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b'I didn\\u2019t start a business because I was excited about managing people.\\n\\n\\n\\nI wasn\\u2019t dreaming of hiring a team while I was writing blog posts in the stolen moments between nursing my baby and nap times.\\n\\n\\n\\nTruth be told, I\\u2019m still not excited about managing people\\u2013although, I do dream about hiring more often. Yet, here I am\\u2013managing 5 people between 2 companies.\\n\\n\\n\\nIf I had to pin down the biggest lessons that I\\u2019ve learned about building a business, I think they might all have to do with the relationships I have with my team members.\\n\\n\\n\\nWhich is not to say that I have it all figured out! But boy oh boy, do I approach things differently than I used to.\\n\\n\\n\\nThis week, we\\u2019re examining how we nurture the relationships we have with the people who work with us.\\n\\n\\n\\nI\\u2019ll be honest with you: there are so many different places I\\u2019d like to take this episode. There are so many of the lessons I\\u2019ve learned that I\\u2019d like to pass on. Luckily, the lessons I\\u2019ve learned have largely come through conversations I\\u2019ve had on this very podcast!\\n\\n\\n\\nAnd there\\u2019s one conversation in particular that I come back to time & time again. It was my first interview with my friend and founder of Productive Flourishing, Charlie Gilkey.\\n\\n\\n\\nLooking back on this conversation, I can see that there were already lessons that had started to come into focus about how I work with people and what it looks like to nurture relationships with team members. But what I can also see is how much this conversation actually helped to solidify those learnings into how my thinking & approach have changed since.\\n\\n\\n\\nBefore we get to that conversation, though, I wanted dig into a topic that I\\u2019ve been thinking about a lot and writing about some\\u2014and that\\u2019s the value of maintenance work. I think any discussion of the relationships we build with our team members needs to acknowledge that some of the most important work that gets done in our businesses is often under-appreciated and undervalued.\\n\\n\\n\\nAnd I want to make sure that we approach this topic with the shared understanding that it\\u2019s not a conversation about delegating or handing off work you don\\u2019t want to do. It\\u2019s a conversation about team-building, management, and relationship-building\\u2014and to do any of those things effectively, we have to get comfortable with the value of maintenance work.\\n\\n\\n\\nWe need to get more comfortable with contributing our fair share to maintenance work\\u2014because yes, entrepreneurs and CEOs have maintenance work to do. And, we have to get comfortable with recognizing the contribution that the people who do maintenance work with us make to the overall health of our businesses.\\n\\n\\n\\nBecause, there are some really harmful things that happen with hiring & management in small businesses.\\n\\n\\n\\nThere are low wages, weird power dynamics, and the mislabeling of workers. There\\u2019s abuse, unrealistic expectations, and boatloads of scope creep.\\n\\n\\n\\nIt happens in restaurants, in corner stores, and in accounting firms. And, yes, it happens in coaching businesses, marketing agencies, and online course companies.\\n\\n\\n\\nThe problem is that many of us have put the work we do as business owners on a pedestal and see all of the other work\\u2014the maintenance work\\u2014as beneath us.\\n\\n\\n\\nWhether it\\u2019s customer service or project management or formatting content or organizing files,...'