would have much more troubles with the project, than profits?
Or even better, try to think the other way… all the bad things should motivate you to work better!
And the second aspect… really often situation. You have a client, external client, which is really unbearable. You know, that he has a money. You know, that you need to finish this project, because you can earn lots of money, thanks to this project. But he is so annoying…
Think about it like about a childbirth… lots of pain, but a great result. Worth of clench your teeth? I think so.
Take a break
Everyone sometimes needs a break. Sometimes it’s after a hard day of work, sometimes it’s after difficult actions, e.g. birth of a child. Your wife has to have a break. That’s her law and a generally accepted rule. You can’t ashamed to take a break, too. Sometimes you can need it more, than anything else.
The same thing is with your work. Don’t be afraid to take a break after a hard days of work. Don’t be afraid to give your employees few days off. When they will be back… they will be relaxed and more prepared for next challenges. Do not overdo it with this rule, but try to reward hard work of your employees by giving them some day off from time to time.
At last: love can do wonders
Maybe I would be a little bit mawkish, but it’s true. Love is a really strong feeling. It could help you to survive all the difficult situations. It could give you a strength to take on the challenges.
When I was looking at my wife in time of childbirth… I was really proud of her. She was strong and she coped with all of that very well. And I truly believe, that it was easier for her because of love.
I don’t say, that your cooperators should love you or I don’t even say, that you should love them. But the truth is that the best companies are these ones, where the employees feel good. Where they feel almost like (or exactly like) in a family. Happy people can do more. Happy people want to achieve a success. They want to their project achieve success. And they tend to do so.
Be good for your employees and they will be good for your company.
True man.
Great job! THANK YOU!