Introduction
When
a two-year-old throws a tantrum
in the grocery store, or a teenager
yells “I hate you!” parents often
think, “If I can get through this,
I can handle anything.”
Most
mothers and fathers know in their
bones that raising a child is the
hardest job they’ve ever had. And,
even if child-rearing is not that
difficult for some, it is certainly
comparable to dealing with adults,
whether they are superiors, clients,
coworkers, employees, or thin-skinned
friends. Anyone who has learned
how to comfort a troublesome toddler,
soothe the feelings of a sullen
teenager, or managed the complex
challenges of a fractious household
can just as readily smooth the boss’s
ruffled feathers, handle crises,
juggle several urgent matters at
once, motivate the team, and survive
the most byzantine office intrigues.
Leadership
begins at home.
Women
have always known this on some level.
For eons, they have understood that
the skills, the organization, and
the sheer character it takes to
manage a family are relevant to
coping with other challenges in
life. “It’s obvious that the skills
of parenting cross over into business,”
says Jeanne Liedtka of the Darden
School of Business at the University
of Virginia. “People are people,
and the same basic principles apply.”
As
long as mothers remained confined
to a domestic ghetto this insight
could be ignored, dismissed, or
chuckled over. The subversive maternal
insight that childish behavior often
suspiciously resembles the behavior
of grown men in groups could be
treated as a joke. Now that women
have risen in the professions, business,
and politics, however, they can
see for themselves that conscientious
parenting is one of life’s great
credentials. They recognize that
the considerable skills they practice
at home are transferable to the
workplace. At long last, that truth
is coming out of the closet.
Two
recent surveys of successful female
managers have confirmed, almost
by accident, that parenting teaches
transferable skills. A survey of
sixty-one white, well-educated female
managers by the Center for Creative
Leadership in Greensboro, North
Carolina, looked at whether multiple
life roles enhanced or detracted
from effectiveness at work. The
women reported that all
private roles enhanced their professional
performance, but mothering was by
far the most frequently cited. Some
of the women had even been told
by coworkers that they were much
better managers after they had children.
“Get a life!” in other words, may
be sound career advice.1
Another
study by the Wellesley College Center
for Research on Women of sixty prominent
female leaders, including CEOs,
college presidents, lawyers, doctors,
and writers, also found that virtually
all those who had children thought
that being a mother had made them
better executives. The authors were
surprised by this unexpected finding.
Having children, the women reported,
had been an excellent training ground
for leadership. “If you can manage
a group of small children, you can
manage a group of bureaucrats. It’s
almost the same process,” said one
of the women.2
Interestingly,
the younger leaders were more apt
to see child-rearing as a relevant
credential than the older generation
of female executives, who had often
had to behave like a man in order
to get ahead in a man’s world. Nearly
half those age forty-five or younger
viewed the maternal
role as a preparation for leadership,
compared with only 10 percent
of older women. “It’s a sign of
their comfort with motherhood,”
said Sumru Erkut, author of the
study. “In the past, women checked
their womanhood at the door.”3
Surveys
like this don’t prove a causal link
between being a parent and being
a better manager. They may simply
reflect the supermom phenomenon:
Highly energetic and talented women
who become successful also tend
to take on multiple life roles,
including motherhood. The fact remains
that many competent mothers are
convinced that the practice of parenting
contributes to a higher performance
at work. Nancy Drozdow, a management
consultant with the Center for Applied
Research in Philadelphia, and a
mother and stepmother, sums it up
neatly: “People become better managers
when they take their parenting seriously.”4
Intriguingly,
new brain research suggests that
there may actually be a genetic
basis for a relationship between
nurturing and certain competencies.
A recent study done on mice by two
Virginia neuroscientists found that
hormones released during pregnancy
and nursing enrich parts of the
brain involved in learning and memory.
Moreover, these positive changes
appear to be permanent. The news
prompted headlines that PREGNANCY
MAY MAKE YOU SMARTER.5
These
findings challenge the conventional
wisdom that pregnancy turns women
inward and dulls their analytical
skills. Clearly, that antiquated
assumption makes no evolutionary
sense. We know that human infants
require more intensive care, for
a much longer period of time, than
the offspring of other mammals.
