Gerry Arango (00:20):
Hello and welcome to season two of Our Parallel Paths: A Future For My Loved One With a Disability... And For Me! I'm your host, Gerry. Dr. Geralyn Arango Deely, parent, professor and podcaster.

(00:35):
Our Parallel Paths is about creating a promising future for our adult family members for an intellectual disability, like my son Nick, and a promising future for ourselves in that role of parent, family member, caregiver, whoever you are in their lives, evolved alongside them.

(00:55):
There's more than one path, more than one future to talk about and that's why we're here. So remember the movie Charlie's Angels? Or maybe you remember the TV show with the beautiful Farrah, Kate and Jaclyn? Whatever version you may remember, the angels changed, but there is always a Charlie. Charlie directing everyone from afar by speaker. Or if they did another reboot of Charlie's Angels, maybe Charlie would be texting or having a Zoom call or going freebie and doing a Google Meet. I don't know.

(01:31):
But some parts of managing mixed staff, they feel like they turn me into Charlie these days because Nick has staff who support him overnight, staff who support him at work, and staff who support him in the community, which does necessitate a balance between me often running the show from afar and me letting the show run itself.

(01:56):
I really don't so much live with Nick anymore, so I have to role release to a lot of people, which is how Nick learns to separate from his ever loving hover mother and hopefully how Nick enjoys and grows from that separation. They call it individuation, and I think sometimes I have to do some too.

(02:17):
Nick's support is a mix. It's a mix of agencies and people we have hired individually. So sometimes, running the show is talking to a job coach at Nick's job, but also texting the head job coach who filters information to Nick's team of coaches, oh, and I have to email HR to let them know what's going on.

(02:40):
Running the show means texting with the overnight staff because if they are in the house, I'm not supposed to be. But it also means getting back to the condo where Nick lives, you know, a little early on a Saturday morning to touch base with the overnight staff person who's on as well as to acknowledge their work.

(03:00):
And running the show means texting from wherever I am to remind the afternoon staff of what Nick might do with his time with them. You know, get those chores done, make lunch or go out to lunch. Go to a game room, going to do some volunteer work, whatever. And it means sometimes, again, being in the condo when the afternoon staff are coming or going, just to say hi and let them know that Charlie, aka Gerry, running the show from afar, Charlie's real and Charlie cares a lot.

(03:32):
Now I can segue way into another show at this point and say who's the boss? But I'll spare you that because ultimately I'm the boss and so how do I do this well? Am I doing this well? How can I learn to manage and support people better? Well every now and then I read up on the topic of managing people, sort of what I, I guess I do because it does not come naturally to me.

(04:02):
I do love finding checklists I can measure myself against though, so of course I looked around for a few and I found three that I liked and, and wanted to share some stuff with you. These sites had nothing to do with disability, they had nothing to do with parenthood, but they had to do with management.

(04:20):
So one, on the undercoverrecruiter.com had eight tips for managing your team effectively. There was another, from lattice.com and that one had "Six People-Managing Tips That Will Make You A Better Boss". And one, the third one, was from fool.com and it had "Eight Tips For Remotely Managing Staff". So if you add up all those tips, it's 22 tips and that is too many tips.

(04:50):
But of course, if you have 22 tips for managing people, there's gonna be overlap, there's gonna be repetition, there's gonna be ideas that appear in more than one list, so I curated, makes me feel like a museum person, I curated a little list form their tip lists based on pretty much what shows up the most and what I came up with was five tips that I wanna share with you. And, and I hope as you listen, you'll see what you're doing and how it dovetails with these tips and you probably even have others that you would add.

(05:25):
But for me, I've got five. One, communicate. Two, delegate. Three, check in. Four, acknowledge. And the fifth, understand. So I'm gonna break that out a little bit and give you a little bit of life at our house. How's this? Communicate.

(05:55):
So communicate breaks out to this, setting expectations, listening receptively, establishing ways to communicate, managing conflict and leading by example.

(06:12):
For us, setting expectations, I find that kind of foundational to communication because when someone is working for my son, there are things that they simply need to do and that is simple stuff, basic stuff, like show up on time, clock in and out using the system that is set up for you, engage with Nick, work on his goals, and so these are... the more concrete these can be the better because when it's going well you can see it happening and when it's not going well, you have something to reflect on regarding why it's not.

(06:52):
Listen receptively. Now I like to listen to my staff, to a reasonable extent, about themselves because, um, you know, selfishly speaking, they may have more to offer than I realize. Unselfishly speaking, they may be really struggling with some stuff that I need to understand and know about to try to support. The other thing about listening receptively is it's another way for me to learn about their time with Nick because when I'm not able to listen, I'm really relying on service notes and Nick who tells me precious little. Um, so, listening to what they have to say about Nick can be the most informative because there's so much when you're standing there face to face beyond words.

(07:40):
Another element of communication is to establish ways to communicate and so I have to broaden my definition of communicate because I do try to see everyone face to face at least every other week, even briefly but I find that I rely the most on texting.

(08:02):
And so my texts, I have to be sure that we both are clear, we are findable and that I, I reread my texts just to make sure that I'm saying what I think I'm saying. We also rely on a shared Google doc where all of our notes are kept. Every time staff works with Nick, they're putting in how he was working on his outcomes and goals. And so all of the staff can see each other's postings.

