Jumping Back on the Ladder: Talking With Harvard’s Christine Heenan
I wrote this for Huffington Post last week but I want to share it here. I’ve been chewing over this conversation for a week.
Brenda Barnes, now CEO of Sara Lee, has gotten a lot of press because she left the corporate workforce for a decade to spend more time with her children, and recently returned to be CEO of a major company. Barnes is indeed a rare person, and women can make themselves feel guilty and bad for making trade offs when they’re raising a family. But there are plenty of women out there who illustrate that scaling back work to spend time with family is not a professional death sentence in the long run.
Christine Heenan, who spent her twenties in the Clinton White House and later, time with little kids running her own small business, notes that even after jumping off the corporate ladder, “You can absolutely come out on top. I had a period of time I thought, I’ll never be back in those circles…” She’s now back in a demanding new leadership role at a global institution, a role that requires the whole family’s cooperation, but, “after a decade of really balancing work with my kids, we approach this new challenge as a team. I couldn’t have considered this career move if I hadn’t taken that time to be with my kids more ’til now.”
Heenan got her start on the Clinton White House policy team, and in 1995 became the head of government and community relations at Brown University, where she also taught. When Christine was recovering from delivering her first baby, her boss from Brown called Christine in the maternity ward: there was a crisis at work. After Christine had her second baby, she left Brown to start her own business, the Clarendon Group.
The Clarendon Group won a Sloan Foundation Award in 2006, for “business excellence in workplace flexibility.” Obviously Christine made flexible working a priority when she ran the Clarendon Group. Indeed, she told me a fond memory of first starting her company and preparing a presentation with her first employee, also a mother. Christine took all the kids to the local park while her colleague hammered out the pages on the ink jet printer. Heenan noted that she would be curious to measure her employees’ children’s impressions of what work looks like, since the kids spent so much time in the office with their mothers, and felt like they had the run of the place. To them, kids and work were comfortably intermingled.
As I read Christine’s story in the book Womenomics I thought, great, another “success” story about a high-powered woman who jumps off the corporate ladder to start her own business and get a life. But, Christine’s story doesn’t end with Clarendon. She jumped back on the ladder, in a major way.
In July 2008, Christine became Harvard University’s Vice President for Government, Community, and Public Affairs. I was curious, how did her ten years in a flexible work environment — her own — affect her return to a corporate role?
I asked her how she decided to return.
She said,
“My kids are now at an age where we could make the decision as a family.” She said that because so much of her time during the past decade was spent “as a mother and a professional had been considering those needs I thought it was the right time” to take her own career goals into account again.Still, “It’s been an adjustment of a year- but it’s been more of a team spirited discussion because of how the decision was made.” Christine told me that recently she was walking the dog with her ten year-old son and complained to him, “‘I have 100 emails- I don’t want to work any more today!’ And my son said, “‘Mom, we talked about this.’”
I asked her if she actually worked harder running her own business than for someone else?
She said,
“I restructured my relationship with Brown into a consultant role after her second son was born. Two years into that, I hired my first employee who was actually my neighbor, whose background was banking and non-profits, but was home with her three young children at the time. She and I, and our next employee - also a career professional now home with a new child — and our moved into a sublet office, then gradually grew.“As your own boss, it’s not so much working harder as much as work always being with you. It’s your name on the door. But for me it was an easy trade off for being able to do what I wanted. No one could tell me I couldn’t.”
“Our flex policy was fairly organic. When it was just me and my neighbor we traded off aspects of work and time with the kids. The way we ended up having so many moms working flexibly was that’s what we became known for. At any given time at the firm, there was at least 50% of the staff working flex schedules. It wasn’t always women- for example we had a male colleague whose new wife was beginning a brutal schedule as a resident in Boston, and he worked two days a week [from his home] in Boston.”
Q: Could you describe a little how you negotiated when considering the Harvard job? Was flex on the table?
A: I did raise it in my first meeting with the search firm. I had nothing to lose; I wasn’t looking for a job. If they had explained that this was where [considering me] would have ended, fine. I was prepared to be out of the running due to my family demands. But it was actually the two women at the search - one pregnant with twins - convinced me to interview for the job. They argued: why not at least have that conversation?. So I did go forward with the search process, and I did raise it in my first meeting with the search committee. The most honest and important piece of advice I got in that first meeting was from a senior level colleague at Harvard who said, “It’s pretty safe to say everyone at this level is 24-7, and no one much cares where you are at 3 in the afternoon….”
