3 parenting lessons that will help you build stronger relationships at work
How home life informs work life when it comes to creating great experiences
Xero generously offered its employees an extended break at the end of 2021. This provided an amazing opportunity to rest and recharge. For me, the break was a perfect moment for quality time with my family. I have two daughters, and one of my key goals in life is to be a great dad (or ‘Papa’ in my case). It’s something that I spend a lot of time thinking about.
It was exactly this line of contemplation, that mid-way through the break, led me to draw parallels between my role as Executive General Manager of Partner Experience at Xero, and as a parent. That’s not to say that Partner Experience is a parent-child relationship! What I mean is that nurturing and growing relationships, whether they’re at home or in the office, is a long-term activity that requires some thoughtful consideration.
There are three lessons that stand out to me from my experience, which I would love to share.
1. Ask the right questions
Children are often hilariously literal: “The sun is poking my eye!” is my favourite quote from two-year-old Espi when the sun blinded her in the car. As a parent and professional, I’ve learned to avoid placing myself in the pitfall of taking things literally, by first asking the right questions up-front from my daughters at home and our partners at work.
Asking the right questions, instead of providing the right answers, is the best way to establish long-term understanding.
I use this concept frequently when watching sports with our daughters on weekends. They love mathematics, and I’ve found that asking them about real-time scoring differentials between teams is a great way to engage them in doing quick mental calculations. They now ask each other maths-related questions during games. It’s kind of shut me out of the ‘asking questions’ game, but that’s perfectly fine with me!
Another excellent parallel is doing customer research with partners. Asking open-ended questions and listening closely to the answers helps us eliminate assumptions and ensures we’re focused on the things that truly matter.
At a previous company, I worked on launching a new loyalty program structure. The research pointed towards an extra-high consumption segment, for which we could create a dedicated experience. As my team was on the verge of bringing this new experience to market, our ongoing conversations with partners saved us from making a potentially costly mistake.
Asking our smaller partners open-ended questions, despite the work we’d already invested in, showed us that launching a dedicated experience for the extra-high consumption segment made them feel less important — to the point where they’d be put off doing business with us at all. Staying true to the belief that we should listen to our customers without biases at all times, we made the necessary adjustments just in time, and had a successful launch.
The overriding lesson is to fall in love with the customer problem and to never fall in love with the solution (and certainly never assume you already have the answers!). It’s vital to keep listening until the last minute.
2. Engage them where they are
It can be very easy to drive your own agenda, whether it’s the skills you’d love your children to learn, or an initiative you’d love partners to get behind. But instead of trying to force-feed topics, there’s far more to be gained by fuelling areas of genuine interest.
I’m using my daughters’ interest in board games and movies as a platform to help them grow their own passions. They’re early in their academic journey, but it’s clear they’re very interested in science and numbers. One of their favourite board games is Monopoly, so we combine their interest in maths, movies, planets, stars and all living creatures by frequently playing the Star Wars edition of Monopoly!
In business, I believe in bringing stakeholders into the decision-making process as early as possible. This is best done by finding out the areas that are of most interest to them, and using those areas as a platform for focused engagement and innovation. We can then benefit from the inherent passion and enthusiasm that comes from building something they care about.
This is at the heart of my vision for Xero, as we invest in advancing our products in ways that capture what truly matters most to our partners.
Active listening and asking smart questions both lie at the heart of discovering the passions of your children and stakeholders. The same strategy can also turn negatives into positives. Listening closely to pain points gives invested insights that point the way to satisfying solutions.
3. Keep things simple
Listening intently has proved incredibly helpful as a parent. Often, there is a lot of information to process and genuine gold can be easy to miss! It’s a developed skill that lends itself nicely to my role, but the full value is found by simplifying those insights.
Communicating value back in simple terms leaves everyone with no doubt about the situation at hand and the action to be taken. No matter what audience you’re speaking to, saying “what I understand is that you’re going to…”, eliminates any potential misunderstanding. Children can be pretty unpredictable, so the success of this simple step with our daughters has ingrained it into my professional relationships.
An effective check for keeping things simple is asking yourself whether a child no older than nine would have communicated it the same way. And perhaps more importantly, understood what you’re saying. In this area, parenthood has definitely helped me become a better professional.
Build relationships like a parent
Nurturing relationships is an ongoing challenge that is unique to every individual. But following these steps can set you up for success from the start. First, ask the right questions. Second, engage them in their areas of genuine interest. Finally, communicate the insights that come back in simple terms. The combination will make sure you’re in a solid position to build strong and lasting relationships.
I’d love to hear more about how you build your own relationships at work, and what parallels you may draw with your home life. Please share any of your own tips with me in the comments.