(08:29):
Another piece of communication, this is the one I don't like, um, but it can be simple, if you're clear, is to manage conflict and I think for us, that enforcing the expectations that have been made clear up front, right from the job description to the day-to-day can really help and does really help us to have, to minimize the conflict. So the more concrete those expectations can be, the better.

(08:59):
Finally, communicating is about leading by example and when I think about that is what example am I setting to the staff? And in this way, I hope that they see the relationship that Nick and I have. But also, when I say that, sometimes the relationship can be a little strained and that means that I may be vulnerable. But am I able to be as vulnerable as I hope that they can be with me, um, because oh wow, today Nick needs a break. I need a break. Can I sometimes share? And so by that example, I hope that they can share, that my staff can share as well.

(09:45):
So number two of the tips is to delegate and delegating breaks out to finding the right job for the right person, utilizing the staff's strengths and interests and fostering interdependence. The first two elements kind of dovetail because finding the right job for the right person, I mean, for us it started at the job description level, but then you meet the person, then you learn more because they are now seeing how they fit and we're seeing how they fit into the expectations. Um, and so, what part of what Nick needs can this person or that person meet?

(10:31):
And what are the strengths and interests that they meet? One of the people on our staff is a retired school teacher so I often rely on her to help me to find those teachable moments and share them with the other staff, like oh yeah, and what he needs to be able to have opportunities to read and interpret everything. Although he's not a great reader, he can read. How do we make those moments teachable, whether he's looking up at a menu and kind of jiving the picture with the words and just really being intentional about how much that matters.

(11:08):
Um, Nick is not an arts and crafts person, unless he is. So it depends on who he's with - where he wants to engage with that type of activity. He's a sports guy, easy match. Not a movie or show guy, unless maybe it's the right person and they are excited about it. And that's the staff's strengths and interests as well. I love when staff brings something new to the table and I always ask what, what are your interests? What are you, what do you feel are you strengths? Because maybe we can use them. Maybe we can grow Nick's life a little bit through other people's interests and strengths.

(11:49):
Finally, delegating is also fostering interdependence and that is me saying (laughs) and I even have it written on the board in the kitchen, do not do for Nick, do with Nick. I'm not a big believer that we are in- independent, but rather that we are interdependent and so it's okay for Nick to ask questions, it's okay for Nick to need a little, a little quote, unquote modeling, but don't assume he can't and so when I delegate, part of it is you have to delegate the pieces of what Nick is doing back to Nick. And he'd be happy to let you do much more for him than he really needs.

(12:30):
Three, four and five, check in, acknowledge work and understand. So going back to check in, there's the individual check in and the group check in and the individual for me right now is the talking along the way, there's the meeting up every two weeks and just checking in. Um, and the group for me is a stretch goal. A live meet up with more than one person at a time, or maybe a Zoom - these are on my bucket list because I need to brainstorm with people and let them brainstorm with one other. These are people who go with Nick to places I don't go and they know things about him that I don't know as much about.

(13:12):
The other reason to check in for a group, as a group is 'cause sometimes it's just nice to see each other. Sometimes you check in where there's not a problem or nothing to solve because that's community.

(13:27):
Number four, acknowledge their work and so praise. Great job. Or realistic praise, something more targeted. I love the way you helped Nick to try out something.

(13:43):
Gratitude, throw in a thank you for, thank you for a nice shift, have a great weekend, treating people like people, you know? Um, constructive criticism. It's kind of like putting what needs to be worked on in a sandwich. Something that you did, something that you need to do better and something else that you did quite well. That's co- that's something from my elementary school teaching days.

(14:09):
Acknowledging working through compensation. I gave one of my staff a raise the other day and I really enjoyed doing that. Unfortunately for the others, they're already at the max level, so when they move it up, I guess I'll give them another raise, but the other piece of it is the other elements of acknowledging the work, and I hope that's enough until more money comes.

(14:34):
And the other thing is in acknowledging work, there's these moments where I wanna get to a point where I can take their advice - when my staff has things to share with me. And that we need to have a mutual trust, that they trust me to give advice and I trust them to give me advice because again, they are doing important work and they may have new things to share and that matters, and that should be heard.

(15:06):
Finally, understand. Ah, practicing patience and empathy because staff has bad days too and a sick day where you really had a plan and they called in sick and you're just like, "Ah, seriously? Today?" You have to just be patient and empathetic or at least look like it.

(15:30):
Managing conflicts, and I think especially those concrete expectations, from job description to the day-to-day can be the way to help understand and to manage the little conflicts and the bigger ones that may arise. Business is not the hardest part. We have to lead with our compassion, have to lead with our standards, and with all of this, Nick and I still lost a staff person this week, one of our overnight angels resigned and I asked myself what went wrong? What could I have done differently? Did communication break down somewhere? Did I miss something? And then a little bit in the opposite direction, because it takes two, were you not... the staff person, were you not understanding the expectations as clearly as I thought?

(16:22):
Was there something you needed to share with me, et cetera. Okay? I guess it's like that when you work with people. My important question now is what can I do better? What have I learned from that loss? And even then, during my best, I'm only human, they are only human, it's a journey, it's a path.

(16:48):
So listeners, thank you for joining me on Our Parallel Paths today. Thanks for listening to a little of Nick's and my path and I hope that it helps you on yours. Please consider liking and subscribing to our podcast and I really hope that you'll return to listen and learn from more stories of people like you and me and our loved one with a disability on Our Parallel Paths. See you next time. Take care.