We also know that the preponderance
of this care has always been provided
by females. It would be logical
to assume that millions of years
of evolutionary selection pressures
may have given the human female
brain certain cognitive advantages
that facilitate the survival of
offspring—such as the ability
to remember and keep multiple tasks
in focus simultaneously, the ability
to read nonverbal danger signals,
and a certain fearlessness when
danger threatens. Research on how
reproductive roles have shaped our
brains, particularly the female
brain, is still in its infancy.
As this research is extended from
mice to social primates, we may
discover fascinating confirmation
that responsibility for a child
stimulates capabilities in parents
that were never before imagined.
This
book is based primarily on my own
extensive interviews with more than
100 prominent mothers and fathers
who have been the primary caregivers
in their family. I talked with people
who have been active, involved parents
as well as successful in business,
law, politics, diplomacy, academia,
the entertainment industry, and
the nonprofit world. (I tried to
avoid interviewing the kind of parents
described in the New Yorker cartoon showing two toddlers
being wheeled in their strollers
by nannies, as one tot says to the
other: “My parents are the same
way. Lots of ostentatious child-rearing,
very little direct nurturing.”)
I
interviewed far more women than
men, simply because the daily work
of child-rearing still remains an
overwhelmingly female occupation.
In 2002, for example, 11 million
children had stay-at-home mothers
and 189,000 had stay-at-home dads.6
Single mothers greatly outnumber
single fathers (16.5 million vs.
3.3 million), and among married
parents, mothers spend at least
three times as much time on child
care as fathers, and even more than
that in the early years.7
What’s
more, the multifaceted individuals
who have been conscientious, hands-on
parents and
successful professionally also tend
to be women. Of 1,200 executives
interviewed by the Families and
Work Institute in 2002, an almost
equal percentage of men and women
had children
(79 percent of the women, 77 percent
of the men). But 75 percent of
the men had stay-at-home wives,
compared with only a handful of
the women.8
So, the great majority of the people
who are in a position to compare
the work of child-rearing with professional
work are women.
I
asked these people directly whether
they thought they had learned valuable
management skills from motherhood.
Only a handful failed to see a connection.
Here are a few typical comments.
•
“Both parenting and managing adults require
that you accept people for who they
are, find out what they are good
at, coach them on how to do their
best, support them when they need
help, and get out of their way when they don’t.”
Pamela Thomas-Graham, CEO,
CNBC.
•
“Running a large organization
is pretty darn close to running
a kindergarten.” Louise Francesconi,
who manages 11,000 people as head
of Raytheon’s Missile Systems Division,
which supplied the laser-guided
bombs used against al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
•
“I’m concerned about all
this commentary that you cannot
have children if you’re a successful
executive. Nonsense! You’re a
better
executive if you have kids!” Shelly
Lazarus, chairman and CEO of Ogilvy
& Mather Worldwide.
•
“I’m a better manager because
I’m a parent, not in
spite of being a parent.”
Deb Henretta, president, Global
Baby Products, Proctor & Gamble,
and, with Lazarus and Francesconi,
one of Fortune
magazine’s top fifty women in business.
•
“I learned more about managing
my subordinates and my superiors
from raising my children than from
any management course.... Two-year-olds
taught me a lot about customer service,
managing by objectives, and utilizing
a system of rewards to improve performance.
Women who have managed toddlers
can manage just about any crisis
situation.” Geraldine Laybourne,
chairman and chief executive of
Oxygen Media.
•
“There is no better career
preparation than parenthood.” Shirley
Strum Kenny, president of the State
University of New York at Stony
Brook and mother of five.
•
“When you need to lead people,
when you need to organize people,
there’s probably not a skill set
better than what the average mother
knows at home. The same lessons
you yell at your ten-year-old in
a twenty-four-hour period are probably
the same lessons you ought to apply
in the business world.” Ann Moore,
chairman of Time Inc. (Moore’s four
basic rules: no whining; listen
to the teacher; do your homework;
and always remember to say thank
you.)
Harold
Saunders, the American diplomat
who negotiated the peace settlement
between Israel and Egypt in 1979,
told me he could never have persuaded
the two sides to accept a settlement
if he hadn’t been widowed and left
the sole parent of two youngsters,
who for years sent him Mother’s
Day cards. In particular, Saunders
said, he never would have understood
the Israelis’ profound sense of
insecurity had he not had the experience
of comforting his own children for
their loss.
