Tag: cleaning

Parenting, Cleaning, and Adapting as a Leader (2-12-25)

Be stubborn about your goals and flexible about your methods. | Life ...This week we are going to kick off a series about lessons I’ve learned from being a dad.  This week is about parenting, cleaning the house, and being flexible and adaptable when leading others.

When I was a kid and would help my family clean the house it would look like this.  My mom would blast music (usually Prince, Rod Stewart or Alanis Morisette).  With the music blaring we would all start jumping in and helping with little direction.  When I initially tried this approach with my own kids, it didn’t go so well.  In case I’ve never mentioned it, we have some neurodivergence in my house, so cleaning the way I did as a kid is EXTREMELY overwhelming for my kids.  The loud music is overstimulating and the lack of clarity on what needs to be done is anxiety inducing.  Trying to clean this way would result in everyone being overstimulated, grumpy, and the house not getting clean.  #failure

After failing a few times, I needed to reevaluate the situation.  At the end of the day, my goals are to get the house clean and to help my kids become more self-sufficient.  I’ve learned to be flexible in HOW I achieve those goals.  When I clean with my kids, we don’t play music to avoid overstimulation.  Also, I create a list of the tasks and add some gamification, so there is clear direction.  We don’t clean the house.  We save Hyrule! (a nod to The Legend of Zelda video game series)  My list might look like, “Beat the Water Temple aka Clean the Bathrooms for 50 points,” or “Straighten up Goron City aka The Kitchen for 20 points.” My kids then methodically work through the list, accomplishing tasks, and checking stuff off until the house is clean.  It’s very different from the way I grew up cleaning, but it is still very effective.

Where exactly is this going?  As a leader, it’s your job to enable the other people around you to be successful.  Often, this means being strict about the goal, but being flexible in HOW to achieve that goal.  Did my kids have to clean like I did in order to be successful?  No.  We found a way that works for them and enabled their success.  Think about work.  How often has a leader more or less forced you to do something their way, even though it wasn’t the only path to success?  What were the consequences of that?  When I’ve had those experiences, I’ve often felt disengaged and often saw how more value could have been provided if the leader would have just been a little more open to thinking differently.

The challenge: As a leader are you being adaptable and flexible enough to enable others to be successful?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Cleaning the House- Begrudgingly or with Flair (9-27-17)

This will be the last in the series of lessons I’ve learned from doing stuff around the house.  We looked at ironing and development as well as taking out the trash and letting go of negative emotions.  We then thought about dusting and brushing off our skills.  We also reflected on ourselves and tools in a tool box.  Last week, we thought about my wife reorganizing the pantry and meeting customer needs.  This week I want to end by reflecting on how we approach cleaning the house.

When you clean do you clean or do you clean?  You might be wondering what the difference is between those two..  Well, the first version is begrudgingly cleaning the house.  The second version has italics, is bold, and is underlined which obviously means you are doing it with some flair 😉  In my house we turn cleaning into a game.  We might become ninjas who are taking out the evil germs.  We might become ghost busters going after dust bunnies.  Sometimes the vacuum becomes a monster that chases the girls around the house as they run and use their freeze powers to stop the evil vacuum monster.  Even when I’m by myself, I’m at least blasting some good tunes as I do everything from clean kitchens to bathrooms, and if you’d walk in on me you’d wonder if I was cleaning or having a one man dance off.  In case you’re wondering, I have moves, but that’s a story for a different day 😉 

So what does this have to do with work?  Cleaning the house is something that needs to get done.  At the same time, I have a choice in how I go about doing this.  I can choose to allow cleaning to be this horrible activity I have to suffer through.  I can choose to find ways to make cleaning enjoyable and maybe even insightful enough to inspire a few blogs 😉  The same thing can be said for work.  We do some amazingly important work.  We do things that are legitimately life changing.  At the same time, this isn’t all fun and glory.  There’s a lot of drudgery and grinding that we have to do.  We have projects, processes, meetings, etc. that we have to go through every day.  It’s easy to get lost in this grind.  At the same time, we can choose how to go about doing these things.  We can choose to bring in a smile and a high five.  We can choose to find joy in these moments.  We can choose to not always take ourselves so seriously.  We can choose to do these things begrudgingly or we can choose to approach these tasks with a mind that is looking for an opportunity to learn and maybe even a chance to have some fun. 

The challenge: Are you doing a job or doing a job?

Bonus lesson from cleaning-> Give people a role and a job to do that matters.  Whenever we clean I give the girls jobs and tell them why the jobs are important.  They are always willing to pitch in if they understand why the work they do matters.  In this case, Alice is the spray helper and Violet is the wiper.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry