Fear Means Go
I’m always encouraging my two year old to try new things…and he loves to say, “try try.” I don’t always take this advice myself. I have some social anxiety. But when I’m nervous about a big meeting or cocktail party I have to tackle on my own, I’ll harken back to this wonderful story from Ellen Galinsky.
“Fear Means Go” is the mantra of Ellen and her daughter, Lara Galinsky. It’s a way we can practice taking on challenges, an essential part of life whether you’re 2 or 40.
Cross-posted from the Harvard Business Review blog:
When Deb Dagit walked in to make her first presentation to the Merck Board of Directors, she knew what she was going to say. She was speaking to the Board about the importance of making a commitment to having a diverse workforce and to creating a workplace culture where differences among people are seen as a business advantage. One look at the serious faces of the members of the Board, though, began to erode her confidence. It wasn’t until Dr. Johnnetta Cole, then President of Spelman College and a member of Merck’s board, approached her that her confidence returned. Dagit says:
I had never met her before but she came over to me, gave me a hug, and said, “We are going to have a wonderful conversation.” All the time, I was talking to the Board, I just kept looking at her and I got through it.
Dagit, now the Chief Diversity Officer at Merck, told this story in the context of a business seminar I was conducting on how the skills that help children thrive (skills I identified in a review of the research for my book Mind in the Making) are the very same skills that help adults become more effective at work. The skill we were talking about was taking on challenges.Adults, like children, look to the faces of others in uncertain or new situations to assess the situation and to figure out how to proceed. This tendency has a name in the research literature–it’s called “social referencing,”
Anne Weisberg, Director in Talent at Deloitte and a speaker at the business seminar, makes the point we are increasingly faced with uncertain paths to navigate in our everyday jobs as our world changes at breakneck speed and as knowledge multiplies exponentially. She says that we are going to have to try new things if we are going to adapt and thrive. Here are some suggestions from the speakers at this business seminar on how they have learned to see making mistakes as a part of taking on challenges.
Childcare is part of a jobs agenda
Thanks to Care2′s Robin Marty for highlighting Senator Gillibrand’s recent comments in a live talk online with EMILY’s List (who is a client of mine). I’m so glad Gillibrand stressed this. Families pay huge child care costs with POSTTAX dollars, and yet the write off for child care is minimal. If mortgages were this tax disadvantageous there’d be protests.
“Childcare is part of a jobs agenda,” Gillibrand said in the live chat, hosted by the women’s political organization committed to supporting pro-choice candidates, voicing her frustration at a expense that has become a significant burden to numerous families with both parents in the workforce.
As a result of the rising cost of childcare, Gillibrand is proposing legislation that will help to reduce the ballooning cost of care. “In this difficult economy, parents cannot afford the rising cost of child care. Families’ incomes are just not keeping pace,” Senator Gillibrand said. “I speak with parents all over New York State, who tell me that something must be done. In addition to making child care more affordable for parents who work and go to school, my plan will provide special assistance to businesses that help their employees with the tremendous costs.”
Gillibrand’s proposal includes increasing the Dependent and Child Care tax credit to $6000, giving larger tax breaks to businesses that offer on site child care services, getting more workers into the child care industry and encouraging businesses to allow more telecommuting — a proposal that wouldn’t just cut the amount of money needed to be spent on childcare, but would also reduce road congestion, fuel consumption, and business expenditures for keeping employees in an office.
Patriarchy at Work
Really interesting new study from the University of Arizona:
It seems reducing hierarchy in the workplace increases diversity in leadership:
“The introduction of self-directed work teams was associated with a decline in the probability of white male managers by 8% and an increase in the odds of white female managers by 9%, as well as an increase of black female managers by 3.5% and of black male managers by 5%.”
Chief Cook and Bottle Washer
My mother, who grew up in the Midwest in the 1950’s, can do anything with her hands. She can sew, cook, fix plumbing, and diagnose an electrical problem. She can garden, compost, paint, and decorate. She taught me how to drive and she could parallel park the Titanic. Like most women of her generation, she knew how to practice a true home economy: running the family, house and all its accompanying demands on budget and efficiently. This seems a lost art.
My mom was a highly educated educator but she stayed home to raise us. She and my dad had a deal: she was “the inside man” in our family growing up. My father was the “outside man” and he earned a good living for us all. He couldn’t do it today, not on what he earned. But earn it he did and we had a nice life. Until she and my dad divorced, and my mom went back to work, and the home economy became cereal for dinner and a messy house. There’s a lesson in that.
I, on the other hand, can do almost nothing manual (I am a pretty good cook). I’m grateful to have the education and skills to earn a decent living, and so that’s what I do.
The website Primary Dilemma offers a way at looking at working mother “methods.” Founder Lynn Hall identifies five types of working mom methods- methods, I think, are the way we balance responsibilities at home and work. Although I like to defy typology, I suppose I fit into “equalizer”- equally engaged in work and parenting. This is a label I’ll proudly wear.
