Episode 5 - Taylorism (part 1)
May 24, 2023
We'll go over some examples of where the parent-child dynamic happened in our week - from there it's all about Taylorism.
We'll go over some examples of where the parent-child dynamic happened in our week - from there it's all about Taylorism.
(Transcript Start)
[00:00:00] spk_0: This is Andy and this is Matt and you're listening to
[00:00:03] spk_1: the Hop podcast with no name.
[00:00:06] spk_0: What a dumb names. So stupid.
[00:00:21] spk_1: All right, let's do it. Alright. We're back for another one of these uh fun, fun, fun episodes.
[00:00:31] spk_0: I can't tell how sarcastic that is in your own mind. I don't know.
[00:00:35] spk_1: I mean, I very much enjoy doing them but sometimes just listening to you going on your rants just,
[00:00:41] spk_0: well, it's when I get my soapbox out, right? Because it depends upon, you know what we're talking about, how, how tall, how tall some of them are just monumental. I mean, I need a stepladder to get you a few of them.
[00:00:52] spk_1: I'm done boosting you up. Um So we're going to recap last episodes. Uh homework.
[00:01:00] spk_0: Totally, totally voluntary. You
[00:01:04] spk_1: were told that we have to do this,
[00:01:06] spk_0: not required suggestion,
[00:01:10] spk_1: strong suggestion. We, we had said we wanted um you to think about the interactions that you have.
[00:01:18] spk_0: We want. Ok. No, no, no, we wanted us to think about it too. Yeah, I'm not just because we don't want to, we're not going to parent child, the dynamic of the parent child dynamic. Sorry, I went, I went into the metaphors and continue. Oh my
[00:01:32] spk_1: goodness. OK. Um So we had asked that and we would also participate, you think about the interactions that you have. Uh And in retrospect after they're done and if you could do it while you're, while they're happening, it's great. But you don't have to uh think about whether they were adult to adult interactions or parent to child interactions. And I really thought about this and I have some good examples that I'm excited to share. Let's just give
[00:02:01] spk_0: a high level recap of adult adult to parent child. So adult adult, you are talking to the person like an equal, like somebody who has information that you might just not understand their perspective, like somebody who has valid opinions about things and you are interested in understanding their world and sharing your world, parent child. If you're in the parent role, you kind of think you already know better. You're talking down to the person, you're thinking, your role is to coach to get somebody to think differently than they're thinking.
[00:02:31] spk_1: Yeah. And you can, you can still um you can approach uh a conversation and slip into the parent role and still try to act like you're not like I'm not actually listening to what you're saying, but I'll ask you a question uh which is every time we interact and I'm talking to you, I'm like, yeah, what do you want to do, don't care. Um, so mine was interesting because I was at the gym and, um, as part of the Crossfit gym that I go to, we do a lot of strength training and this one was,
[00:03:00] spk_0: wait, hold on. Did you just slip in that you went to crossfit? Just like, real
[00:03:03] spk_1: quick. I, I thought that if I said it once and move past it, I have to bring it up again. Thank you
[00:03:10] spk_0: for, you're welcome. Continue. So you're at crossfit when you were doing your crossfit. Yeah.
[00:03:16] spk_1: And part of the training that we do is we always spend a good chunk doing a strength movement. The one we were doing this time was a bit of a modified movement of a clean, which I'm not going to take the time to explain either, you know, it or you don't. Um And uh the coach came over because I was struggling with the kind of the adjustment and rather than say, oh, you have to, you know, put your hands wider or stop lifting with your back in a jerking twisting motion. Um He said, hey, tell me what you think I'm doing this lift. Wait, say that again. Tell me what you're thinking when you're doing this lift.
