Tag Archive for: working moms

Wanda Woo: Partner, Capital Markets, Shearman & Sterling LLC (Hong Kong)

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Wanda Woo(Spotlight on Asia) “If you have the right skills and are prepared, don’t be afraid when the opportunity comes to you. No one can tell you it’s not possible,” says Wanda Woo on being both a Shearman & Sterling partner and mother of three children.

Defining Her Own Growth Curve

Woo entered capital markets as a paralegal in 2004 after attaining a double degree in English literature and economics from the University of British Columbia. She planned to go the U.S. for her JD, but her trajectory was redirected after her father’s heart attack compelled a return to Hong Kong. Working as a paralegal with Linklaters in Hong Kong while studying undergraduate law via the University of London was not easy but her mentor at that time taught her to never underestimate herself.

“I made it, and it was painful, but I feel very proud of that process in the end,” says Woo. “I saw early on what I was capable of.”

Woo went onto join Shearman & Sterling for eight years as an associate, during which she had three children, and then after leaving for four years, she decided to rejoin the firm.

“It was destiny to have the opportunity to rejoin Shearman & Sterling as a capital markets partner. The timing couldn’t be better. The firm has really been the only place that has truly been very important for me throughout my career path. It’s like coming back home.”

Being a Mom of Three And a Partner

Woo confesses that she thought of resigning from Big Law after her first child, worried she would not be able to meet the travel and work demands, but instead the partner she worked for at the time encouraged her to instead take flexible arrangements.

“I’ve always found Shearman & Sterling to be very gender-equal, where male partners are working well with female partners, and very supportive. I couldn’t imagine another place that would have supported me so much when I was working in such an intensive field with three children.”

“It can be challenging, but I wouldn’t personally be a better mom if I was around 24/7,” says Woo of the multiple roles she balances.

She adds the importance of loving what you do, especially if you are carving your own possibilities: “If you have the passion for the work, there’s always a way. Pick the right field, pick the right industry, pick the right job that you have passion for.”

Doing The Work that Fulfills


“I always have felt like I belong to this industry,” says Woo. “You are always meeting new people or working on new deals or learning different business models. I really like transaction work because it’s a people business at the same time. That ability to contribute is what keeps me going – the work of helping corporate entities get listed and then being able to continue that relationship onwards.”

Woo feels most fulfilled by the companies she has helped bring to IPO status, to become publicly traded companies, and the amazing colleagues and clients she’s had a chance to work with over the past 17 years.

“For better or worse, I always say I am a bit obsessive-compulsive. I’m very motivated to finish the work, be on top of it, and respond quickly to inquiries or client requests,” says Woo. “Partially, I want to be able to return home to my kids. So, this obsessive quality has also helped me be efficient as a partner while also being a mother.”

Woo is especially good at handling conflict between stakeholders while also advising her clients through transactions legally – a skill of calmness that she picked up from watching partners that inspired her.

With three kids growing up to inherit this world, making a positive impact through ESG is important to her. “How to make an impact, give back to the environment and contribute to society is something I’m learning more about and sharing more about, beyond the notions of making money or having year-on-year growth.”

“In transactional capital markets law, the issuers may not know that ESG is something that will help them in the long run. But when we bring the ESG frame, along with the regulators, to these companies, they start to realize the impact they can make to society through these measures and policies,” notes Woo. “This is something to start earlier rather than later, so it becomes a part of your corporate culture, and is inviting to other stakeholders.”

Networking, Authentically

Since becoming a partner, Woo has moved from being more execution-focused to developing and stewarding client relationships. Having once pushed herself out of her comfort zone to seek partnership has helped her to push herself yet again.

“As a partner, people will ask you questions 24/7 and you have to be responsive. But the bigger growth area is to compel people to come back to you for more work and to assure them that you have them in your mind and heart as a client so you build that long-term relationship.”

“Now that I’ve been a partner for several years, I’ve realized networking is not really about wining and dining,” observes Woo. “It’s really about being authentic, reliable and trustworthy. I’ve always had these qualities I feel, but I had to learn to show people.”

Being Inspired and Inspiring Yourself

Woo has been most inspired by the lawyers before her that demonstrated integrity: “Being a good lawyer is never enough. They showed me what it means to be truly respectable and professional in all acts. They were doing the marketing work and actively engaging in the real work. It was never just about getting deals. The common quality in the figures I’ve aspired to is that they are still immersed and involved.”