Management
gurus, authors of business books,
and executive trainers have connected
the dots between managing a home
and managing an organization. Joshua
Ehrlich, an executive trainer with
Beam, Pines in New York City, gives
all his clients copies of Leadership Effectiveness Training, a sequel to Parent Effectiveness Training, based
on the assumption that the same
management techniques work at home
and in the office. Martha Brest,
an executive recruiter in Boston,
says her clients see a clear connection
between the way they are with their
kids and the way they operate in
the workplace.
“I
have one client, a very senior person
in an investment management firm—one
of the brightest guys I know—who
has had children since I was last
in touch with him. He volunteered
that he had learned a lot about
how to manage his staff from managing
his kids. He thought that managing
children actually took more raw
managerial skill, because there’s
no protocol, no structure, no real
training. I think people are acknowledging
these connections.”9
Stephen
R. Covey, bestselling author of
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,
has written a sequel called The
7 Habits of Highly Effective Families,
in which he admits he learned it
all at home. “Applying the 7 habits
material to the family is an absolute
natural,” writes the father of nine.
“It fits. In fact, it’s
where it was really learned.”
(emphasis added).10
In
still another sign of the growing
willingness to credit the leadership
capabilities of the person in charge
of the home, a majority of employed
adults polled recently said their
mothers could do just as well or
better than their current chief
executives. Ajilon Office, a New
Jersey recruiting services firm,
surveyed 632 people and found that
nearly three-fourths thought their
mothers would be better or at least
as capable at communicating with
employees as their CEOs. Two-thirds
thought Mom would be just as good
or better at resolving employee
disputes, and almost two-thirds
thought she could handle company
finances just as well or better.
Not surprisingly, fully 80 percent
thought their mothers could teach
their CEOs a thing or two about
ethics.11
When
Judy Blades, an executive vice president
of The Hartford, was honored in
2002 as Insurance Woman of the Year
at a luncheon at the Russian Tea
Room in Manhattan, she told the
assembled insurance executives,
speaking off the cuff and from the
heart, that she had learned everything
she knew from her family, including
her children. She later told me
that she had never had such positive
feedback from any talk she had ever
given.
My
own “ah-ha!” moment came soon after
my son was born in 1982. I was busily
devouring baby books, and noticed
an uncanny resemblance between the
advice found in many books on parenting
and the material in books on management
that I had read as a business reporter.
I wondered if the how-to books aimed
at new mothers and the how-to books
aimed at aspiring executives could
in fact be the same material, packaged
differently for different audiences.
I
pursued this hunch a few years later
by signing up to attend a three-day
seminar at Harvard called “Dealing
with Difficult People and Difficult
Situations.” The course was taught
by William Ury, co-author of
Getting
to Yes, the bestselling
business book of all time. And,
sure enough, the management tips
that the assembled business executives
and military officers were paying
almost two thousand dollars per
head to hear were largely the same
lessons anyone could read by picking
up a ten-dollar paperback on parenting.
Ury
attributed his advice to such impeccably
masculine sources as Sun Tzu, the
legendary Chinese general and author
of The
Art of War, and Carl
von Clausewitz, the Prussian military
strategist and author of On War. But, over lunch, he good-naturedly
confirmed that much of what he taught
came straight from Haim Ginott,
the humanistic psychologist whose
1956 classic, Between Parent and Child, became a parenting bible.
His largely male audience at Harvard,
thinking they were learning how
to apply the lessons of the battlefield
to the modern organization, were
in fact learning the lessons of
child psychology that mothers had
been applying at home for decades.
What
are these lessons? What skills do
conscientious mothers and fathers
learn that cross over and enrich
their professional lives? In my
conversations with parents, four
categories of transferable skills
were mentioned over and over again.
The
first and most oft-cited is multitasking, the ability to keep
a dozen balls in the air at once.
Among the elements of multitasking
are the ability to establish priorities,
to maintain focus in the midst of
constant distraction, to manage
complexity with efficiency, and
to handle crises with a steady hand.
As a friend of mine once summed
it up, “Life is not a final; it’s
daily pop quizzes.”
