It’s not uncommon for me to have events outside my work life contribute to how I approach my work. Today was one of those days. Today, I have my daughter and her unwavering desire to push boundaries to thank for getting me thinking about how I lead my engineering team.

It turns out that there’s a lot in common between parenting and management when it comes to getting your plans implemented – especially those that aren’t popular.

A little background

You see, my daughter is three – very nearly four. For anyone who’s owned a little person of this age, you know that they are… assertive. They are fully capable of making their preferences known and aren’t afraid to let you know when things aren’t going their way.

In one sense, this is the most trying part of being a parent – the constant nagging, the relentless begging, the never-ending negotiations… it can be enough to drive you batty. I’m not too proud to admit that in the war of attrition that is parenting, I’ve lost my fair share of these battles.

On the other hand, I’m proud that my little girl can express her wants and desires – even if they are just to watch one more episode of Paw Patrol. I want my daughter to grow up to become a young woman who can stand on her own two feet, assert herself, and pursue her goals.

An inherent conflict

And this is where I get stuck. I want to raise a child who is capable of making her preferences and desires known, but who is also completely obedient, regardless of whatever incongruity exists between my wishes and hers. I want a free-thinking individual who will do exactly as I ask because I’m the father, that’s why.

In other words, I want to know exactly what she thinks and feels, but to also do what I ask her to do.

So this is the challenge of being a parent – balancing your children’s independence with your own rule of law.

Agreement and alignment

In a lot of ways, I see management as having the same challenges as parenting. How do you solicit and use the valuable expertise and opinions of the people you manage while at the same time establishing a clear direction that your team will follow? How do you get people to tell you exactly what they think and feel so that you can make informed decisions, and then have those same people put those thoughts and feelings aside so that they can follow your direction?

At the heart of this issue, I believe, is the difference between agreement and alignment. Let’s define these terms, shall we?

Agreement

Agreement is exactly what you would expect – to have people agree with you. In a parenting context, when your toddler says “Gee Daddy, you know, it does make more sense to go outside to get some fresh air than to sit and rot my brain watching TV!”, you have agreement. Similarly, when you unveil a new plan at work, and your team looks at it and legitimately concurs, congratulations – you have agreement.

Getting your team’s agreement is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it’s great that everybody thinks your decisions are flawless. On the other, if you get no push back at all, it probably means you’re not pushing your team, or that the team is complacent and just doesn’t care about what you want. While you don’t want to push all the time, you do need to push sometimes for the sake of the team. A team needs to be uncomfortable in order to grow and needs to grow in order to be happy and productive.

Agreement is fine, but alignment is the real goal.

Alignment

Alignment is what you have when your team wholeheartedly throws their support behind your plan, regardless of each individuals’ own possible reservations about that plan. Alignment comes with agreement automatically, but you can also have alignment without agreement.

For example, one of the recent changes I made to my team’s weekly routine is to meet to discuss project status and roadblocks three times weekly for fifteen minutes (anyone familiar with the Scrum method will know what this is all about). Some members on my team expressed concern about the potential of going over the 15-minute limit, which would mean significantly more meeting time in an already-congested work week. In other words, not everyone agreed with the plan. Despite this, they were willing to try to make it work, seeing the potential benefits. Thus, there was alignment, despite not having agreement.

A leader must seek alignment

As a leader, your goal is not to have everyone agree with you. It might sound nice, but it’s hard as hell to achieve and isn’t really all that good for the team anyway. Rather, your goal is to achieve alignment. That is, once a decision has been made, that the team converges around that decision, regardless of each individual’s position.

More than anything else, alignment requires that the leader be trustworthy and that the plan being proposed can be reasonably explained and defended. It also requires that the input and concerns of the people affected by the plan be taken seriously.

Parenting, I’ve learned, works much the same way. My daughter’s ability to cope with the decisions I make is a function of how seriously I take her thoughts and feelings and how well I communicate my own thoughts and feelings. I’ll go as far as writing down what she wants in a notepad so that she sees that I really am listening to her when she pleads with me to buy a unicorn. Perhaps most importantly, I do care about her thoughts and feelings, and I think she can tell that. The people on your team are people, too, and they can tell just as well whether or not you’re taking them and their ideas seriously.

What have your kids taught you?

I’m very curious to know what lessons your kids have taught you that you’ve been able to take into the workplace. Please, use the comments section below to tell me about it!