Published on: 2024-07-24
Good Inside is an easy read for parents, for people managers, or anyone who wants to keep a meaningful relationship.
I got to know the book Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy through a podcast interview between her and Andrew Huberman. I was amazed by the idea that as a parent, you should respect your child’s feelings, but at the same time it is okay that you keep your boundaries.
On my favourite website douban I read a review of the book, which states that the reviewer not only profitted from parenting skills, but also gained skills on how to manage a team. This really intrigued me into reading the book. Who doesn’t like killing two birds with one stone?
My most important take-aways:
Respect that there are two truths. When we only know only one truth, we try to convince people of this one truth, and this makes the other people not unterstood, and they could be defensive because they don’t feel secure.
This happens at work all the time: I’m convinced of my own idea and as a result I try to convince other people of my idea. What actually works better is to be curious and ask other people about their ideas. Really listen and try to understand their ideas.
Know your job. At home, the parents’ job is to provide a secure environment. The kids’ job is to experience and explore. At work, a manager’s job is to make sure that the team works as a whole, and team members can grow individually. A team member’s job is to produce value on an individual contributor level.
Whenever I feel unsure about what I need to do, I have to ask myself: is my team producing more value when I do this? If yes, even if it is a difficult conversation, it is the right thing to do. Having this thought actually makes management easier.
Resilience is more important than happiness. Do I want my team members to be happy? Definitely! But there is no guarantee for happiness, not for kids, and surely not for us at work. What is more important is in case of hardship, we trust our feelings, we know it is hard, but still we carry on.
During retrospective meeting, we should not only talk about what good things happened in the past two weeks, but also talk about what made us uncomfortable, angry, or anxious. In case of failure, we do a blameless post-mortem. We admit whenever there are conflicts. We talk about difficult situations in confidential 1:1 settings. All these efforts is to make our team more resilient.
Growth mindset goes hand in hand with resilience. When we face the difficult things with a growth mindset, we see them as challenges that make us grow new skillsets. They are the situations we will talk about in our next job interview. They are occasions that build the team together.