Working
with children also develops the
interpersonal skills that enable
people to understand and successfully
work with adults. People
skills are increasingly understood
to be part and parcel of every competent
leader’s repertoire. They include
the ability to handle irrational
and immature individuals of every
age; understanding the importance
of winwin negotiation; the ability to
listen to others’ concerns; to practice
patience; express empathy; and respect
individual differences,
by learning to appreciate and use
the talents of every individual.
A
third category of parental skills
comes under the heading growing
human capabilities. These
are the empowering, mentoring techniques
that enable a manager or leader
to develop others’ strengths, and
bring out the best in others. They
include positive reinforcement;
the ability to articulate a vision
and to inspire others to join in
creating and executing that vision;
and the wisdom to let
people go, by giving
them the freedom to grow and make
their own mistakes while still providing
enough structure and feedback to
keep them from stumbling too badly.
The
fourth category of parental strengths
comes under the heading of character,
or what political scientist Valerie
Hudson calls habits
of integrity. Good parenting
requires the habitual practice of
certain, admittedly old-fashioned,
virtues. To be done at all well,
it demands steadfastness, courage,
humility, hope, selflessness, creativity,
and a degree of self-mastery that
is often at odds with our indulgent
culture. No wonder one cultural
psychologist has described child-rearing
as “routine, unexamined heroism.”
Joseph
Campbell, the great chronicler of
mankind’s myths, once defined a
hero as someone who has given his
life to something bigger than himself.
“Losing yourself, giving yourself
to another, is part of it,” Campbell
told Bill Moyers in a television
interview. “Heroism involves trials...
tests, and ultimately revelations
... it is the soul’s high adventure.”
I can’t think of a better description
of the child-rearing experience.
The
first habit of integrity is simply
being there. Most mothers say that the
most important thing they can do
for their children is to be there
for them. By this they mean being
that solid someone their child can
always count on in all the ways
that count. It also means establishing
a stable environment, a home base,
that predictably meets the needs
and expectations of those around
you.
Virtually
every parent I interviewed also
told me that raising kids gave them
greater perspective:
an ability to distinguish between
what’s truly important in life and
what isn’t. Children, like nothing
else, set your priorities straight.
Every
parent who’s ever divided up a birthday
cake also knows that children are
hard-wired to detect unfairness.
The good parent, like the good manager,
strives to be fair and impartial.
There
is one more lesson children can
teach. I believe that all those
who have dreams for their children
have to have a certain faith in
the future. For parents, the future
matters. It is hard for us as parents
not to think of the time that will
come after us, and the legacy we
will leave behind. In the end, conscientious
child-rearing includes working for
a world we would want our children
to inherit.
Those
are the big lessons learned; the
major insights the parents I interviewed
said they had gained. Obviously
not all parents learn all these
lessons, and some parents may not
learn any. This isn’t about people
who simply have
babies; it’s about the
people who conscientiously raise
children. And even conscientious
parents are not necessarily equipped
to take on serious managerial responsibilities—although
many are.
Nor
do I want to claim that the only way to acquire these life skills
is by having children. These lessons
can be learned from any number of
profound personal experiences, including
serious illnesses and other crises
that put one in touch with one’s
deepest self. As a rabbi I interviewed
eloquently put it, “I don’t want
anything I say to be construed to
imply that those who are not parents
don’t have access to the same lessons
I’ve learned from my children. You
can learn this wisdom as an older
sibling caring for a younger, or
as an aunt or godmother or stepfather,
or by caring for a sick parent,
or simply by growing older. Parents
don’t have a monopoly on the lessons
learned from caring for others.”12
I couldn’t agree more.
So,
let’s just stipulate at the outset
that this book is not about glorifying
motherhood per se, or reconceptualizing
leadership as maternal or parental
behavior. It is really a book about
people who believe that children
did make a positive difference in
the way they conduct their work
lives, recognizing that this is
not everyone’s experience.
Above
all, this book is simply about giving
credit where credit is due. As the
Wellesley study put it, “Crediting
good mothering with leadership qualities
has been overdue.”13
A
final section examines how far we’ve
come in recognizing parenting as
relevant work experience. The answer
is important to the millions of
women whose primary job is raising
their kids, but who will be reentering
the work force in the future. A
recent article in the New York Times Magazine warned that
“...[i]t is unclear what women like
these will be able to go back to.
