Two workplace experts argue that employees need both empathy and clear structure. One shares how the Lakers protected time for family events while maintaining accountability. The other warns that kindness without expectations creates chaos and kills morale.
I had to learn, meet every single person where they are. A cynic might hear that as nobody's held accountable. 100%. No. Look, I am going to treat you like a human being, okay? I am not going to treat you like a disposable, changeable employee. Okay? But you have to do your part too. What are you doing to help us as you are trying to help you? There has to absolutely be an accounting. It can't just be chaos.
I've made this mistake. There has to be order. I ran a hippie commune. That's what my business was like. I tried so hard to be nice to everybody that we couldn't meet deadlines. There was no accountability and it just didn't work. Nobody had any sense of accomplishment. Nobody had a sense of we did this. People want to accomplish and they want to do good. People crave caring structure. Caring structure. That's such a nice way of putting it. They do.
I tell anybody who worked for me in the Lakers, you're a young parent, you're a young person. If I ever find out that you missed one of your kids' games, a play, a recital because you were at work, we're going to have a problem. Yeah. Whatever took place that one day at work is not going to be as important as these things because these things have an expiration date. I'm going to see you as a human being and what you want to do as a person, and I'm going to encourage you and help you get there. Yeah. When you have this two-way street, they want to protect that relationship. Yeah. And so they're not going to abuse it. So accountability tends to take care of itself because they want to protect that environment because it doesn't happen very often. So good.
