Over the past month, I’ve traveled by car, train, boat, and plane with my now seven-month old son, Miles. Successfully traveling with an infant requires some luck, and it also requires a diverse set of skills, many of which are relevant to your career. Here are six professional skills developed by traveling with an infant.
Communication
Excellent communication skills are essential when navigating a busy interstate or the decentralized, inefficient maze of terminals at LAX with a fussy or very spirited baby. In order to take the correct exit or catch the right inter-terminal-shuttle everyone needs to be on the same page and remain composed amidst the storm of tears and, possibly, careening toys or soothers.
As a leader of projects and people, this means that your team is focused on the specific objectives for a project and not distracted by the “noise” and conflicting demands around them. Highlight the three most important things that people should be working on and ensure that they explain back to you to clarify the goals.
Creativity
Miles really likes the song “The Wheels on the Bus” – it acclimatizes him to the car and helps him cope with the restrictive car seat. During a recent road trip, however, my wife Michelle and I felt a bit bad that we needed to repeat the song so often. So, we harnessed our creativity and encouraged everyone in the car to add verses to the song, which eventually had a pirate, a velociraptor and a hockey team participating in the bus experience. Miles loved the different voices that co-created the musical experience.
At work this means introducing variety into peoples’ days. Have rotating chairs for team meetings so that people can develop facilitation skills. Incorporate energizers and other fun activities into meetings. Play upbeat music to set the tone for the day. Most importantly, share the experience with many people.
Leadership
Great leaders have the confidence to engage people who are being unhelpful, disruptive or bullies. Not everyone enjoys being seated next to a baby on a plane and some such people will express their displeasure with body language, behaviour and/or verbally. Michelle tackled (figuratively) one such disgruntled traveler by simply expressing that infants, too, need to travel places and that we would do our very best to keep him as quiet as possible and that eye-rolling was not helpful for anyone.
In your career this means having the difficult, direct conversation immediately when something is wrong and not waiting and hoping for things to improve on their own. Leadership especially means confronting challenges and not gossiping about them.
Thinking & Learning
Something that I struggle with is mindfulness. I like to be busy, I like to have multiple tabs open on my browser, and I hate it when things take too long to load. During a recent overnight flight when everyone is sleeping and I was cuddle-bouncing Miles through the aisle I had the opportunity to quietly reflect on our family’s recent experiences. This happened because I literally had before me no objects with which to be distracted. After all, once your baby is sleeping it is important to hold that pose!
The best professional reflection happens when you actively reduce distractions like email and when you physically remove yourself from the office. The next time that you are trying to work through a complex problem take a walk without your mobile device and focus more on breathing deeply than immediately responding to email.
Collaboration
It might not take a village to travel with a baby, but having a cohesive team of spouses, cousins and/or grandparents makes first-time road or plane trips much easier. We traveled to Hawaii with my Father-in-Law, who provided a crucial 30-minute break to Michelle and I during the flight by simply introducing our fairly extroverted son to the people sitting next to him. Going forward, Michelle and I won’t need carloads of six people or a grandparent accompanying us on a plane, but, as relatively new parents, such support has already helped us prepare for future travels.
The next time that you are trying to solve a problem or make a plan consider what my awesome colleague, Sam Meneghin (and people from Facebook and Google), call “Foster First Time” – get as many people involved in the discussion (or debate) early-on and then refine the process with a smaller, nimbler team of subject matter experts.
Adaptability
During our entire Hawaiian vacation, Miles stayed on Pacific Time, which meant that we woke up around 4:00AM and went to bed around 4:00PM. So, our vacation adapted to his schedule – we experienced a lot of sun rises, took early morning swims, and dealt with the fact the one of us needed to stay in the hotel room from 5:00pm onwards.
In your work, the most perfect, visionary plan needs to be executed by people, some of whom might not have the skills or abilities to fully execute the work. So, be prepared to adapt your plan to meet people where they’re at as opposed to setting unrealistic expectations.
