I genuinely think there's a lot of similarities between management and parenting - and I'm not looking to demean, belittle or disrespect either practice by the way. Parenting lately, particularly with Aurora who is almost 4 years old, is dominated by bartering and negotiating. "We can read stories after you clean the play room". "You can watch something after you've had a sleep". And quickly becoming my favourite seasonal saying... "You don't want me to have to call Santa, do you?". Whilst these exact phrases don't exactly work for the office, there's often a lot of negotiating in my day to day activities and I find the lessons that I learn from Aurora are also in use in the office everyday - patience, clear communication, concise reasoning, and quickly determining what the "real" driver is.

Labels: Aurora, Work