What the Holidays Teach About Management

It isn’t always that Easter and Passover fall so closely on the calendar, but this was a rich weekend of holidays. All over the world, it seemed, families and friends came together, rituals were observed, services attended, feasts served, activities organized. There were moments of solemnity and moments of frivolity.

So, what does this say about management? In truth, rather a lot.

For starters, logistics underpin everything. There are elaborate schedules to be upheld so that family and guests and visitors from afar are fed and housed and entertained. The complexity of making it all happen rivals any corporate meeting (occasionally matching scale), and even mimics good army mobilization. And we know armies, like our relatives, travel on their stomachs.

And like so many undertakings done well, the outcome makes it look easy. The “experience” looks effortless and belies the days and hours of painstaking planning, the lists, the tight scheduling, the sweat equity of cleaning and cooking. And, despite the graciousness of your hosts, who will never tell you that the exercise damn near killed them, know that so much work has gone in to making this seem easy. Believe me, I know how hard the work is, I applaud you…and send me your resumes.

Over the holidays, I talked with many friends of all persuasions and it became clear to me that as much as we say — and even believe — that our work lives and home lives have merged and melded into a unified whole, really it is only true in the digital sense. The rush of communications is an endless geyser, and the rush to respond a compulsion of our times. That’s why so many of us are forced to turn the sound off on our phones to shield us from the cacophony of their incessant ringing, beeping and vibrating. (Ever sit at a meeting where all the phones seem to jump off the table from the buzzing?)

Yet, walking home from our Seder, we passed a church with parishioners flowing out of beautiful double doors, and others who were walking home from celebrations. And I never felt more connected to them, to my family, to my world.

So, this is what I extrapolate. Somehow, despite the pressure, the craziness, the inevitable last-minute changes and accommodations, when we focus on purpose and outcome, it all comes together powerfully and meaningfully.

Lesson 1: Focus on the outcome and use that focus to drive your actions.

Lesson 2: Make the actions a shared experience, not in some virtual way, but in the real world and refer to Lesson 1 — the whole process should be as rewarding as the outcome.

Lesson 3: Be sure you add humanity to anything you do. Refer back to Lessons 1 and 2.

Have some fun. Make it real. Add your values. Never lose sight of the people aspect.

Bottom line — refer back to Lessons, 1, 2 and 3.