Ros Jay, author of Kids & Co, explains how to put your business skills to use as a parent. Here's a light-hearted look at how to get the best out of your children, and your relationship with them, by treating them like customers and colleagues

Children can be hugely enthusiastic and positive, and are capable of putting enormous effort into projects. They just have to feel motivated. You won't need to put any effort into motivating your teenage daughter to have her nose pierced, or your four year old to have a go on his new bicycle. However, motivation skills are essential if you want to get your children to do other things such as homework, or cleaning and tidying.

Managers need to motivate their staff just as you need to motivate your children. It can be a little tougher with children though. At work, your staff know that they have to put in some effort if they want to keep their jobs, so there is a level of self-motivation even if you need to build on it. At home, your children have no such incentive. You can't fire them, and they know it. Being your child is a job for life. So you sometimes find yourself faced with no motivation at all in your children, which you need to turn into sufficient enthusiasm to embark on a project and see it through.

As far as your role as manager is concerned, you need to keep firm control and be seen as a figure of authority and respect - rather than as a wimp - in order to get the performance you want to out of your team members. You need to use carrot rather than stick techniques to encourage your children to co-operate without undermining their confidence.

How can you get your children to want to do things they are not initially keen on? It might be cleaning out the rabbit hutch, getting their homework done, or going on holiday to somewhere you chose and they didn't. Or it might be a more long term issue: taking on extra chores, travelling to school on their own in future instead of getting a lift from you, or working harder at getting good grades in biology.

The truth about bribery
One of the best forms of motivation is bribery. It has a bad name among parents - it feels like cheating, but that's only because we associate it with a pathetic attempt at appeasement. It doesn't have to be. There's a world of difference between bribing a child to say yes after they've initially refused, and bribing them before you start. In other words, if you anticipate trouble, you can start out by saying "It's time to go shopping. Come on - if you're good I'll buy you an ice cream on the way home." It's not the same thing at all as begging your shrieking child, as they lie kicking and flailing on the floor of the supermarket, "Please be good, and I'll buy you an ice cream."

If you think about it, the first version - offering a bribe before they've done anything wrong - is only what managers do with their staff all the time: "If you handle this job well, you'll get more responsibility and a better job title next year."

So in future, we can stop calling these temptations bribes, and start calling them by the words we use at work: rewards, incentives, motivating factors. There. Now you don't have to feel guilty any more. You're not bribing your child, you're incentivising them. Just make sure you do it before they've misbehaved or failed to pull their weight.

Everyone is motivated by different things, as we'll see in more detail in a moment. But there are certain techniques you can use as a manager of either children or staff, which will help to motivate anyone. There are three key techniques:

• Show them how they fit into the big picture
• Set clear and realistic targets
• Involve them

Show them how they fit into the big picture
Your child is part of the whole family, and they need to understand their place in it. You might tell them that you can't take them out on Thursday; it may be their school holiday, but you've still got to go to work. But don't just leave it at that. Explain (helpfully, without lecturing) why the whole family benefits from you working. If you can, let them come to work with you for a morning and see what you do.

Why not swap jobs with your child for a day? (You might need to modify this approach a little, especially for a small child.) Get your child to cook the dinner, wash the car, do the cleaning or whatever you do, while you do whatever it is they do at the weekend. Do their chores for them, though, before you put your feet up.

The object of the exercise is not to be able to say "See! I work my fingers to the bone all day while you do nothing." It is to help them see how what they do fits in (or otherwise) with what everyone else does. Make it as fun as you can. If you have more than one child, let them assume collective responsibility for all your chores, while you do all theirs.

Set clear and realistic targets
How often have you said to your child, "You're going to have to clean the rabbit hutch out more often", or "Your bedroom's always such a mess: do something about it", or "Stop waking us up so early in the morning. Play for a bit by yourself first"?

We all do it, but we've only ourselves to blame when nothing seems to change. Of course they won't clean out the rabbit hutch more often - they haven't a clue what 'more often' means. Every day? Twice a week? And there's an added implication that you're not really bothered: if you were, you'd clarify what you want properly to make sure it really happened.

So if you want your child to improve their performance in some way, be specific. Maybe you reckon they should tidy their bedroom every Saturday morning. Perhaps they should start their homework by 5.30 every evening. They could aim to clean out that rabbit hutch once a week, at the weekend, and top up the sawdust every Wednesday. And you could set an alarm for 8 o'clock for your four year old to let them know it's OK to wake you up now.

Involve them
It's easy to leave our children out of what's going on, and expect them to follow on blindly. With small children this is especially true. We tend to stick them in the car without even telling them where we're going - and then get annoyed if they complain when we get there. But it's not surprising really that they resent being dragged off to places without a by your leave - how would you feel? Older children tend to ask for the information, but it still makes them feel unimportant (to you) if they had to ask.

Suppose you have a family problem. Say your children are getting old enough to have their own rooms but you're not sure how to fit them in. Do you move house? Divide a room in two? Build an extension? Whatever you do, involve the children. Explain the problem, and ask them what they think. They may have an idea you haven't thought of: "Why not convert the garage and I'll have a bedroom downstairs?" Whether you take their advice or not, if they've been involved in the discussion, they are far more likely to be motivated to go along with whatever solution you finally reach.

Kids & Co - Winning business tactics for every family by Ros Jay is published by White Ladder Press at £6.99. To order online with free p&p visit their website