[00:03:51] spk_0: Oh OK. So he took what could have been sort of just sort of a top down. I mean, in this case, maybe, maybe true coaching conversation, right? Because he knows more about the subject, right? Like realistically knows more. But he took what could have been just a top down conversation and turned it into a where he's asking you to explain what's going on for you so that he can better help
[00:04:18] spk_1: you. Yeah. And he might be able to say, yeah, you're thinking about it correctly. Let's talk about the form part or I think you're approaching it maybe with the, the, the wrong mindset. So he took the time to have an adult adult conversation in a gym, which is fairly rare. So I looked at that as, as a, a big uh a big win and definitely adult to adult. And in the same day, I, I went to, I had purchased something from a sporting goods store, uh and uh the day before and then I went to return it the next day, less than 24 hours later and it was a, it was a wooden baseball bat and I got roped into a wood bat league. I haven't played in a long time. I'm terrified of it. I will give score updates and stat updates every single time. I, no, I wanted to. Uh and so I had purchased the wooden bat, um two days prior and, and then I realized on the drive home that I had a crack in it, which is very rare to buy a new bat and have a crack. And I've never experienced that I've played in my whole life. So back the next day to return it. And immediately I walked in and I, I didn't, I, I just wanted to get a different bat that didn't have a crack and I didn't want to do any change. Right. I just want a different bat that doesn't have a crack. And I walked in and the owner was there, never met this person. And I said, hey, I was here yesterday, I bought this bat. It looks like it has a crack on it. And he said the only way this bat would have a crack on it is if like when you used it and I was, I had not taken out, taken it out of my car. Um And I, I was just like, no, I didn't do that. I didn't use it at all. I was in my car the whole time. He was like, oh yeah, I don't know that the only way this would happen is if you hit it against something and rather than just stay in that he just slept in the par and I was trying to defend myself like, no, I didn't do that. Um I just said, hey, I don't understand, you know how this could happen either. So, can you teach me how you get your bets? And we talked through that he gets them in kind of these bulk shipments from a supplier, not everyone gets checked and their way they're shipped, there could be some clanging and crashing around and it probably could happen there as well. And so after that conversation, he was like, look, I'll give you an exception this one time you can go and get away from that. And I was like, yeah, thank you for, you just explained to me how this could happen in a lot of ways and I will just accept this as a victory.
[00:06:50] spk_0: So you OK, so you walked in, I'm trying to picture this. You walked into an environment and you were immediately sort of pushed into the child ego position because the owner took an aggressive parent position in the dynamic of the conversation of being like, well, what you probably don't understand that I understand is the only way it possibly could happen is if you're lying to me right now. Good sir.
[00:07:12] spk_1: And I have been on the baseball team for 30 years. Like I, I know I've done this interaction plenty of times. I know that's not true.
[00:07:19] spk_0: Um And so what's interesting about this parent, child dynamic? Is there there are ways to get yourself out of the dynamic if you're in the child ego position, right? So it sounds like you did that by talking to the person as an equal and actually asking to learn from them, right? Like, oh OK. Yeah, I'm actually confused as well as to how this could happen. Could you teach me about how you get your bats? Interesting. So you, you did, was that your attempt at like extra credit for the homework. I don't
[00:07:49] spk_1: even value your opinion enough to want extra credit from you.
[00:07:56] spk_0: But you had one. Yeah. Yeah. So I thought about parent child dynamics a lot. One of the places in my life that I sometimes do slip into that dynamic when I'm not intending to is uh talking to my husband who is also your brother. Yes.
[00:08:14] spk_1: Which I don't know if we ever covered that for those of you who don't know. Yes. Yeah.
[00:08:18] spk_0: So, um I'm just trying to think of a specific example. I didn't, I haven't done one in the past few days, but that's because he was on a business trip. So, but I try really hard not to um assume a parent dynamic, but I'm sure we've all had experiences with our significant others where we have done that, especially because in our house, he is the CFO and I'm the C C O. So he's the chief fun officer and I'm the chief cleaning officer. And oftentimes those two things don't work well together. He is in charge of fun. I'm in charge of cleaning. Um And so I can, I can definitely picture historic scenarios in which I have spoken down to him about like, hey, hey, could you like you're making, you're making a terrible mess here. Could you like just, just clean it up or just not on adult adult conversation? But I do have to say that I was, um, I was schooled by my three year old. Ok. Yeah, this, actually, yesterday, yesterday I was schooled by my three year old. Um, so parent child dynamic is fascinating because you actually don't have to assume a parent child dynamic in your parent and Children relationship. Like it, it's the name of the dynamic, but you don't actually have to use it in parenting and I try hard not to use it all the time. Um, but there's certainly a lot of coaching that goes into raising a toddler, right. So there's a lot of correcting of behavior and trying to have people see something. But so this is a situation. She was, um, in the bathroom and she was pushing the toilet seat down, except there was like a potty training seat on top of it. So you could actually damage the toilet seat if you put too much weight on it because it can't close all the way. And I was trying to rinse out some clothes at the same time. So I just see her in the mirror doing it and I say Elvi, please stop doing that. You're gonna, you're gonna break something and she continued to do it. And so I said pen, so you stop and she continued to do it. And then I, I got my mean, my mean mom voice out and I said, I said help me cut it out and she burst into tears, which is not unusual for my daughter when I use it, the strong mommy voice too, for her to burst into tears. And so we sat down together afterwards and we had a conversation around it and um, after she had burst into tears, she actually was frustrated, right? So she like was sitting in the corner by herself angry after bursting into tears. So when we had the conversation afterwards, she summarized it for me and she said, you told me to stop. And so I got frustrated, but mommy, the way you told me to stop, you were frustrated too. So why am I not supposed to be frustrated if you're already frustrated first? And I said, here's some candy. You got a kid. I said, um, well, next time, would it help if mommy explained why I was telling you to stop? And she said, why were you telling me to stop? And I explained that she could damage it and what it meant to damage something and that it had to be replaced and blah, blah, blah. And she said, yes. Next time, tell me, don't be frustrated. And I said, ok, I will try and then I said, and, and will you try not to be frustrated when I ask you to do something you don't want to do? She said yes, if you use your nice voice, I won't be frustrated. So she, she took the parent child dynamic and like said, no mom, I'm not participating in this, you treat me like an equal and I will, I will behave better. She like the three year old said, this
[00:12:27] spk_1: is a business partnership. We want the best from each other. We need to bring our best selves to work.
