Podcast#4 with Fay Rowles-Scoch, a performance coach talks about how her parenting classes miraculously helped transform tough employees and negotiations. Human touch and interaction, social skills basically, by far surpass any other management technique she emphasizes.

Managing tough employees using parenting techniques. Moving from an office desk job to senior management positions, Fay used parenting training to manage her four children. She cross-applied the techniques to team building:

1. Using Adlerian Psychology for understanding what motivates a certain behavior

2. Criticizing someone without using blame

3. Rewarding good behavior

4. What is the most common reason for an employee to quit? Mostly not being treated well by immediate supervisor

5. Scheduling your leadership, or special time especially for bad employees, by making time to know your employees, even the shiest leaders have been very successful

In this episode, we speak with Fay Rawles-Scoch, a writer and coach who trains corporates and senior ship crew members in applying parenting principles to enhance the performance of their teams. Drawing from Adlerian psychology, Fay discusses how parenting models can be used to handle difficult employees—for example, in understanding motivations for bad behaviour, expressing criticism without assigning blame, and generating relationships based on mutual respect. The concept of ‘special time’ involving one-on-one interaction is the key component of this exercise. Just as parents are recommended to spend ‘quality time’ with their children, one-on-one interaction can be used to manage difficult employees who draw

negative attention to themselves, much like children. Fay emphasizes the importance of maintaining consistent interpersonal relationships at work in order to help employees overcome their barriers to success.

The central reason for people leaving their jobs is their relationship with their immediate supervisors, which impacts both performance and the desire to stay. Maintaining a timeframe and schedule for engaging with employees is a possible solution. Another concept integral to parenting that is effective in performance management is planning one’s interaction—what she calls “scheduling one’s leadership”—which leads to mutual respect and acknowledgment.

Fay proposes human interaction as the most powerful management and parenting technique, especially in the age of technology. Building critical social skills within an organization by creating opportunities for one-on-one interaction and making employees feel valued underscores the enduring value of human association. Treating one’s worst employee with respect, giving them time, and overcoming one’s conditioning to find fault is the hallmark of this method. This linking of problems and solutions found in two different domains like parenting and corporate training makes this a unique and empathetic approach to performance management.

Books mentioned: Children: The Challenge by Rudolf Dreikurs which Fay uses as a resource PDCtool for training middle management officials on a ship’s crew in performance management.