Everyone Poops. Great Leaders Just Handle It Differently.

NOTE: For those who are new here (or returning and confused), this is not a parenting blog, and it’s not about to become one. But leadership lessons are everywhere, and learning knows no bounds.

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You arrive at work for your first day after getting promoted.

You immediately realize that everything is different. The world you used to know is gone.

As much as you’d like to settle back into your comfort zone, you can’t.

You’re being asked to take on new responsibilities, to communicate your needs, and you can already feel the pressure to get everything right.

…

Now imagine you are almost three years old and not wearing any pants.

I guarantee, you can relate

Without knowing anything else about you, I can say — with almost absolute certainty — that you have pooped in your pants, or on the floor.

Maybe it wasn’t recently, but no one emerges from the womb, potty-trained.

When those moments occurred, how those around you reacted was likely a formative experience.

Whether or not you are a parent, you can probably imagine some of what potty training entails. Migrating a toddler from diapers to the toilet is an important milestone.

In this experience, we can learn a lot about leadership.

Don’t Flush Potential Down the Toilet

Almost all of us have been in a situation where we’ve been thrust into new roles, unprepared, and nervous.

• Each of us have different motivations for getting up to speed.
• Each of us need different levels of support and accountability.
• Each of us hope to move through the discomfort as quickly as possible.

Yet, in our companies, we tend to create policies that cover everyone, training and accountability that are standardized, and subtle reminders that the clock is ticking for people to keep their jobs.

I think we can learn a lot more about how to treat someone who is 33 by looking at how we treat someone who is 3, rather than the other way around.

The Every 20-Minute Masterclass

Recently, we began potty training for my second child.

We would start on the weekend. All during that week, we had been counting down and letting him know of the change that was coming. We used the time to start slowly introducing some of the new behaviors he could expect.

He was in diapers on Friday. The next day, he was walking around in a Spider-Man t-shirt and completely bottomless. Every 20 minutes, we would bring him to the toilet.

• When he did his business, we celebrated.
• When he needed motivation, we used a bubble gun to fill the toilet with bubbles.
• When he had an accident, we let him know that it was ok, and part of the learning process.

We talked to him, asked him questions, and reminded him of the goals he had — which was often the ability to do things his older sister could.

Our goal was to get him to communicate his needs and move off of diapers. His goal was to earn his special pair of Spider-Man undies and to see the pride in our faces.

Three Lessons in 182 Words

The section above is exactly 182 words. And in it, there are (at least) three leadership lessons that are not only applicable to a child learning to be bathroom-independent, but also the exact techniques we should use at work.

Let’s break it down.

The Three Pillars of Lovable Leadership

There are many different schools of thought on leadership and my contribution is Lovable Leadership.

In my book, I argue that Care, Trust, and Safe-Travels are the three most important facets of leadership.

People are more motivated and resilient when they feel cared for. They are more willing to take guidance and direction from those they trust. They are more likely to take risks and work through discomfort when they feel safe to pursue a goal.

Throughout the potty training, we made sure my son knew how much we cared, not just about him, but about the goals we were pursuing together. When he was hard on himself, we stood up for him and reminded him how everyone in the house had struggled with the same thing.

When he had an accident, we didn’t yell at him. We tried to deepen our trust by asking him questions about how to better support him.

And because of all these choices, we tried to make him feel safe. We wanted him to realize that this wasn’t a race to the finish, but a process that we would be with him for the whole time.

We made care, trust, and safe-travels (safety toward goals), priorities in the process. As a result, his resistance to the process has faded, and his internal motivation increased.

All of these same lessons apply to adults in the workplace.

Motivations & Encouragement

There are lots of ways to motivate a person.

Two of the most obvious incentives are carrots and sticks (rewards and punishments).

In our situation, we sought to amplify existing intrinsic motivations rather than lean on extrinsic rewards or punishments.

• We talked with him about what he wanted — to do the things his sister could.
• When we sensed resistance, we leaned into things he enjoys — bubbles that he could pop, like a game.
• When he succeeded, we celebrated, and when he had a setback, we gave him space.

We focused most on the areas where our goals overlapped and aligned with his. We never made him the problem, but rather made sure he knew we were a team working toward the same goal.

All of these same lessons apply to adults in the workplace.

Support & Accountability

The way we onboard someone to a new system or structure is critical. And yet, too often these things are left to chance or addressed as an afterthought.

In our case, we made a plan and we included him in that plan.

We gave him ample time to adjust to the forthcoming changes. On Saturday morning, we began doing things differently and supporting him in different ways.

We were watchful of the support he needed after we began and kept asking him what he needed to make things easier.

We knew that telling him to just “figure it out” would be a losing strategy. If we wanted him to succeed in this new change, we would need to be there to support him every step of the way.

All of these same lessons apply to adults in the workplace.

Stop Throwing Crap Against the Wall

If we had yelled, or threatened our son with punishments for accidents, how might that affect our relationship over time? Would he remain engaged, ready to come to us for support in his next big leap forward?

If we put the treatment of our colleagues through the filter of how it might affect a toddler who is potty training, it can give us an opportunity to pause and reflect.

What most organizations could learn from this is that the process of motivating humans is neither reactive, random, nor prescriptive. It’s personalized, responsive, and caring.

We are most effective when we personalize the person and depersonalize the goal.

The best leadership calls on us to care, build trust, and create safety.

All of the things we do in training a toddler to use the bathroom can give us insights into how we treat grown adults who can be trusted to use the bathroom on their own.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably full of crap and moments away from making a mess.