[00:12:34] spk_0: Yeah. So um yeah, that was my, that was my example yesterday of using a parent child dynamic in a parent, child relationship. And my three year old telling me it was not the best way for me to handle that situation.
[00:12:47] spk_1: And I think what we're learning is that we will be hearing a lot of Penelope on this podcast because of how she handles herself. So uh that's very, I think the term the cool kids use it on brand for your daughter to do it
[00:13:05] spk_0: is very on brand for pen.
[00:13:08] spk_1: So that was our long sort of examples of where it creeps up in our personal lives. And I think we, we thought about this a lot and when we thought about how kind of where this transactional analysis, parent adult child dynamic comes from in the workplace. And you spent a lot of time researching this and thinking about this topic and we feel like it really traces back into Taylor, which is where we're going to spend the rest of the time today.
[00:13:43] spk_0: Yeah. So the parent child dynamic in the workplace is a pretty common one. Um And you can trace back kind of the the roots of how we might have got into this place to a style of leadership called uh tailor. And oftentimes, at least in this space, uh Taylor takes on like a secondary meaning if you Googled Taylor is what you'd find is actually Frederick Winslow Taylor's principles of scientific management, like the paper that he wrote that kind of created this style of leadership in 1919 11. Um But in this space, Taylor is, it's like the term itself takes on this, this extra meaning um of the type of interaction and relationship that it has created. And it, it starts to feel like an ism in the same way um that we would think of as ageism or sexism or racism, meaning it's, it's an ism in which there's an inequality. And in this case, it is, it's the improper belief that the people who are managing and planning work are smarter than the people who are executing the work. And the the roots of this sort of belief that that is not true, right? The roots of it comes from um probably some classism that was existing at the time of the industrial revolution and still exists in many places. Um And when Frederick Winslow Taylor wrote his paper, it's actually considered the most uh important influential paper for the entire century. Uh And it's still taught in business school today. And the reason it's so influential is because people were really looking for answers at the time that it was written it's at the beginning of the industrial revolution. And um we're trying to figure out like, as, as a group of people, how do you mass produce things? How do you go from sort of the mental model of a master craftsman to suddenly have a bunch of people in sort of a factory type setting trying to make stuff and you're trying to do it in a way that's efficient and turning a profit. And um Frederick Winslow Taylor seemed to have the answers right in this paper. And he wrote a lot of really influential things that we still use today that we would consider just kind of the foundations of like a manufacturing process. So for example, he's one of the first people to write down that you probably shouldn't teach everyone how to be a master craftsman, you should teach them how to do a portion of something and then pass that on to somebody else who knows how to do a portion of something else. But also in this paper, he reflected the classism that existed at the time. And he, he wrote statements that would indicate that the people who were executing the work were not as smart as the people who were planning it, right? He would say things like people probably don't have the mental capacity that the planner has, right? Um He made some comments around um being able to, to teach intelligent guerrillas how to do some work better than he could um some of the folks an example that he was giving and it was that thought process, that classism, sort of that belief that the people that were coming into the work world and being taught how to do something that they were in some way, going to be lesser and less intelligent and less important than the people who were planning the work that created a very top down parent child dynamic from, from like the beginning of industrial times. And that same management style um has lasted, it's endured in many places around the world. Uh I mean, you're kind of, at least in my world we were almost taught, like as a leadership team, we were kind of taught to take the role of the parent. I don't think it's something that most people when they walk in, you know, on their first day working for an organization, if you happen to be in a leadership position or you're going to be moving into a leadership position, I don't think that you intend to be put in that role, I think were taught to be part of that parent dynamic.
