Giving Others What They Need

One Saturday afternoon I was washing dishes in our kitchen. Our lawn mower stopped working a few days prior, and my husband was in the garage diligently tinkering with the machine.

A brief side note...
My husband -- in terms of instinctual talents -- is referred to as a "high implementor." That means he actually likes when something breaks around the house, because he naturally engages in hands-on, fix-it type tasks. Then there is me. If I attempt to fix a leaky faucet (and I wouldn't do so without coercion), I end up creating an in-house river. In instinctual terms, I am a "low implementor." My talent lies in visualizing solutions...not in actually building them.

So I was scrubbing a pot when Ethan treads up the basement stairs to announce, "Honey! I fixed the lawn mower!" With that mere statement, my low implementor needs were met. I got it; the lawn mower now works...great! For me, the communication process was successful. Another item taken off the checklist for the day; time to move on.

My back was turned, but I could sense that Ethan was still standing at the top of the stairs. I turned around to find him motioning for me to follow him downstairs. Knowing my husband, I knew what was coming next. Though it was instinctually unnecessary for me, I knew that Ethan needed to physically show me his work. Simply communicating that something was accomplished didn't satisfy his innate need to demonstrate the success. So I pulled off my dishwashing gloves and followed him into the garage. I tried very hard to seem interested as he pulled off the cap to the mower engine and pointed to his fixes.

Clearly, Ethan and I are wired very differently. And that hardwiring determines how we communicate. I talk about ideas without ever touching an object or building a model. Ethan, on the other hand, must have a visual tool, a concrete demonstration of his thoughts. When we work independently, we draw on our own instincts. But when we work together, we must be tolerant of each others' method. Over time, I learned to give Ethan what he needs to feel successful, and vice versa. As in my story above, I didn't need to have a visual explanation of the fixed lawn mower, but Ethan did. So participating in his 3-minute demonstration was well worth it.

Though marriage is not a business, many of the principles that apply to your marriage also apply to your relationship with employees. Are you giving others what they need to be successful? Do you recognize that your employees may have a different method for communicating and solving problems? Do you automatically move on when your needs are met, regardless of whether or not your team's needs are met?

Oftentimes, it takes an act as small as walking down the basement stairs to view a fixed lawn mower to boost team morale and give others what they need to be successful.