Woo urges junior lawyers to not get too caught up on monetary rewards for early career efforts but to frame it as an investment in yourself as a lawyer.

“You’re not just getting paid for the job that you are doing. You are also getting paid for the experience that you’re earning,” says Woo. “The more you earn the better. You’ll be prepared for the next step. When I was a paralegal, I treated myself as an associate. When I was working as an associate, I treated myself as a senior. I went the extra mile, put in two hundred percent, so the partners could see what I could really do, and then they would give me more opportunities. Not everything you’re doing can be measured in monetary value.”

Recently back from a 2.5 month trip to China to check in with the clients and teams in Shanghai and Beijing offices, Woo values time with her parents, her partner and her children, who are now 9, 7 and 6 years old.

Woo prides herself on taking challenging situations and turning them towards her favor – and ranks being both a mother of three and Shearman capital markets partner high among those accomplishments.

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Marcella Sivilotti: Chief Strategy Officer, PGIM

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Marcella Sivilotti“Somewhere along the way of observing women progress in their careers, I realized that no one ever got very far if they cared too much about: What do others think? How did I come across? Was I likeable? And so on,” says Marcella Sivilotti. “You get to a certain place because you channeled that energy not on worrying about whether people like you or your answer, but on asking how do I get the job at hand done?”

Structuring Strategic Issues

Having studied industrial engineering in Rome, Marcella mastered the ability to approach any practical problem–including business problems–with an analytical lens: How do you maximize profit? What is the shortest path? The ability to streamline problems and structure solutions led her to management consulting with McKinsey. She transferred to the US with the firm to obtain an MBA from Columbia. What began as a two-year stint has led to almost 15 years in the US, and a career and family now firmly established in New York.

In 2014, ready to shift from consulting to working to implement change within companies, Marcella joined PGIM, the $1.2 trillion asset management arm of Prudential Financial. Now she leads a small but high-impact team who advises senior management on the strategic direction and priorities of the business, that also strongly factor in the human element of every equation.

“As an advisor, you look at the data and the range of strategic options. But, there’s also: Where is this person coming from as they assess this decision? What makes them click? What are their concerns, spoken or unspoken?” she says. “So there’s a lot of psychology involved when you’re on the other side.”

Marcella is animated by the constant variety her role offers: “I’ve been at the company for over eight years, and every day there’s some new aspect of the business I have not looked into and a new problem to solve.” She loves applying the same analytic framework to new kinds of problems – identifying the variables, finding possible solutions and assessing the best path forward in partnership with the senior business leaders she advises.

Coming from consulting, Marcella has been inspired to find that the PGIM culture is not about making the decision that is going to look good in front of your boss, but rather about managing the business with a long-term mindset. She points out that investment management is all about generating returns in a very measurable way. And it’s exactly that accountability that necessitates honest discussions and a willingness to engage in fruitful debate and open exchanges of ideas and views with passion and respect, which she loves. She enjoys working with smart and motivated people and says, “People here care about doing the right thing by the business.”

Giving and Receiving the Feedback We Need to Grow

Marcella is animated by leading and shaping a team. She enjoys the human element of influencing behavior: “It’s less about what looks good in a PowerPoint deck and more about how to make things happen in the complex, messy real world. Importantly, that requires establishing trust, and modulating between ‘when do I need to be nice and accommodating?’ versus ‘when do I need to give the gift of direct and honest feedback?’”

Marcella seeks to strike that delicate balance both in leading her team and in her advising role. In leading a team: “There is a balance between creating a caring and ‘fail safe’ team environment (where it’s okay not to be perfect and bring what you’re good at and what you’re not good and it’s understood that everybody has both aspects) and also having a focus on giving clear feedback,” she discerns. “Everybody loves to be told they are great, but that’s not always conducive to growth. So how do you make sure people get the tough message when it’s warranted, without it coming across as failure but rather as an opportunity and source of growth?”

In her advisory role: “When I advise people, if I just tell them what they want to be told, I am useless. Because that’s not good advice,” she notes.

She herself has learned to better embrace both giving and receiving tough feedback and position it not as a deficit but as a developmental edge.

Take Your Attention Away from What Others Think

At the core of her own success is two things. The first is being a logical and structured thinker–always beginning with ‘what do we know’ and ‘what do we not know?’ The second is being able to relate to people, to read them and also not shy away from being candid as a leader.