However, the downside of being an equalizer is that everything besides parenting and working becomes a nagging problem to be solved. And because I spend all the time I’m not earning a living trying to parent and be a wife, I outsource everything domestic I possibly can.
Recently, to help move house, I hired a woman I found on Craig’s List to help pack boxes. I figured paying her to pack so I could work made economic sense. But Barbara helped shift my thinking about how I invest my time. Barbara writes a blog called“The Chief Cook and Bottle Washer,” an old saying I’ve become fond of. Barbara explained her typical week to me: as the stay at home mother of three she’d planned meals carefully, assembled a shopping list, and on Tuesdays, had leftover night, in which the fridge was cleaned out and dinner was whatever was left. Nothing was wasted and convenience food was minimized.
This approach impressed and frankly stunned me. My approach to cooking has become as unbalanced as my work days (constant checking of email when I’m supposed to be with the kids, and vice versa): we’d either scrounge around for cereal or whatever is in the fridge, or I’d spend way too much at Whole Foods on an elaborate, organic spree, and feel guilt after. There was no sense of purpose or sense.
I need to save money and regain pride in my domestic role. I know that as a professional working mother I’m supposed to outsource as much as possible to retain time for parenting, but I think this approach leaves us alienated from our home environment, and possibly, even more broke than we already are after paying for childcare.
The lost art of home economy gets confused with craft and decorating “porn.” Home economy is not about buying expensive materials to create elaborate crafts, and it’s not about cooking exotically or keeping the perfect home. It’s not about Martha Stewart Living and the plentiful, aspirational approach to domestic consumption. It’s about practical consumption.
There’s been much written, mostly aimed at men, along the Shop Class for the Soul bent. Books and articles ask men to return to the soulful craft of making things with one’s hands. “Artisanal” and “locavore” have become clichés. But what’s a working mother who wants to simply manage her costs, not become Pioneer Woman or start another urban farm?
It’s been a big discussion and challenge among my friends: how to be more mindful when it comes to household consumption. Here is my small start.
Simply, stick to a monthly household food budget. I’m starting with grocery shopping and I’m reclaiming my wifely role as ‘chief cook and bottle washer.” Each week, I have a shopping list and a shopping budget. I’m buying less convenience food and packaged kids food, which is incredibly expensive. I’m trying to buy organic, but only what’s on special.
I’m trying, like Barbara, to plan meals ahead, and only buy what I need. It’s a powerful shift in thinking and it’s a lot of work.
Domestic economy is more work than working.
Flex in Real Life
Love this post from Families and Work Institute’s Lois Backon: hits the perfect note re: “Flex isn’t just for moms.”
At this new crossroads of my life, I find myself reflective, and grateful that I work for the organization that I do. I have always been the queen of flexibility.
I needed it: my husband always traveled, and I was essentially a single parent Monday through Friday. I used it: worked compressed workweeks, part time schedules, had daily flex leave for school conferences, paused my career, reentered the workforce. I valued it: I am one of the 87% of people who consider having flexibility to be extremely important when (if) looking for a new job. And I believe that having that flexibility allowed me to be a good parent and a good worker, while always aspiring to positions of more responsibility.
Confession 1: I thought that when I was at this point in my life, I would not need workplace flexibility anymore.
Confession 2: I need it more than ever. Why? Because I have learned, after being in the workforce for 30 years, that in order for me to the best worker, and reach my highest potential and productivity, I need to be whole in my life.
On a personal note, in order for me to be whole in my life, I need, and want to continue to be there for my daughters. I want to be able to move my older daughter into her first apartment, and go to Home Depot and Target, and construct the do-it-yourself furniture. I want to be able to take my younger daughter out to lunch in NYC this summer and hear all about her first corporate work experience. I want to visit my daughters during the year, (both of them are a 3 hour flight away) and be able to leave on a Thursday night, work remotely on Friday, and not have to jam a visit into a 48-hour weekend, because I am confined by the traditional work schedule of being in the office till 5:00 on a Friday and back in the office at 9:00 on Monday.
Is this selfish? Maybe. Who benefits? Definitely me, but I would also argue that my employer benefits just as much. I am loyal (been here 12 years!) and hard working; I’ve never missed a deliverable, and have supported my co-workers when they have needed to take time off for their personal lives. So, I am one of the lucky ones; I have had access to flexibility without jeopardy to my career or advancement.
As I travel around the country for the When Work Works initiative, and speak to different audiences, a key message I deliver is that workplace flexibility must work for the employer first, and then the employee. I am forever learning that workplace flexibility is needed and wanted by individuals for so many different reasons, and organizations are creating so many innovative solutions to this need, that yield positive business results .
So, I ask readers to share- What stage of life are you in? Do you need workplace flexibility? What types of flexibility would best fit your needs at this stage in your life? How would workplace flexibility help make you whole? And, are you one of the lucky ones? Do you have flexibility in your organization?
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 >>
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