People and the pancreas...

...or how we never stop learning from our children.

Please meet Sasha and her victorious football team. Sasha is my daughter and soon to be 15. Yesterday, she and her team-mates won the English Schools’ Football Association Under-16 Cup at Manchester City’s academy stadium. It’s a national competition with more than 220 schools entering this year. She now has 4 national titles to her name, 3 of which she has gained playing up an age group. She’s some player. (I was going to say something next about how the apple never falls far from the tree, but I won't bother.)

Yeah, I know. This isn’t Facebook.

Guess what? I don't care. :-)

Something else you should know about Sasha: she has type I diabetes (T1D). She was diagnosed at age 5 back in 2009. Contrary to popular, misinformed belief, T1D has nothing to do with diet or exercise. In T1D, the body’s immune system attacks and kills the insulin-producing islet cells in the pancreas. Without insulin, you die, so Sasha has to wear an insulin pump on her body 24hrs a day...or about 22hrs when she has a football match.

Please note, Sasha is not *a diabetic*. She *has diabetes*. There’s a difference. So long as she’s not reckless (or very unlucky), diabetes doesn’t and won’t define Sasha’s life, or prevent her doing anything she wants to do. It hasn’t stopped actors Halle Berry and Sharon Stone, or England rugby’s Henry Slade, or Nick Jonas, or Sonia Sotomayor (SCOTUS). Steve Redgrave, 5-time Olympic champion, when asked what it’s like living with T1D, replied:

“I don’t live with diabetes. Diabetes lives with me.”

Other than when she needs to stop mid-match to have a sugary drink, or take her pump out of its pouch to dispense some insulin following food, no-one would ever know Sasha has an incurable condition. And she wouldn’t want it any other way...but that isn't true of everyone and their life struggles.

We all have a tendency to feel sorry for ourselves on occasion. There’s the boss with her shiny, new car; the friend with the dream job and the colleague with the seemingly perfect life. But how many of those we envy are hiding their own secret struggles? There are, in fact, very few of us who will sail through life with nary a worry, with all the pieces falling into place time and again. Life is joyous, but it can also be tough. Very tough.

A few months after Sasha’s diagnosis, I altered my approach to people management forever. I think I was doing a pretty good job as a Customer Success leader to that point, my teams consistently hitting their numbers, CSAT generally good, etc., but my interest in team members didn’t extend far beyond how each CSM could contribute to the next quarterly target…and help me progress my own career, of course. I talked about having an open management style, made myself ‘approachable’, as they say, but my concern for my CSMs as *people* was superficial, insofar as it existed at all.

Sasha and type I diabetes changed that for good. I started taking an interest in each of my CSMs as human beings, first and foremost. I made it my business to know who had kids, names of partners, what each of them liked to do at the weekends, what sort of music and films and food and holiday destinations they enjoyed. And in doing so, I had my teams confide in me in a manner unthinkable previously.

In the course of the last ten years, amongst other things, I discovered:

• one of my CSMs was silently battling a life-threatening condition
• at least 3 of my CSMs were going through divorces
• a couple had seriously ill children
• one was on the verge of bankruptcy
• another even sought my advice on revealing her sexuality to her parents

…and countless other examples.

I feel truly honoured that I have managed people who are comfortable having this level of human interaction with me, their manager. I know for certain that these experiences have made me better at my job. The more you know and understand about the motivations and struggles and life aspirations of your team, the greater your chances of driving successful professional outcomes for everybody. Could it be more obvious?

Of course, there are still difficult decisions to be taken in any leadership position. I’ve released people who needed to be released and found roles for CSMs who had skill-sets that were a better fit for other functions. Taking a human interest in the people you manage does not demand the subordination of your professionalism, and don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise.

See? This wasn’t the gratuitous invasion of LinkedIn’s sacred, professional space it may have first appeared.

Now, who wants to see some pictures of my dinner?