[00:17:59] spk_1: It wasn't part of the paperwork that I signed when I was a manager. Is
[00:18:02] spk_0: it true in your world too? Like was there a parent child dynamic to how things were structured, talked about in the sales? So,
[00:18:16] spk_1: Twitter in any, I think in any organization you have that, we definitely saw it in some of the larger, you know, I say, larger, not in size, but in terms of like maybe title meetings where we would talk about what we were going to go and do and then tell the team how they were going to go and deal with it. You know, if we were going to dictate is exactly what we would do. Uh, and we would constantly be, you know, unfortunately, we would never, because the teams that we lead were so large or because what we were doing felt so complex. If someone raised an issue and they weren't a leader, you, you, you listened, you tried your best to listen, but for the most part, you, you just, you would just say, oh yeah, hey, that's a good point. I I'll get back to you on that or let me do some thinking about that and you would just dismiss it just because you didn't have the capacity to go and do it and you would just be like you don't really have, you don't know what I'm dealing with. So what you're saying doesn't make any sense to me versus even asking a couple of good follow up questions to understand where they're coming from.
[00:19:24] spk_0: So sort of like when Penelope can't find her purple egg and I dismiss it as maybe not so super important because it's not important to me that she doesn't have her purple egg at this very moment in time. But it's incredibly important to her. It is
[00:19:37] spk_1: the most important thing in the world to her. And how could you? It's terrible, terrible mom when she's old enough to have a phone and call me, it's going to be too, too much Uncle Matt. Like you gotta get over here.
[00:19:51] spk_0: Yeah. Uh, so let's just so tailor or the concept of parent, child dynamics at work. Um, the concept of, you know, sort of just dictating what a bunch of other people are going to do without having too much regard for whether or not they think it's gonna work based on the information that they have. There are very tangible ramifications, repercussions to having that type of dynamic. So let's just take a second to talk about why it's important to know if we have tailor or parent child dynamics. Um Before we wrap up and realistically, you know, the reality is that the folks that are close to work have different information than the people who are managing and planning the work. It has nothing to do with. If one group is more intelligent than the other, it's just by the very nature of our jobs, we are privy to different information and we learn different information. Each of us needs each other in order to be successful in the work environment. If we're in a parent child dynamic, it's actually really difficult for somebody who's been forced into the child eco position to, to do what, what Penelope did right? To, to, to break out of that. Um And you very naturally don't want to share a lot of information if you're spoken down to. Um, you don't really as an adult, right? You don't really have a desire to either help that person or give that person information that they might need in order to be successful. And so in our work worlds, one of the most important things that we can do is have a free flow of communication and information from various perspectives. And the way that we treat each other can truncate that ability to communicate aggressively. Uh to the point that um we end up as leadership teams making decisions based on a false reality because we don't even, we don't even know what the reality is because people are not willing to talk about what it is. Um So I think we'd probably have space to talk about Taylor is more, but maybe just for this episode we talk about, you know, we maybe our homework if we will. Yeah, I
[00:21:59] spk_1: think we let people sort of chew on it. I mean, because I worked with some amazing leaders, but the amount of times that we felt and wrongly forced to almost dictate what was going to happen and didn't even leave space to get feedback or we said this is gonna be good for you. This is gonna be, we even do that all the time and the
[00:22:19] spk_0: rules are good for you. This program is good for you. This change is going to be good for you. Feel good. Not right
[00:22:24] spk_1: now in a little while you're going to see the value of this change. And we didn't have the best track record of making these changes. And so, but we also didn't elicit a lot of feedback because a lot of these organizations, you, you move so quickly and you're always trying to improve and make changes and get better and you're just on to the next task and there's not much room to, you know, I think people often call it almost like a postmortem, right? Like they, that just doesn't happen and, and a lot of these organizations we work with, work with or where I have worked. So, yeah, I think it's a, it's such a big topic. It's definitely important to just think about where it shows up how it shows up if it shows up in your organization. And I think we don't want to do too much and we're going to take more time next episode and talking about it.
[00:23:15] spk_0: Yeah. OK. So our homework is just to mold over where we see a parent, child dynamic sort of systemically within our organization and maybe mull over how that's affecting things.
[00:23:33] spk_1: Yeah, I think that's a good place for us to leave off and we would, we'd love to hear from you. Um, as well. If you, if you can think of some parts of your organization where this happens. Sounds good. Yeah, I look forward to hearing from you. Well,
[00:24:02] spk_0: that's
[00:24:03] spk_1: it. Yeah, another one in the books we did it
[00:24:07] spk_0: if you, uh, want to send us any of your thoughts, actually fling us any of your thoughts you can do so at the website W w w dot hop podcast dot com.
