Over the course of my career, I worked my way up from entry level sales rep to team lead to manager to director to VP. During this time, I also had several major career setbacks that forced me to start over from the bottom again. Because of this, I had direct experience and expertise doing the exact same jobs people I managed held: sales, management, cold calling, closing, negotiations, collections, support, etc.
That gave me credibility with my teams. It made me a better coach and trainer. It enabled me to call BS when necessary. It helped me create strategic plans and practical actions to guide my teams.
My teams often crushed our numbers. It was usually easy for me to hire people because my teams had a reputation for being different than others. We were rebellious. We helped each other. We cut out early on Friday evening. We hired weirdos and gave them a chance to thrive. Sometimes we got lucky by stumbling into a big sale or a lucrative account simply by being in the right place at the right time. We made a lot of money for ourselves and our employers.
But what I am most proud of in my career was mentoring my employees, building them up and helping them move on to greater things – just like my mentors did for me.
Two days ago, my half-sister informed me that her father had fallen and broken his arm and hip Since then I’ve been thinking about her. She has always been very close to her father and has been taking care of him in his declining years.
I’m sure she is quite sad.
I don’t have anything to offer her. She lives halfway across the country. Her family is separate and distinct from my family. We have no relationship. The only thing we share in common is the same father.
That’s OK. That’s how life worked out for us.
But I was thinking about what I would do if she was my employee. Even if she hadn’t told me, I would have sensed something was amiss. I would invite her into my office, close the door and say “You seem upset today. Is everything OK?”. Then I would sit quietly and wait.
Occasionally, my employee would say everything was fine. So I’d ask, “Are you sure? Is there anything I can do to help?”
That is all it ever took for the wall to come down.
My employee would begin hesitantly to talk. Then as I listened and said little, they would open up more and rant, cry, scream, meal down, freeze up, sob, or whatever she (or he) needed to do.
At some point, when my employee fell silent, I would offer her a bottle of water and would slide a box of tissues across the desk.
It always helped. Nobody needed a drink of water. It was a prop – it gave them something to hold, something to focus on, something to grip, a label to peel, a lid to unscrew, and eventually something to sip. The tissues, well, you know what they needed them for.
II would sit silently and wait. I would listen. I rarely offered any advice.
That’s what I did for my employees. I cared about them. I felt protective of them – as if I was their father or their big brother.
Most of the time, I couldn’t do a thing to help with their specific problem. It could be the death of a parent, illness, a miscarriage, divorce, financial issues, a breakup, health problems, a mental health crises or any number of other challenges that many of us face at some point.
They never needed me to solve their problem. They already knew what to do. Sometimes, they just needed me to tell them this. Most of the time, all I did was supply the bottle of water, the tissues and a hug, if they wanted one before they left my office.
I would check in on them over the next few days, weeks and months to ask about their “issue” and see how they were doing. I might encourage them to take time off. I might reduce their quota and take the “hit” as my own real, financial loss. I might ask others on the team to help cover for them. It depended on what the situation warranted.
This is what made me a good manager. More importantly, it made me a good man.
And so for my half sister, I am hoping that someone in her life pulls her aside, listens to whatever she needs to say, offers her a bottle of water, a box of tissues and a hug.
She could probably use it right about now.