Since taking the post, Christine has noted that both men and women model that attitude. Christine noted she has a colleague who is general counsel whose son is a very competitive high school wrestler. “There have been times that Jeff’s wrestling matches meant tied up evenings or weekends, and that is not hidden from view — everyone shares in and endorses those priorities here. It is really nice.”Q: What do you miss about being your own boss?
“After school; I miss that after school window. Both my children are boys. If you ask them at 6 pm to elaborate on their school day, they’ve forgotten it! They’re like, that was 5 hours ago mom! But we manage phone conversations after school, and I try to go home for homework time and the backpack download. I learned from not doing it right at first. When we started this year, I felt very disorganized and out of a groove. Now we have better check-in structures… We’re much more attuned to the family schedule, we all review the week on Sunday.”
Q: In Womenomics you talk about the loss of status you first felt when you left the DC-NY power corridor. How has that changed over time?
A: “One thing I have learned about myself in the last year is that the most important status I confer myself is, at the end of the day, my performance as a mother and a wife. I feel as though I’m more often challenged now by ‘am I doing everything right as a mom?’ than when I was worried about “am I off the fast track as a professional?” for the decade I was out of Washington DC.
“If you are committed to trying to do it all, you have to let yourself off the hook. It’s easy to assume anything you’re not doing right in one sphere is because of devotion to the other sphere.” She noted, your son would still have that problem if you were home every afternoon!
Q: What quick tips do you have for making work and family work?A: “Try to live as close to the office as possible. I am three miles from desk to door. If you can’t live close, when you get that call someone has a fever make sure you have a relative or friend who can do emergency pick ups.
“I think having at least one colleague who is really aware of your commitments outside the office — who knows next Thursday is your son’s birthday — is very helpful. It’s helpful to have an outlet to be supported in your family responsibilities at work. At Harvard my assistant Monica — she’s really my partner in helping me balance. I think its ok to be explicit about your family commitments with your team — to say please make sure your note this day in my calendar for family.
“And, we have the Sunday night ritual of calendaring. Who has kung fu on what day? When are this week’s baseball games? My husband travels a lot so it’s important we all understand what the week looks ahead.
Finally, let yourself off the hook! Women are so inclined to let themselves beat themselves up… Rather than focus on the fact that you got to the pickup five minutes late, or to the office meeting 5 minutes late, focus on the fact that you got there.”
Working moms need maternity leave…and the right to breastfeed at work
A recent Good Morning America story was heartbreaking. As Ellen Galinsky notes in the piece “The issue for women these days is that they are increasingly important financial supporters of the family,” unemployment rates and pay cuts increase monthly, and that leads to great stress, and fear of taking leave.
A mom in the ABC piece says, “The longer I’m away from work, the more I’m worried they will realize, “hey we don’t realy need her.”
At the very least, women need to be able to breastfeed AT work! From MomsRising:
Tough economic times may be making it harder for women to breastfeed? Yes! According to a recent ABC news story, one of the fall-outs from the recession is that some new mothers are feeling forced to take shorter maternity leaves due to concerns about finances and job stability.1 Unfortunately, women who have to cut their maternity leave short often can’t continue to breastfeed their infants because many workplaces don’t adequately support breastfeeding.2 That’s a big problem when you consider that 56% of women with infants are now the in the labor force–we need common-sense workplace policies to make sure that moms who want to breastfeed can.3
Act now for nursing moms by urging your Member of Congress to support the Breastfeeding Promotion Act!
Too many women are unable to breastfeed for the 6 months recommended by doctors and experts. This is often due to the fact that many workplace structures make this nearly impossible.
Voice your support for the Breastfeeding Promotion Act today!
Nursing vs. extinguishing our demons…and butts
Barack Obama (who a Hillary supporting friend snarkily refers to as “Messiah”) smokes. Even though he’s “95% cured,” “there are times when I mess up,” he admitted in a press conference yesterday.
