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Having a business is not like having a family, but some important lessons apply to both. As a parent, you want to identify and nurture your children's natural abilities and push them to improve in the areas where they need it most. It's the same in management.
Many of the lessons I've learned from raising my daughters have also guided my thinking on FutureFund – free fundraising platform for the K-12 school groups I founded more than a decade ago. Here are three things I've learned from parenting that have also helped me develop talent in the workplace.
Related: 4 How Parenting and Leadership Work Together
1. Find the intersection of passion and skill
Parents tend to get their kids into a wide range of different sports – usually starting with the ones they're most interested in. But this is not just an attempt to live vicariously with their offspring; they do it because they are trying to find out what will stick. It's natural to start with the familiar and branch out from there.
The way I like to think of it is that you're trying to find an intersection between two equally important things: raw talent or ability and their desire or passion to participate.
You can have a teenager who's 6'4″ and assume they'd be a great basketball player—but having that natural edge is only half the equation. If it turns out they hate basketball, they probably won't. are motivated to practice, and they may not actually be an asset to their team come game time.
As a parent, you can try them in basketball to start – but be prepared to move them to soccer if that's what they'd like to play most. If they make the team, great; you have found the intersection. If they don't, you try them on something else until they do something that's interesting to them and a good match for their skills.
It's almost the same when you assign roles in an office environment. Years ago, I managed a young engineer whose performance was suboptimal. In fact, he was very close to being fired, but when I transferred him to another team, he excelled. He actually ended up leading that team and managing others. Eventually, he became the manager of a horizontal team—a much higher-pressure role than the one in which he had initially struggled.
2. Don't give up – find the “why”
Another key lesson to take from the examples above is to not give up on people until you have to. Most parents don't give up on their children, at least not in obvious ways. However, some end up unconsciously judging them too quickly in ways that can affect their self-perceptions and prevent them from growing in interesting directions. This is something you want to avoid as a parent and as a leader in the workplace.
When your child says, “I don't like basketball,” don't say, “Okay, stop playing.” Instead, ask them why. Maybe they don't like all the fighting and pushing – so they'll excel at softball or something. Finding the “why” is key here – you're looking for the underlying reason that gives them a passion or skill for some things and not others.
You do this by asking questions. Knowing what makes a person tick helps you give them the support they need. For children, this may mean moving them to another sport that works. Maybe your child doesn't like basketball, but will love soccer. Maybe they're not into golf, but they'll be excited to play tennis.
The engineer I mentioned earlier thrived for years in his new position. If I had assumed he was just a bad worker and fired him, I would have done both him and the company a disservice. It wasn't that he was worthless. It was just that we had to find the right place for it.
Find the team. Find the chemistry. Find passion and talent together. This is the job of a parent and a manager. And don't give up too early.
Related: Why real mentors don't just give answers – they ask the right questions
3. Move people out of their comfort zone
As a parent or manager, your job is to bring out the best in people – even if they can't see their potential. Not everyone knows where their skills or interests lie, and they can't always discover those things without your guidance.
My daughter took AP psychology in high school because she thought it would be an easy A – but it turns out she actually enjoyed the course. Her mother and I encouraged her to consider it as a possible direction for her future career. Today, she will finish school for psychology and already has a job offer that she likes.
Sometimes, a person discovers where their skills and interests intersect almost by accident. And as a role model of any kind, part of your job is to help them understand when it's happening.
Related: Why let people fail now so they can succeed later
This is true even at very elite skill levels. Professional athletes still have trainers, doctors and nutritionists. Senior employees still follow the advice of consultants and mentors. This is because it is wrong to think that you can achieve perfection. you are always improvingand you always need people to point out the things you can't see yourself.
Remember: as a parent or business mentor, you always they want to push people to do things they didn't think they were capable of doing. It's amazing how far a little encouragement can go, in parenting and management.