1. Don’t be afraid to delegate
Often a business is not a purely commercial enterprise, but a favorite child. Therefore, it is difficult to entrust processes to anyone: in case they don’t keep track. Leaving a child for a while is even more difficult, but sometimes you have to do it. After such experience, delegating becomes somewhat easier.
Elena Mladova
Chief physician, obstetrician-gynecologist, reproductive specialist, general director of the REMEDI Institute of Reproductive Medicine.
The first skill that definitely comes from parenting is delegation. Transfer some of the responsibilities if you don’t want to drown in business. In a family, this means help in caring for children and home. You can hire a nanny, cleaning service, driver, cook. In business, you need to designate an area of responsibility and select heads of areas.
2. Plan
Any adult has planning skills – some are worse, some are better. But not everyone uses them effectively. These abilities are easier to ignore unless there are serious consequences. Children force you to plan everything much more carefully, because miscalculations are fraught with trouble. For example, if they missed a nap during the day, the child’s routine has gone wrong, and as a result, they don’t sleep at night for the entire week. And mothers know the value of sleep.
Errors in business planning can also lead to losses. So taking a responsible attitude towards the process is an important skill.
Anastasia Borovskaya
Director of the Russian School of Management.
My children, sitting down at the table on a weekend morning, say: “Mom, what is our plan for the day?” For them, this is the most convenient form of interaction: they know what awaits them, and all their actions will be coordinated with each other. Planning is an important tool and allows you to solve many problems in the family.
I transferred the same thing to business. We have scheduled meetings (general and individual), we work in sprints on tasks. And everyone lives according to this schedule.
In addition, having a plan and the peculiarities of life with children teach you to spend all your time as efficiently as possible. There is no time for procrastination with a child.
Daria Verkeenko
Managing Director and co-founder of the marketing communications agency Slovo i Delo.
Probably everyone is familiar with this: sit, think, pointlessly scroll through social networks, wait for inspiration, tune in to an important task. Forget it! To have time to complete as many tasks as possible while the 15-minute episode of “Leva the Truck” is running or during an afternoon nap—any mother is a master in this field.
3. Be calm about changing plans
You can be a planning genius, but little bosses easily make their own adjustments to the daily routine. Getting angry and calling your child to order is unlikely to help. And if you cannot influence the situation, you have to change your attitude towards it.
Kristina Petrova
Founder of the communications agency PR Perfect.
Children are when you have control over everything and almost nothing at the same time. This is when you are going to the sea and go to the traumatology department. This is when life regularly asks: “Are you deciding here?” And he laughs in your face, presenting a new “pleasant” surprise.
Therefore, parenting, of course, teaches you to plan, but to a greater extent it teaches you to be okay with the fact that everything can go differently. At the same time, you are able to quickly change your priority strategies and the world does not collapse because of this. Flexibility and ease of decision making are the main skills in business, in my opinion.
4. Be patient
A common cognitive mistake is to assume that everyone around you has the same experience and knowledge as you. That’s why sometimes people become impatient with others: why doesn’t he understand? He’s kidding me! Children are new to this life, they force you to accept that someone may not know or be aware of something and this is normal.
“Patience is one of the key qualities of an entrepreneur. It is often even more important than experience and knowledge. The children taught me to calmly, without losing my temper, repeat the same thing 20 times, without considering the interlocutor as mentally retarded,” notes business coach Regina Pritula.
This quality allows you to approach various issues more thoughtfully and consciously. Because quick solutions are not always effective.
Svetlana Shishneva
Director of Development at Nutrifica.
Perhaps the main principle that has migrated from parenthood to business is not to rush to conclusions. My children are of different ages: the eldest has already entered the eighth grade, the youngest is in elementary school. No matter what happens, no matter what they tell me, I try not to label or give hasty answers. My children are just forming their attitude towards life. And they are not me. Sometimes their questions puzzle me and even force me to re-evaluate my views on life and behavior patterns.
Accepting this fact helps me in my work. Previously, I scolded myself for delaying the decision, convinced myself that I needed to act quickly, that conflicts needed to be resolved actively and preferably here and now. Now I allow myself to ask for a pause and cool down, to think carefully. If during a business meeting the conversation reaches a dead end, I do not stick to my line, but ask to continue the discussion another day. In addition, it is very important for an entrepreneur to remain open to ideas, innovations, and trends. So the children really keep my mind on its toes and prevent me from becoming a serious, all-knowing aunt.