This is the hot button of the work-life
debate at the moment.... For all
the change happening in the office,
the challenge of returning workers—those
who opted out completely, and
those who ratcheted back—is
barely even starting to be addressed.”14
This book addresses that
question of re-entry.
On
the one hand, there is a growing
recognition that a so-called female
or benevolent management style is
highly effective, and the beginnings
of an inkling that the skills associated
with that style are very similar
to parenting skills. “There is an
awakening,” says Martha Brest, “but
it’s been long in coming. It should
have happened years ago.”
On
the other hand, most employers still
don’t take child-rearing experience
seriously. When I was working on
this book and told people what it
was about, their first reaction
was to laugh. Their second take
was often, “Oh! It’s so true! ”
So why the laugh? What’s so funny?
Why
does the notion persist that the
job of raising children is easy,
unskilled, and not even real work?
Why do we have management books
gleaning lessons of leadership from
whale trainers, Winnie the Pooh,
even Jesus Christ, and not one book
on the teachings of Mom, our original
leader, guide, and mentor? Why do
employers assume your brain goes
on holiday when you take time out
for children? (I spotted this headline
in the Daily Telegraph in London: BOSS SAYS MOTHERHOOD TURNS WOMEN'S
BRAINS INTO JELLY.)
And
why, when you mention you’ve been
a stay-at-home mom or dad to a job
interviewer, do you run the risk
of ridicule?
A
few years ago, I was on a search
committee charged with selecting
a new executive director of an environmental
organization. One highly qualified
man had a so-called mother’s resume.
He had been out of the job market
for seven years as a stay-at-home
father of three children. In that
period he had also served on a school’s
board of directors, and worked on
at least four grassroots environmental
campaigns. I thought he sounded
like a credible candidate, but a
male member of our committee, looking
over his resume, snickered, “A househusband.”
We didn’t even interview the guy.
In
the end, we gave the job to a woman
who had more than fifteen years
of uninterrupted experience as an
officer at a major environmental
organization. She had two school-aged
children who were never mentioned
during the interview process. We
pretended that she had a surrogate
wife to take care of that side of
life, and we took it for granted
that her experience as a parent
was utterly unrelated to her ability
to run an organization.
Several
months after she was hired, she
told me that she had learned many
of her management skills in a Parent
Effectiveness Training course. She
had wisely left that out of her
resume.
Research
has revealed a significant cognitive
bias against housewives that apparently
extends to men who spend any time
raising children. This bias—that
those who care for children are
close to incompetent—is so
strong that it can rear its ugly
head in the most unlikely situations.
Nancy Segal, a former Senate staffer
and an expert on discrimination
against parents in the workplace,
in 2003 applied for a job at the
Labor Department. The man conducting
the interview asked her if she was
good at juggling different projects,
handling interruptions, and the
like.
“Are
you kidding?” she blurted out. “I’m
the mother of two kids!” Oops. She
immediately realized that was the
wrong answer.
“Now
that you bring it up,” the clueless
bureaucrat continued, “and I hesitate
to say this considering the kind
of work you do, but do you really
think you can handle this job?”
Segal
was momentarily speechless. She
recovered enough to assure him that
she was up to the task, and she
was eventually offered the job.
She didn’t take it.15
The
persistence of these negative stereotypes
poses a real dilemma for women and
men who want to be active parents.
We look at some of the ways mothers
have handled this dilemma, particularly
the tricky question of whether to
put child-rearing on a resume.
Finally,
the book summarizes two of the more
interesting and unexpected findings
that came out of my research. As
someone who has written about the
obstacles confronting mothers in
the workplace, I was pleasantly
surprised to discover just how many
mothers have managed to combine
engaged parenting with a highly
successful career. I found mothers
at the top of every kind of institution,
from defense contractors to the
National Science Foundation, and
in every profession, from movie
production to the ministry. Moreover,
I learned that high-achieving women
are no less likely to be married
and have children than the average
full-time working woman.
Secondly,
the presence of all these mothers
in high places is already changing
the workplace. The language of power
is definitely changing, to include
metaphors based on childbirth and
children’s books. Talking about
one’s children in the office is
no longer a liability, but can even
be an asset, according to several
female executives.