[00:24:19] spk_1: That's H O P P O DC A S T dot com. It's still
[00:24:26] spk_0: such a stupid name.
[00:24:28] spk_1: We look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for listening.
(Transcript Start)
[00:00:00] spk_0: This is Andy and this is Matt and you're listening to
[00:00:03] spk_1: the Hop podcast with no name.
[00:00:06] spk_0: What a dumb names. So stupid.
[00:00:21] spk_1: All right, let's do it. Alright. We're back for another one of these uh fun, fun, fun episodes.
[00:00:31] spk_0: I can't tell how sarcastic that is in your own mind. I don't know.
[00:00:35] spk_1: I mean, I very much enjoy doing them but sometimes just listening to you going on your rants just,
[00:00:41] spk_0: well, it's when I get my soapbox out, right? Because it depends upon, you know what we're talking about, how, how tall, how tall some of them are just monumental. I mean, I need a stepladder to get you a few of them.
[00:00:52] spk_1: I'm done boosting you up. Um So we're going to recap last episodes. Uh homework.
[00:01:00] spk_0: Totally, totally voluntary. You
[00:01:04] spk_1: were told that we have to do this,
[00:01:06] spk_0: not required suggestion,
[00:01:10] spk_1: strong suggestion. We, we had said we wanted um you to think about the interactions that you have.
[00:01:18] spk_0: We want. Ok. No, no, no, we wanted us to think about it too. Yeah, I'm not just because we don't want to, we're not going to parent child, the dynamic of the parent child dynamic. Sorry, I went, I went into the metaphors and continue. Oh my
[00:01:32] spk_1: goodness. OK. Um So we had asked that and we would also participate, you think about the interactions that you have. Uh And in retrospect after they're done and if you could do it while you're, while they're happening, it's great. But you don't have to uh think about whether they were adult to adult interactions or parent to child interactions. And I really thought about this and I have some good examples that I'm excited to share. Let's just give
[00:02:01] spk_0: a high level recap of adult adult to parent child. So adult adult, you are talking to the person like an equal, like somebody who has information that you might just not understand their perspective, like somebody who has valid opinions about things and you are interested in understanding their world and sharing your world, parent child. If you're in the parent role, you kind of think you already know better. You're talking down to the person, you're thinking, your role is to coach to get somebody to think differently than they're thinking.
[00:02:31] spk_1: Yeah. And you can, you can still um you can approach uh a conversation and slip into the parent role and still try to act like you're not like I'm not actually listening to what you're saying, but I'll ask you a question uh which is every time we interact and I'm talking to you, I'm like, yeah, what do you want to do, don't care. Um, so mine was interesting because I was at the gym and, um, as part of the Crossfit gym that I go to, we do a lot of strength training and this one was,
[00:03:00] spk_0: wait, hold on. Did you just slip in that you went to crossfit? Just like, real
[00:03:03] spk_1: quick. I, I thought that if I said it once and move past it, I have to bring it up again. Thank you
[00:03:10] spk_0: for, you're welcome. Continue. So you're at crossfit when you were doing your crossfit. Yeah.
[00:03:16] spk_1: And part of the training that we do is we always spend a good chunk doing a strength movement. The one we were doing this time was a bit of a modified movement of a clean, which I'm not going to take the time to explain either, you know, it or you don't. Um And uh the coach came over because I was struggling with the kind of the adjustment and rather than say, oh, you have to, you know, put your hands wider or stop lifting with your back in a jerking twisting motion. Um He said, hey, tell me what you think I'm doing this lift. Wait, say that again. Tell me what you're thinking when you're doing this lift.