5. Be a multitasker
Doing ten things at once is definitely about parents. This skill can also be useful for business.
Daria Verkeenko
Managing Director and co-founder of the marketing communications agency Slovo i Delo.
Motherhood and business are multifunctional. Multitasking with a baby in your arms is better than in any advertising agency. This is probably the most banal thing that can be said on the topic, but it is impossible not to mention. Rock with one hand, calm with the other, and coordinate work issues with the third.
6. Lead constructively
Managing people so that they feel good and the business grows is not easy. You have to learn this. Children here can become very effective teachers.
Anastasia Yakusheva
Entrepreneur, founder of the Miss X and I am pijama brands.
When you become a leader, it’s like you find yourself holding a newborn in your arms. You don’t understand what to do. When you need to assign a task to an employee, it’s the same as explaining something to a child: write everything down in great detail to get the result.
Children don’t know anything about the world – they need to be taught. The situation is similar with employees, because they don’t understand your business. Just as kids take their first steps, fall, rise and walk, so do colleagues: they make mistakes, fall, get up, make mistakes. You need to work on yourself to become a good mother and leader, learn to support and guide.
You can give a specific example. So, my 12-year-old daughter Zlata wants to go to Dubai. And you explain to her what she needs to do to get there. I set the goal to earn 30 thousand rubles, and then we will go. She walked the neighbors’ dogs, ran a social network for a client, and within a month she collected the required amount because she was motivated. It’s the same with an employee who wants a promotion – you explain to him how to achieve the goal, what is required of him in action, and this helps.
7. Refuse
Children learn to say “no.” No, you can’t drink from a puddle. No, you shouldn’t throw your mother’s bag off the balcony. Diplomatic wording and feeding breakfast will not get you off here. This is also a useful skill for business – it allows you to avoid wasting time on unnecessary things.
Maria Romanovskaya
Founder of the premium hand cosmetics brand M22.
With children, this has to be done several times a day, and most of all they are traumatized by double messages – contradictory instructions. Telling children “no” needs to be clear, precise and firm, and it works the same way in business. The ability to refuse is very important for an entrepreneur.
8. Ask for advice
Admitting that you don’t know something can be difficult. But this is necessary if you want to move forward and not stagnate. Gain experience from the mistakes of others, rather than making your own mistakes.
Maria Romanovskaya notes that no one teaches you how to be a parent, and from the very beginning you have to step over your own pride and ask for advice from those who know better. In business, especially if it is a startup, it is also simply necessary to absorb the knowledge of colleagues and senior comrades, and not only those who work in the same field. An entrepreneur consults with any professionals, because there is no such thing as too much knowledge.
9. Rest
Both entrepreneurship and parenting typically take up 24 hours a day. And often people present work without rest as an achievement. But the truth is that being on duty all the time takes a significant toll on your quality of life. And a tired, suffering person cannot be as effective as a cheerful and full of energy.
Regina Pritula
Business trainer.
Mom has the right to rest. Without children. In a locked room and in silence. Then the mother can continue to love her children. You also need to take a break from business. Locking him in the office and allowing myself to live on something else.
Working to the point of complete moral burnout, like “motherhood” without the right to an evening with friends, leads to equally disastrous results in the psychotherapist’s office.
10. Do what you really enjoy
The motivation of potential entrepreneurs, roughly speaking, can be of two types:
- “We need to start some kind of business so as not to work for my uncle.”
- “What a great idea I came up with, I need to bring it to life!”
None of these options can be called wrong or ineffective. But sometimes you can fall into a trap: there is a business, it works, but it doesn’t bring much joy. And loving what you do is important.
Nadezhda Kobina
General Director of the agency for the development of personal brand “Cosmos-4”.
One of the business lessons I’ve learned from parenting is to do what you really love. Children brought me back to this feeling when you feel a sincere interest in what you do, be it drawing, folding a pyramid, sculpting with clay. Children are very open and sensitive: if something is not close to them, there are reasons for this and it is not always due to failure. It is important to maintain connection with your true desires. But when we become adults, we forget about this and more often do what we need, rather than what we want.
This lesson allowed me to reconsider my attitude towards work and doing business. And he also helped build team interaction based on the strengths and preferences of employees.
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