I
also heard numerous stories describing
how mothers at the top of organizations
have made them more congenial places
for parents to work. I predict that
we will see more of this as women
come to run institutions, as opposed
to being merely high-ranking females
in male-dominated environments.
This
is not to say that mothers are or
will be any nicer or more caring
or better managers than anyone else
as they come into their own. As
Marjorie Scardino, CEO of Pearson
PLC, observed, at a conference for
women in business several years
ago, “We’ve all seen difficult,
authoritarian women running organizations
and feeling, participatory, collegial
inclusive men. We musn’t fall into
stereotypical thinking.” I whole-heartedly
agree.
But
one thing, it seems to me, is very
clear. When mothers and others with
different life experiences attain
leadership positions, they introduce
new ideas, find new ways of doing
things, and discover innovative
solutions to problems that no one
even realized were problems before.
In the stories I heard, mothers
and involved fathers were introducing
change, from a better-designed diaper
to a more creative way of managing
engineers to a fresh way of thinking
about international “relationships.”
They were expanding our human repertoire.
For that reason, acknowledging their
skills, listening to their voices,
and heeding their wisdom will enrich
us all.
—Reprinted
from If You've Raised Kids, You
Can Manage Anything by Ann Crittenden
with permission from Gotham Books,
a division of Penguin Group (USA)
Inc. Copyright © 2004 by Ann
Crittenden. All rights reserved.
This excerpt, or any parts thereof,
may not be reproduced without permission.
Notes
1
Marian N. Rudman et al., "Benefits
of Multiple Roles for Managerial
Women," Academy of Management
Journal 45 No.2 (2002), pp.
369-386. A number of other studies
have also found that people with
multiple roles have higher levels
of well-being, and that learning
from one life role can be incorporated
in another, ain a process called
role acculmulation. See Marian
N. Ruderman and Patricia J. Ohlott,
Standing at the Crossroads: Next
Steps for High Achieving Women
(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002),
pp. 113-115. A few studies of males
executives have also confirmed this
process. One found that such experiences
as coaching children's sports taught
fathers lessons of leadership: McCall,
M.W., Jr., Lombardo, M.M., & Morrison,
A.M., The Lessons of Experience:
How Successful Executives Develop
on the Job (Lexington, MA: Lexington
Books, 1998).
2
Erkut, S. , and Winds of Change
Foundation (2001). Inside women's
power: Learning from leaders (CRW
Special Report No. 28) Wellesley,
MA: Wellesley Centers for Women,
Wellesley College, p. 79.
3
Quoted by Mary Meier, "U.S.
Leaders Say Managing Kids Prepared
Them to Be Boss," WOMENSENEWS, October
16, 2001.
4
Telephone interview with author,
2003 (Drozdow).
5
pregnancytoday.com, "Pregnancy
May Make You Smarter." Also see
Fox News Online, "Study: Pregnancy,
Nursing May Make Women Smarter,"
November 11, 1998.
6
Census Bureau, "Children's Living
Arrangements and Characteristics"
(March 2002).
7
Annual Demographic Supplement to
the March 2002 Current Population
Survey. Also see Ann Crittenden,
The Price of Motherhood (New
York: Metropolitan Books, 2001),
PP/ 24-26.
8
Families and Work Institute, "2002
National Study of the Changing Workforce"
(New York, 2002).
9
Telephone interview with author,
2002 (Brest).
10
Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits
of Highly Effective Familes,
(New York: Golden Books, 1997),
p. 2.
11
"Personal Business Diary: What Would
Happen If Mom Ran the Show?" New
York Times, May 11, 2003.
12
Personal interview with author,
New York City, March, 2003. (Margaret
Moers Wenig) There is even some
evidence that caring for adults,
as in nursing, develops a superior
ability to integrate emotional,
cognitive, and behavioral data and
enhances skills of complex problem-solving.
See Joyce K. Fletcher, Disappearing
Acts: Gender, Power, and Relational
Practice at Work (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2001),
p. 114.
13
Erkut,op . cit., p. 81.
14
Lisa Belkin, "The Opt-Out Revolution,"
New York Times Magazine (October
26, 2003), p. 58
15
Personal Communication, 2003. (Segal)