[00:03:51] spk_0: Oh OK. So he took what could have been sort of just sort of a top down. I mean, in this case, maybe, maybe true coaching conversation, right? Because he knows more about the subject, right? Like realistically knows more. But he took what could have been just a top down conversation and turned it into a where he's asking you to explain what's going on for you so that he can better help
[00:04:18] spk_1: you. Yeah. And he might be able to say, yeah, you're thinking about it correctly. Let's talk about the form part or I think you're approaching it maybe with the, the, the wrong mindset. So he took the time to have an adult adult conversation in a gym, which is fairly rare. So I looked at that as, as a, a big uh a big win and definitely adult to adult. And in the same day, I, I went to, I had purchased something from a sporting goods store, uh and uh the day before and then I went to return it the next day, less than 24 hours later and it was a, it was a wooden baseball bat and I got roped into a wood bat league. I haven't played in a long time. I'm terrified of it. I will give score updates and stat updates every single time. I, no, I wanted to. Uh and so I had purchased the wooden bat, um two days prior and, and then I realized on the drive home that I had a crack in it, which is very rare to buy a new bat and have a crack. And I've never experienced that I've played in my whole life. So back the next day to return it. And immediately I walked in and I, I didn't, I, I just wanted to get a different bat that didn't have a crack and I didn't want to do any change. Right. I just want a different bat that doesn't have a crack. And I walked in and the owner was there, never met this person. And I said, hey, I was here yesterday, I bought this bat. It looks like it has a crack on it. And he said the only way this bat would have a crack on it is if like when you used it and I was, I had not taken out, taken it out of my car. Um And I, I was just like, no, I didn't do that. I didn't use it at all. I was in my car the whole time. He was like, oh yeah, I don't know that the only way this would happen is if you hit it against something and rather than just stay in that he just slept in the par and I was trying to defend myself like, no, I didn't do that. Um I just said, hey, I don't understand, you know how this could happen either. So, can you teach me how you get your bets? And we talked through that he gets them in kind of these bulk shipments from a supplier, not everyone gets checked and their way they're shipped, there could be some clanging and crashing around and it probably could happen there as well. And so after that conversation, he was like, look, I'll give you an exception this one time you can go and get away from that. And I was like, yeah, thank you for, you just explained to me how this could happen in a lot of ways and I will just accept this as a victory.
[00:06:50] spk_0: So you OK, so you walked in, I'm trying to picture this. You walked into an environment and you were immediately sort of pushed into the child ego position because the owner took an aggressive parent position in the dynamic of the conversation of being like, well, what you probably don't understand that I understand is the only way it possibly could happen is if you're lying to me right now. Good sir.
[00:07:12] spk_1: And I have been on the baseball team for 30 years. Like I, I know I've done this interaction plenty of times. I know that's not true.
[00:07:19] spk_0: Um And so what's interesting about this parent, child dynamic? Is there there are ways to get yourself out of the dynamic if you're in the child ego position, right? So it sounds like you did that by talking to the person as an equal and actually asking to learn from them, right? Like, oh OK. Yeah, I'm actually confused as well as to how this could happen. Could you teach me about how you get your bats? Interesting. So you, you did, was that your attempt at like extra credit for the homework. I don't
[00:07:49] spk_1: even value your opinion enough to want extra credit from you.
[00:07:56] spk_0: But you had one. Yeah. Yeah. So I thought about parent child dynamics a lot. One of the places in my life that I sometimes do slip into that dynamic when I'm not intending to is uh talking to my husband who is also your brother. Yes.
[00:08:14] spk_1: Which I don't know if we ever covered that for those of you who don't know. Yes. Yeah.
[00:08:18] spk_0: So, um I'm just trying to think of a specific example. I didn't, I haven't done one in the past few days, but that's because he was on a business trip. So, but I try really hard not to um assume a parent dynamic, but I'm sure we've all had experiences with our significant others where we have done that, especially because in our house, he is the CFO and I'm the C C O. So he's the chief fun officer and I'm the chief cleaning officer. And oftentimes those two things don't work well together. He is in charge of fun. I'm in charge of cleaning. Um And so I can, I can definitely picture historic scenarios in which I have spoken down to him about like, hey, hey, could you like you're making, you're making a terrible mess here. Could you like just, just clean it up or just not on adult adult conversation? But I do have to say that I was, um, I was schooled by my three year old. Ok. Yeah, this, actually, yesterday, yesterday I was schooled by my three year old. Um, so parent child dynamic is fascinating because you actually don't have to assume a parent child dynamic in your parent and Children relationship. Like it, it's the name of the dynamic, but you don't actually have to use it in parenting and I try hard not to use it all the time. Um, but there's certainly a lot of coaching that goes into raising a toddler, right. So there's a lot of correcting of behavior and trying to have people see something. But so this is a situation. She was, um, in the bathroom and she was pushing the toilet seat down, except there was like a potty training seat on top of it. So you could actually damage the toilet seat if you put too much weight on it because it can't close all the way. And I was trying to rinse out some clothes at the same time. So I just see her in the mirror doing it and I say Elvi, please stop doing that. You're gonna, you're gonna break something and she continued to do it. And so I said pen, so you stop and she continued to do it. And then I, I got my mean, my mean mom voice out and I said, I said help me cut it out and she burst into tears, which is not unusual for my daughter when I use it, the strong mommy voice too, for her to burst into tears. And so we sat down together afterwards and we had a conversation around it and um, after she had burst into tears, she actually was frustrated, right? So she like was sitting in the corner by herself angry after bursting into tears. So when we had the conversation afterwards, she summarized it for me and she said, you told me to stop. And so I got frustrated, but mommy, the way you told me to stop, you were frustrated too. So why am I not supposed to be frustrated if you're already frustrated first? And I said, here's some candy. You got a kid. I said, um, well, next time, would it help if mommy explained why I was telling you to stop? And she said, why were you telling me to stop? And I explained that she could damage it and what it meant to damage something and that it had to be replaced and blah, blah, blah. And she said, yes. Next time, tell me, don't be frustrated. And I said, ok, I will try and then I said, and, and will you try not to be frustrated when I ask you to do something you don't want to do? She said yes, if you use your nice voice, I won't be frustrated. So she, she took the parent child dynamic and like said, no mom, I'm not participating in this, you treat me like an equal and I will, I will behave better. She like the three year old said, this
[00:12:27] spk_1: is a business partnership. We want the best from each other. We need to bring our best selves to work.