Oh, the smoking must drive Michelle crazy! And the girls! I can still remember being a little girl and crying because both my parents smoked and just could not seem to quit. I couldn’t imagine how hard it was- it was so far outside my ken. One of the biggest adjustments I’ve had to make as a grown up is accepting that I cannot change the bad habits of those I love. I can only support them as they try to change. Husband, father, even myself as I struggle to lose baby weight. How we balance our concern for ending the bad habits of those we love without being nags? The truth is, you never know what will happen. When my son was born, my mom told me “you’re now a hostage to love.” How true that was.
But every once in a while, you read something that makes you think, “Goddammit, why can’t x person take care of himself! Doesn’t he realize how lucky he is!” This article, from Asha Dornfest via the American Cancer Society’s More Birthdays blog, struck me. Asha writes about her childhood friend Mike, who battled lung cancer at 34:
Mike says that cancer has made possible a vitality and an immediacy that he never knew existed. Without cancer, he may have never had the motivation or courage — or even the inclination — to run a marathon, or climb Mt. Whitney, or hike to Machu Picchu. More importantly, the time he spends with his wife, Linda, and his son, Griffin, is a gift Mike never takes for granted.
How can you be technosexy? See More Mag
I love this term for its James Bondian cheesiness! But the concept is important:
MORE: You’ve written about being “technosexy.” What does that entail?
MA: When I wrote the column, I was thinking about a woman I know in her 60s. Technosexy is an attitude; it’s about embracing technology that can help you, not being scared of it. Being sexy is being confident, and the thing I liked about my friend, she’s not your typical Mac user. But she loves anything Mac, she has all of the latest gadgets. She’s really proficient with it, she can tell other people how to use it, and she totally defies stereotypes. It’s about making technology work for you. She’s a busy person, she’s not going to sit there all day on every social media—she’s going to focus on what works for her, where are her friends, what’s going to help her get done what she wants to do.
Thanks More Magazine for the homepage promo!
This blog post is enough to stop women from having kids
Samantha from TemporarilyMe.com writes a post — and her argument is not even as important as the miserable stress that her post conveys. Her argument is that being a work at home mom is not comparable to being a work out of the home mom; I’m not getting involved in this. Who cares as long as you’re earning money. But the details of her life make my blood pressure escalate and shows why many young women would be forgiven to not choosing to have children. A sample:
Working moms. I scoff at the Internet’s idea of a working mom. Sorry Internets, but I do.
I have been a working mom for the better part of three years; and by working I mean dragging my ass out of bed at 4:45am to get showered and dressed, waking my child(ren), getting breakfast going, dropping off at daycare and sitting in traffic ALL to get to the office by 7:30am.
I work through an eight and a half hour day of telephone calls, emails, meetings, reports, proposals, arguments, disagreements while someone with a higher authority, a boss, dictates my time.
After those eight and a half hours, I get in my car to sit in traffic, pick up my kids at daycare, get dinner going, oversee bath time, read stories and put my children to bed.
I see my children for a total of – at the MOST – three hours a day – and most of that time is spent doing chores like the cooking and bathing. I very rarely have the luxury of sitting down and actually interacting with them.
Let’s talk about being a REAL working mom shall we? Not this fluff about working from home because I’ve been there too. I’ve too worked from home, designing, freelance writing, and trying to manage my house at the same time. I was doing what I could to keep us afloat while home with my children.
There is no comparison. None. I don’t care how high up on the blogging ladder you are: working from home is not even in the same realm as being a Working Mother.
Is this what it is? Who is their right mind would sign up for this? If this is what being a working mother is like, why don’t we all just stick with pets?
President and Mrs. Obama, something’s gotta change here! Employers, something’s gotta change here.
Women and Work on the Juice
About Me
Morra Aarons-Mele utilizes social media strategies to help employers, employees and communities connect. She also consults with leading organizations on how women can use the internet for professional and personal development. In her spare time, Morra enjoys blogging about women and politics. Read her full bio >>
Recent Posts
- Jumping Back on the Ladder: Talking With Harvard’s Christine Heenan
- Working moms need maternity leave…and the right to breastfeed at work
- Nursing vs. extinguishing our demons…and butts
- How can you be technosexy? See More Mag
- This blog post is enough to stop women from having kids