Estimated Reading Time 4 Minutes
This week I’m celebrating my 35th wedding anniversary to my wife Kathy. I suppose the idea for this week’s post grew from thoughts about how fortunate (and grateful) I am to have a spouse who has supported me so well in my career over the years. I credit her with most of that of course, but there is a certain element which might have been helped along by some great early career advice I was given about how to answer the customary question one routinely receives upon arriving home at the end of the workday.
Think Ahead
I have had many great mentors and coaches in my life and honestly I’m not sure who to credit with this idea, but for sure it’s not an idea that I originated. The idea is simply that one should consider thinking ahead to what the consequences of today’s actions might be. And a subtle application of this idea can be applied with great impact to the question of “how was your day honey?”.
One of the certainties of our working careers is that there will be times when people drive us nuts. Often it’s the people we supervise and lead, but sometimes it can even be our boss. When the latter has occurred, and you find yourself arriving home with preoccupation about how your boss is being unreasonable, take a minute and think about if and how you want to include that tidbit in your answer to the “how was your day honey?” question.
The Bank Account
If you choose to “unload” it all and tell your spouse how you really feel about your boss (at that moment), understand that it’s like making a transaction in a bank account. Anytime you relay information that isn’t positive, that’s called a withdrawal. Withdrawals work as long as sufficient deposits exist to support them.
I think you see where I’m going here, right? If you are going to make a withdrawal like this, insure you have built up the deposits over time by talking about how awesome your boss is.
Sadly, many a new manager will commit the sin of not building up deposits in advance, and worse, processing only the bad experiences over the dinner table. Then one day, needing to vent, they make yet another complaint about their boss and the spouse is no longer supportive of your pursing a career or livelihood at your company. And normally this is at a time when you need some encouragement to get through.
Keeping You on the Rails
I made a lot of mistakes as a new manager but this is one I think I got right, thanks again to mentors and coaches. I rarely bought home the tough situations with my boss. If I talked about my boss at home, it was mostly about my admiration or gratitude. I had good bosses so it wasn’t difficult.
On those rare occasions when I wasn’t feeling the love from my boss and I did share it with Kathy, she was always able to encourage me that my boss really had my best interests in mind or that I shouldn’t make such a big deal about it because we both knew how good the boss had always been to me.
Kathy was able to keep me on the rails because she mostly had only experienced deposits of goodness and only rare, minimal withdrawals.
Transformational Exercise
Take a few minutes today if possible and give some thought to how you discuss your boss with those you love. You may not be married but you have people who are close to you and who you depend on for support. Are you guilty of only telling them the bad stuff? Are you giving balanced reviews? If you see a correction that’s needed, take steps now. Help those who are close to you keep you on the rails.
