Two Hardest Team Members
- Zeynep Yalcin Parks
- Jun 11, 2023
- 3 min read
I haven’t written for so long. It was for a good reason. I was on maternity leave. Not only once but twice.
My younger daughter is now 13 months old and my maternity leave ended.
Giving birth twice and raising up two young children during a pandemic meant I could not get much support and that made my parenthood experience much harder. But... My management skill set has certainly grown!
Like project management, parenting requires the ability to manage time and priorities seamlessly. It requires a high level of organisation skills to keep track of everything as well as communicating them to the team or in this case to the family.
In a technical (or non-technical) project you start with a vision and you plan how to accomplish it. Similarly as a parent you decide on how to raise up your children: You set and communicate expectations, keep children on task and on schedule, provide guidance when necessary and ensure each member of the team is happy.
I think managing a team of adults with knowledge and experience is most of the time easier than managing a team with a toddler. Toddlers are challenging enough and easily can be resistant team members but things can get out of control if you also add a baby into the same team! You might have to communicate the expectations not once but a few times. And you might still be misunderstood or get resistance. You have to find out more creative ways to express yourself. You also have to guess what the baby or toddler might want to be saying without actually saying it. My daughters are trilingual and it took my older daughter longer to express herself by use of a language.
Things might not always go according to the plan. Imagine you walk into a meeting room and the projector is taken apart, chairs have been put away with other members hanging around. You have to stay stable (at all times). If you display panicked face expressions or negativity all your team members can suddenly start crying! So you need to stay calm, set the tone, keep a level head when things go not as wanted. That requires a lot of self regulation.
When I work with a client and share my experiences and knowledge to solve their problem my aim is to enable them to solve a similar problem next time without me. Similarly as a parent although I love putting on clothes of my daughters, fixing their hair or putting their shoes on my aim is to enable them to be self sufficient by encouraging them to try themselves, talking them through the process, coaching and reminding them that I am there for support when they need.
Surprisingly, the most important lesson of motherhood for me has been mindfulness . Although I was certified mindfulness practitioner long before having children and knew the techniques of practicing mindfulness, this time being at the moment felt more of a natural behaviour, not something to think about and apply. When you see the joy on a baby's face again and again you know those joyful moments matters the most in life.
In order to make the most of those joyful moments I will be working part time for now. I might be a bit late on replies but let's keep in touch.
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Zeynep Yalcin Parks is lead consultant at Derin Consulting. She helps individuals and organisations become better at achieving their purpose.
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* Cover photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash.
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