When it comes to fulfilling potential, Marcella points out that if you listen to the stories of either men or women in leadership, they stopped preoccupying themselves with what other people were thinking or how they came across, and instead liberated themselves to focus on how to achieve their visions. And if there’s one thing she could have known sooner, it would be that.

She also picked up the value of conviction and resilience. “If you’re told ‘no’ once, just have another go. No one ever got far because they got pessimistic the first time they failed. As the saying goes, it’s about how many times you get back up.”

From university onwards, Marcella has been used to being the one, or one of the few, women in the room. Against that backdrop, she has focused on what she wants to achieve, avoided getting caught up in the politics, and shown up as candid and outspoken with conscious disregard for whatever societal expectations may be at play.

Passion is Showing Up and Growing

As a leader, Marcella hopes to infuse her team with a good measure of passion, involvement and caring about the outcomes they create together.

“You hear lately about ‘quiet quitting’ and how people come to work because they want to get a paycheck, but they’re tuned out. I can’t imagine that, because if that ever happened to me, I’d rather just quit,” she says. “When it comes to solving problems, I like the fact that I do feel a measure of responsibility for the outcome and the quality of work we put in. I’m lucky to have been able to build and be supported by a team that shares that same spirit.”

The other thing she likes to convey to her team is to not be too serious and to always keep some perspective around the work. In supporting a growth culture, Marcella feels it’s so important that people realize that it is okay to fail.

“There is that saying, ‘you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.’ If the aim is to be perfect and never make the wrong decision, by definition there’s an element of faking or over-conservatism,” she says, “because just to ensure you don’t ever make the wrong move, you’re never going to make a move. But investment professionals make decisions for a living and no one will ever be right 100% of the time. That comes with the job.”

Being A Mom Has Only Added to Her Game

In the past three years, Marcella has become a mom and feels bringing up her two kids has strengthened her leadership.

“Becoming a parent makes you so resilient. It’s a great exercise in messing up 50 times a day. Before having children, I may have ruminated on how a meeting didn’t go well,” she says. “Now, I can put it in the context of the 50 others ways I was challenged today. I don’t have time to get stuck on it.”

It has also made her more efficient and laser-focused on the most important aspects of any problem, because she still wants to achieve everything with high quality, but must make it happen in more limited hours. She feels the direct and challenging experience of balancing personal and work life as a parent has also given her more compassion and empathy for others.

“You realize that everybody may have something they’re trying to cope with – whether it’s parenting, caring for someone who is unwell, or a breakup,” she says. “So it’s about being more attuned. I may not know what it is you are dealing with, but I’m going to be empathetic and an ally.”

Time and again, the human element weighs strongly in the equation.

By Aimee Hansen

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Op-ED: How to Navigate Your Career as a Working Mother in Technology

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Working Mother In TechnologyNavigating one’s career as a working mother in technology is akin to holding a porcupine, while jumping through a ring of fire, and trying to put mascara on at the same time. It can be uncomfortable, it can make you feel hot, and we try to look our best while doing it all. In fact, our survey of over 300 mothers worldwide, published in our book Pressing ON As A Tech Mom: How Tech Industry Mothers Set Goals, Define Boundaries And Raise the Bar for Success, revealed that 34 percent felt that working in such a hectic, high-speed environment was incredibly tough and sometimes downright impossible. Being a woman in tech is challenging, but being a mother makes it even more so challenging.


With just 27 percent of female representation in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) industries, women are underrepresented. Mothers who remain in these fields are even fewer, with 43 percent of women leaving full-time STEM employment after their first child (PNAS). Since women in tech studies report that $12 trillion could be added to global GDP by 2025 with a more gender-diverse workforce, where balanced contributions can lead to the creation of workplaces in which “employees feel safe to innovate, knowing that their unique experiences and contributions are valued” (JAB), there are compelling reasons for change.

As mothers in tech, what can we do to overcome the obstacles, and rise above to thrive in our careers, rather than only survive?

Here are three key steps to navigating motherhood and their STEM careers:
  • Squash Imposter Syndrome – When we believe that we are unworthy of the role that we are in or feel that we lack the skills to be successful, we often feel like imposters. According to Forbes, 75 percent of professional women report experiencing this unsavory feeling. When these thoughts and ideas enter our minds, we need to invoke a strategy to dismiss that negative feedback loop. Instead of telling yourself “I don’t know what I’m doing,” leverage positive self-talk and think about the skills that you are bringing to a role or situation. If you are a leader, be mindful about providing positive reinforcement for a job well done and enable an emotionally safe space where giving and receiving feedback is welcome.