[00:12:34] spk_0: Yeah. So um yeah, that was my, that was my example yesterday of using a parent child dynamic in a parent, child relationship. And my three year old telling me it was not the best way for me to handle that situation.
[00:12:47] spk_1: And I think what we're learning is that we will be hearing a lot of Penelope on this podcast because of how she handles herself. So uh that's very, I think the term the cool kids use it on brand for your daughter to do it
[00:13:05] spk_0: is very on brand for pen.
[00:13:08] spk_1: So that was our long sort of examples of where it creeps up in our personal lives. And I think we, we thought about this a lot and when we thought about how kind of where this transactional analysis, parent adult child dynamic comes from in the workplace. And you spent a lot of time researching this and thinking about this topic and we feel like it really traces back into Taylor, which is where we're going to spend the rest of the time today.
[00:13:43] spk_0: Yeah. So the parent child dynamic in the workplace is a pretty common one. Um And you can trace back kind of the the roots of how we might have got into this place to a style of leadership called uh tailor. And oftentimes, at least in this space, uh Taylor takes on like a secondary meaning if you Googled Taylor is what you'd find is actually Frederick Winslow Taylor's principles of scientific management, like the paper that he wrote that kind of created this style of leadership in 1919 11. Um But in this space, Taylor is, it's like the term itself takes on this, this extra meaning um of the type of interaction and relationship that it has created. And it, it starts to feel like an ism in the same way um that we would think of as ageism or sexism or racism, meaning it's, it's an ism in which there's an inequality. And in this case, it is, it's the improper belief that the people who are managing and planning work are smarter than the people who are executing the work. And the the roots of this sort of belief that that is not true, right? The roots of it comes from um probably some classism that was existing at the time of the industrial revolution and still exists in many places. Um And when Frederick Winslow Taylor wrote his paper, it's actually considered the most uh important influential paper for the entire century. Uh And it's still taught in business school today. And the reason it's so influential is because people were really looking for answers at the time that it was written it's at the beginning of the industrial revolution. And um we're trying to figure out like, as, as a group of people, how do you mass produce things? How do you go from sort of the mental model of a master craftsman to suddenly have a bunch of people in sort of a factory type setting trying to make stuff and you're trying to do it in a way that's efficient and turning a profit. And um Frederick Winslow Taylor seemed to have the answers right in this paper. And he wrote a lot of really influential things that we still use today that we would consider just kind of the foundations of like a manufacturing process. So for example, he's one of the first people to write down that you probably shouldn't teach everyone how to be a master craftsman, you should teach them how to do a portion of something and then pass that on to somebody else who knows how to do a portion of something else. But also in this paper, he reflected the classism that existed at the time. And he, he wrote statements that would indicate that the people who were executing the work were not as smart as the people who were planning it, right? He would say things like people probably don't have the mental capacity that the planner has, right? Um He made some comments around um being able to, to teach intelligent guerrillas how to do some work better than he could um some of the folks an example that he was giving and it was that thought process, that classism, sort of that belief that the people that were coming into the work world and being taught how to do something that they were in some way, going to be lesser and less intelligent and less important than the people who were planning the work that created a very top down parent child dynamic from, from like the beginning of industrial times. And that same management style um has lasted, it's endured in many places around the world. Uh I mean, you're kind of, at least in my world we were almost taught, like as a leadership team, we were kind of taught to take the role of the parent. I don't think it's something that most people when they walk in, you know, on their first day working for an organization, if you happen to be in a leadership position or you're going to be moving into a leadership position, I don't think that you intend to be put in that role, I think were taught to be part of that parent dynamic.
