Stephane Jacqmin
One of my friends recently came to visit us from the Netherlands. She stayed with us for 2 days and spent time with my wife Gaelle, myself and our 3 kids at our home in Prague. On her way back to the airport, she was telling me how great, full of energy and well educated my kids were. She was full of compliments, so much that I took them personally and thanked her for them.
Reflecting on these compliments I realized that they should really have been directed to Gaelle. It is she who deserves the credit, spending her time as she does with the children every day whilst I am at work. She is herself full of positive energy, bringing a “can do” attitude to everything. As their mother, Gaelle has thought about the impact she wants to have on our kids – she wants them to be positive, to treat others with respect, to show appreciation……..
The values she wants our children to internalize are: Respect, Responsibility and Thankfulness. Gaelle strongly believes that by living these values they will grow into balanced adults and that the song they used to sing at the school assembly “Happy to be me” will be accurate and true. She doesn’t want them to find excuses. She wants them to have values that guide them towards making the right decisions and to express these values through their behaviour and actions.
Gaelle knows how she wants them to feel around her and embodies this in her behaviour every day. She regularly expresses her values. She talks with the children about what is important to her and what really matters to her and why she wants them to behave in particular ways. For example she insists on them behaving at the meal table; on respecting and being polite with people; on them doing their math exercises and reading (or learning to read as in the case of our 6 year old) every day. And as our kids are growing older (the oldest is now 11 years old) these values have become important to them and they naturally behave with respect towards and are appreciative of others, they are keen to learn and want to understand things, and they look for the positive in people and situations.
Leader’s quest: How do you live your values through your behaviours outside of work? What impact do you want to have on the people close to you at home? What would you like your family to be saying about you to people who have never met you?
By Stéphane Jacqmin
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Thanks for this update Stéphane. It reminds me strongly and belatedly to let you know that a talk I attended in the NE of England given by Steve really made me step back and re evaluate what I was doing. I actually realised that the energy and vision I have for how I want my children to be was not mirrored in my working life. I actually took 6 months out of my business, understood what was not working for me, fixed it and have re-launched with a new product I am hugely passionate about (Value Innovation – it helps companies escape from competition, forever!)
I now have the same ‘feel’ for my business as I do for how I want my beautiful girls to be. As well as that they will grow up thinking it’s absolutely ordinary for their mummy to run her own business and to travel all over Europe helping companies and for me that’s a really important thing. Thanks so much to Steve and that brief session, which really did prompt a massive change for me!