 

  • Find A Mentor And A Sponsor – Mentorship and sponsorship are one of the most important ways to enable a woman to rise. Yet in our survey for our book, we found that just 41 percent of women ever had the benefit of these champion roles boosting their careers. Understanding the difference between the two is one place to start: A mentor is someone with whom you can brainstorm ideas based on shared values. A sponsor is someone who can influence decisions about your career and/or compensation. Note that your sponsor and mentor can be male or female so long as they are your true advocate, in tune with your accomplishments and career goals. A second step to take is to seek these crucial advocacy roles out by simply asking mentor and sponsor candidates. Most people are willing to help, which leads us to our third tip:

 

  • Lift Up Other Women – Live by the “golden rule” – treating other mothers in tech the way that you want to be treated. In past decades, women like my mom recount stories of women mistreating one another in favor of their own advancement (“To climb the corporate ladder, I needed to beat out the other women who were vying for the same limited roles.”).  While competition can be healthy, mindfully supporting one another is most important to nurture a balanced workplace where women can rise, and thrive, together. Lend a helping hand to a mother reintegrating into the workplace after parental leave. Invite another woman to join an important meeting as part of a career development initiative. Oblige when asked to serve as a sponsor and/or mentor for others.

By being confident, seeking out allyship, and practicing benevolence, mothers in technology have a greater chance of breaking down barriers and invoking change. With more mothers staying in technology, a more inclusive environment will emerge that sets the precedent for future generations. So, while the day-to-day routine of a working mom may feel like a circus act, continue to show up. Persist. Persevere. Your efforts are part of our movement to change the future for our daughters and their allies.

Other resources to nurture and inspire your journey that we often use include:
  • How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from Your Next Raise, Promotion, Or Job. In their book, Marshall Goldsmith and Sally Helgesen identify twelve habits that women typically have that limit their ability to grow professionally and ways to change those behaviors.
  • The Adventures of Women in Technology: How We Got Here And Why We Stay, by Alana Karen. Alana is Senior Software Engineer at Google, where she’s worked for over a decade. She has seen it all and remains loyal to her craft. Learn how she does it, and more importantly, why she is still in tech.
  • Nevertheless, She Persisted: True Stories of Women Leaders in Tech. This book by Pratima Rao Gluckman recounts the stories of hundreds of women leaders who faced adversity and hardship in their tech careers, yet managed to find success.

About:
Sabina M. Pons is a management consultant whose focus is on driving revenue protection and growth for technology companies. In her 20+ year career, she has led global corporate teams, managed multi-million-dollar P&Ls, and built teams from the ground up. Now, she serves as the Managing Director of the emerging management consulting company, Growth Molecules.

With a master’s degree in Communication, Leadership & Organizational Behavior from Gonzaga University and a bachelor’s degree in Communications from the University of Southern California, Sabina is passionate about igniting corporate transformational change. She also sits on several boards, participates in many mentorship programs, and recently obtained a First-Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo. Sabina resides in Orange County in Southern California with her husband, two young children, and Goldendoodle dog, Riley. Pressing ON as a Tech Mom: How Tech Industry Mothers Set Goals, Define Boundaries & Raise the Bar for Success is Sabina’s first book.

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Op-Ed: Back to School Strategies for Working Parents As School Resumes

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Daisy DowlingBeyond the kids’ health and safety, nothing is as important to you as their education.  Here’s what to know and do as they head back to school this (unusual) fall.

But if you’re busy adapting to the pandemic “next normal” – and simultaneously concerned that your five-year-old will have a difficult time adjusting to the school routine, that your eight-year-old will need help with her science homework, and that those standardized tests are looming, too, it puts you in a real bind.

With some special working parent tactics and approaches, however, you’ll be better able to handle all of those details and logistics while focusing on the piece that really matters: your child’s overall academic development and long-term success in school. Where to start in terms of handling the current working-parent “school challenge”? By taking charge in three educational areas that can be the most challenging for you as a working mom or dad.