[00:17:59] spk_1: It wasn't part of the paperwork that I signed when I was a manager. Is
[00:18:02] spk_0: it true in your world too? Like was there a parent child dynamic to how things were structured, talked about in the sales? So,
[00:18:16] spk_1: Twitter in any, I think in any organization you have that, we definitely saw it in some of the larger, you know, I say, larger, not in size, but in terms of like maybe title meetings where we would talk about what we were going to go and do and then tell the team how they were going to go and deal with it. You know, if we were going to dictate is exactly what we would do. Uh, and we would constantly be, you know, unfortunately, we would never, because the teams that we lead were so large or because what we were doing felt so complex. If someone raised an issue and they weren't a leader, you, you, you listened, you tried your best to listen, but for the most part, you, you just, you would just say, oh yeah, hey, that's a good point. I I'll get back to you on that or let me do some thinking about that and you would just dismiss it just because you didn't have the capacity to go and do it and you would just be like you don't really have, you don't know what I'm dealing with. So what you're saying doesn't make any sense to me versus even asking a couple of good follow up questions to understand where they're coming from.
[00:19:24] spk_0: So sort of like when Penelope can't find her purple egg and I dismiss it as maybe not so super important because it's not important to me that she doesn't have her purple egg at this very moment in time. But it's incredibly important to her. It is
[00:19:37] spk_1: the most important thing in the world to her. And how could you? It's terrible, terrible mom when she's old enough to have a phone and call me, it's going to be too, too much Uncle Matt. Like you gotta get over here.
[00:19:51] spk_0: Yeah. Uh, so let's just so tailor or the concept of parent, child dynamics at work. Um, the concept of, you know, sort of just dictating what a bunch of other people are going to do without having too much regard for whether or not they think it's gonna work based on the information that they have. There are very tangible ramifications, repercussions to having that type of dynamic. So let's just take a second to talk about why it's important to know if we have tailor or parent child dynamics. Um Before we wrap up and realistically, you know, the reality is that the folks that are close to work have different information than the people who are managing and planning the work. It has nothing to do with. If one group is more intelligent than the other, it's just by the very nature of our jobs, we are privy to different information and we learn different information. Each of us needs each other in order to be successful in the work environment. If we're in a parent child dynamic, it's actually really difficult for somebody who's been forced into the child eco position to, to do what, what Penelope did right? To, to, to break out of that. Um And you very naturally don't want to share a lot of information if you're spoken down to. Um, you don't really as an adult, right? You don't really have a desire to either help that person or give that person information that they might need in order to be successful. And so in our work worlds, one of the most important things that we can do is have a free flow of communication and information from various perspectives. And the way that we treat each other can truncate that ability to communicate aggressively. Uh to the point that um we end up as leadership teams making decisions based on a false reality because we don't even, we don't even know what the reality is because people are not willing to talk about what it is. Um So I think we'd probably have space to talk about Taylor is more, but maybe just for this episode we talk about, you know, we maybe our homework if we will. Yeah, I
[00:21:59] spk_1: think we let people sort of chew on it. I mean, because I worked with some amazing leaders, but the amount of times that we felt and wrongly forced to almost dictate what was going to happen and didn't even leave space to get feedback or we said this is gonna be good for you. This is gonna be, we even do that all the time and the
[00:22:19] spk_0: rules are good for you. This program is good for you. This change is going to be good for you. Feel good. Not right
[00:22:24] spk_1: now in a little while you're going to see the value of this change. And we didn't have the best track record of making these changes. And so, but we also didn't elicit a lot of feedback because a lot of these organizations, you, you move so quickly and you're always trying to improve and make changes and get better and you're just on to the next task and there's not much room to, you know, I think people often call it almost like a postmortem, right? Like they, that just doesn't happen and, and a lot of these organizations we work with, work with or where I have worked. So, yeah, I think it's a, it's such a big topic. It's definitely important to just think about where it shows up how it shows up if it shows up in your organization. And I think we don't want to do too much and we're going to take more time next episode and talking about it.
[00:23:15] spk_0: Yeah. OK. So our homework is just to mold over where we see a parent, child dynamic sort of systemically within our organization and maybe mull over how that's affecting things.
[00:23:33] spk_1: Yeah, I think that's a good place for us to leave off and we would, we'd love to hear from you. Um, as well. If you, if you can think of some parts of your organization where this happens. Sounds good. Yeah, I look forward to hearing from you. Well,
[00:24:02] spk_0: that's
[00:24:03] spk_1: it. Yeah, another one in the books we did it
[00:24:07] spk_0: if you, uh, want to send us any of your thoughts, actually fling us any of your thoughts you can do so at the website W w w dot hop podcast dot com.
[00:24:19] spk_1: That's H O P P O DC A S T dot com. It's still
[00:24:26] spk_0: such a stupid name.
[00:24:28] spk_1: We look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for listening.