2012 brought many new challenges to my life. Some dealt with changes in my professional career, some dealt with personal losses of friends and family, but none were greater than becoming a parent for the first time. Being in Quality I'm accustomed to having some semblance of control over the inputs and outputs related to a project. Being in Quality and/or Regulatory empowers someone to protect the customer by ensuring they are receiving what they anticipate and that it is safe. I figured being in Quality and Regulatory would give me a leg-up on fellow new parents since I was already used to ensuring that a product complies to regulations, determined and graded the risks, developed control measures for said risks, and validating the effectiveness of the control measures. Wow, was I wrong.
For the first 3 months I made the same mistake. The mistake that plagues project teams as well as a new parent are the same: Communication. As a parent I was learning the hard way that every move you make with your child must be shared with your spouse. Feed the child, let your spouse know, put them to sleep, let your spouse know, give your child medicine, let your spouse know. It sounds so easy, to share the knowledge collectively so that as a team you are stronger and as well informed to make the future decisions, but just like projects, communication always breaks down.
Over the holiday season I was fortunate enough to be afforded significant time to spend with my family. During this time I truly worked with my wife on getting a little bit better at being a Dad. We set up a communications board to share when feedings, naps, medicines, etc were administered. We organized the house to make it easy for us both to always know where food, diapers, bottles, etc are located.
There's no doubt I knew what I should have been doing all along, I guess I just never drew parallels between my life in Quality and Regulatory and being a Dad. So I guess the lesson I'm trying to share is, don't be afraid to take a look at what works in your professional life and apply it to your personal life, or vice versa, you might be surprised that it is just the answer you were looking for.
- MJB