Homework

Homework can all too often morph into an overwhelming, time-consuming exercise that ends past bedtime, in power struggles and tears. What should be a simple algebra worksheet can leave you feeling torn: of course you want your child to succeed academically, practice resilience, and feel comfortable tackling new challenges—but when you’ve got so little time to spend together each evening, the last thing you want to do is spend it carping at your child to finish her assignment, or checking it for errors. So:

  • Figure out an organizational system that works. Review your calendars together at the start of the week so that you and your child both know what’s coming as far as homework, quizzes, and tests; set up special baskets to hold uncompleted assignments and library books to be returned; and have your child lead “backpack check” each evening. Make it age-appropriate, but do find your system.
  • Emphasize that homework is your child’s, rather than a family, responsibility. Even if you plan to review your son’s Spanish conjugations, let him know that you’re there to help when he’s truly stuck, not to remind, nag, proofread, or otherwise serve as unpaid labor. As he grows, help him think ahead about bigger projects. As the science fair approaches, for example, ask “what’s your plan?” for making the papier-mâché volcano rather than leading the project yourself.
  • Hold a family study hall each evening. The kids do their homework, while you catch up on office emails or reading. Pick a reasonable length of time—ten minutes for a young child, ninety for a teenager, for example—and set a timer on your phone to go off when time’s up. When it does, the whole family gets to enjoy downtime or a relaxing activity like watching a favorite TV program together.
After-school activities—and ways to think about them

After-school activities can supplement your child’s education in wonderful ways, help you “stretch” care arrangements, and bring an element of fun into the relentless homework-and-testing cycle of modern education.

Taken too far, however, after-school activities can put terrible pressure on any working-parent family. Here’s how to keep perspective, ensure that extracurricular activities remain a positive, and make the choices that are right for you.

  • Avoid using activities to plug an emotional hole. It can be easy, if you feel guilty about working long hours, to “compensate” by stretching to pay for expensive ballet lessons or by spending all weekend, every weekend, focused on your child’s chess tournaments. And you may try to convince yourself that success on the stage or playing field now will make your child’s later life much easier. But overpaying, overscheduling, and overextending will only make working parenthood harder, and very likely reduce the benefits those same activities are supposed to bring.
  • Stay neutral and balanced. For each potential extracurricular activity, carefully consider its pluses and minuses. If it helps your child academically or socially and doesn’t require huge expense or time investment, great. If it makes scheduling and logistics easier, even better. But beware activities that leave you feeling like you’ve got yet another job to do.
  • Go slow. For driven professionals, it can be tempting to cram in as many extracurricular activities as possible, and do each one to the max. But your child doesn’t have an adult’s focus, energy, or drive, and her livelihood doesn’t depend on her performance on this field just yet. Set reasonable limits—e.g., one after-school activity per week or one sport per season—and let your kid say no if she wants to. Remind yourself that you can always sign up next semester, or as she grows and her interests change.
Volunteering—and how to do it efficiently

It’s unlikely you can make it to every school performance, library fundraiser, and field trip, even if you wanted to. So here’s what you can do instead. In the first week of school, tell your child’s teachers and/or the school’s volunteer coordinators that you’re eager to put in your fair share of sweat equity—but that you will be doing it all in one go. You’ll schedule a personal or vacation day well in advance and use it entirely for school volunteerism.

Maybe you’ll be the “reading helper” in your daughter’s class in the morning, walk the school’s neighborhood safety patrol in the afternoon, and take the minutes during the school fundraising-committee meeting at 5:00 p.m. When the day is over, you’ll enjoy knowing that your yearly contribution has been made in full—and efficiently. That “I’m not doing enough” guilt will go away, and you’ll be able to focus back on family and career.

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Copyright line: Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review Press. Adapted from Workparent: The Complete Guide to Succeeding on the Job, Staying True to Yourself, and Raising Happy Kids by Daisy Dowling. Copyright 2021 Daisy Dowling. All rights reserved.

Daisy Dowling is the author of Workparent: The Complete Guide to Succeeding on the Job, Staying True to Yourself, and Raising Happy Kids (HBR Press, 2021). She is the founder and CEO of Workparent, an executive coaching, and training firm dedicated to helping working parents lead more successful and satisfying lives. She is a full-time working parent to two young children.

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OP-Ed: 9 Ways Working Moms Can Successfully Work From Home with Their Children Present

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working momsWith the pandemic (hopefully) coming to an end and corporations getting back to business as usual, many U.S. workers (including working moms) aren’t quite sure they want to head back to the office in person, at least not full-time. Instead, some experts predict a Great Resignation is on the horizon, with many U.S. employees indicating they’d rather quit their jobs than go back to in-person office life as they knew it pre-COVID-19.

If you’re a working parent considering making your home your new permanent workplace, you’re bound to have some moments when your work and home life intersect. While it’s ideal to have your kids in child care or to have someone present and watching your kids while you work, sick days and school holidays will likely mean you’ll need to simultaneously juggle caring for your kids and caring for your work obligations at least some of the time this coming year. Here’s how to handle working from home with your kids present long or short term.

1.     Set Expectations. First, set expectations with your kids about the day’s activities and what you are doing and why. Ask them for what you need and explain the boundaries.

2.     Distract Wisely. Give them age-appropriate distractions; it can be helpful to only allow screen time at these moments to keep their attention longer. Have a reward system in place to reinforce good behavior.

3.     Plan Ahead. Try to set up calls on days or times your kids aren’t there or during normal nap times. Perhaps arrange for grandma or grandpa to stop by right before your call and read a favorite book to your child. Or ensure your calls are with another understanding parent if your kids are present. If you expect your kids to interrupt you, proactively let the person on the phone know in advance that it may happen, and explain the situation and how you’ll handle it.

Concentrate on your highest priority work to-dos and those that require the most intense level of attention first. Start your day before your children wake up. This valuable time will be free of interruptions and will have your full attention. If you only have time to work on a few things, make sure they’re the ones you really care about or that really need to get done.

4.     Get Active Early. Depending on your schedule, play with your kids early in the day. Kids hate waiting, especially for our attention. Instead of making them more and more frustrated as you make just 1 more conference call, give them the attention they need at the start of the day and get them moving with fresh air and exercise, if possible, early on. Take a walk outside with your kids first thing in the morning when you wake up. When you finally do need to sit down and hammer out a few tasks, they won’t be so antsy, and you’ll be able to fully concentrate.

5.     Think Outside the Box. Consider an alternative schedule, especially if you have a partner who is also working from home. Mom may take the 6:00 am to 2:00 pm shift with the kids, then “go to work” in her home office, and dad works 2:00 to 8:00 pm. Or divide up the day. Think about working in 2-hour shifts, switching off with your partner or another caregiver.

6.     Consider Your Space. Designate areas of your home for specific tasks, and create visual cues that let your kids know you’re off-limits while you’re in those spaces. Your garage, the basement, a bedroom — these can all serve as work areas. When you physically separate from your kids and take yourself out of their line of vision, you’re less distracted, and your kids are less confused about your accessibility. As the saying goes, “out of sight, out of mind.” A red stop sign or a cutout of a hand on your office door is a clear indicator even to young children that work is in session and reinforces that you’re not available at the moment.

7.     Create Structure. Set your kids up for success during important meetings by creating structure. For preschool and elementary children, set up interesting activity centers in their playroom with model clay, craft paper and markers, or books they can interact with while you’re away for a short time. For older children, make a list of 10 activities they can do when they feel bored and put it on the refrigerator as a reminder for the times you’re off-limits. Use times you’re completely off-limits to have them dedicate effort to traditional schoolwork or online learning.

8.   Feed the Beast. Plan ahead for food needs. Cut up fruits and vegetables in advance and put them into containers labeled “Meeting Snacks.” Make mini quesadillas with protein and veggies, cut them into triangles, and set them out right before your meeting starts. For older kids, set out ingredients for sandwiches or salad before you head into a session with a client or coworker so it’s easy for them to put together a snack while you’re away.

9.     Be Honest. Be transparent with your business partners about the fact your kids are in the home with you. The more honest we are about how our home and work lives intersect, the more we normalize that experience for others, and, ultimately, push employers toward considering our whole-person needs as they create policies and culture.

Above all, give yourself grace. Accept that when you’re trying to do two jobs simultaneously, you’re bound to sometimes be less than perfect at both of them. Take breaks with and without your kids. Definitely don’t add even more to your proverbial plate — the errands, the vacuuming, that toothpaste you still need to buy — it can all wait. And, remember, if you eventually find yourself longing for a little more separation between your work and home life, that’s okay, too.

Whitney Casares, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.A.P., is the author of The Working Mom Blueprint: Winning at Parenting Without Losing Yourself. She is the Founder and CEO of Modern Mommy Doc and host of The Modern Mommy Doc Podcast.

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Remote Working Hacks: From And For Executive Moms

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When interviewing female executives for her first book, Pulitzer-winning career columnist for The Wall Street Journal, Joann Lublin, became intrigued by the strong representation of executive moms.

“I was surprised to observe that more than 80 percent of the women, irrespective of where they had landed in their jobs, had kids,” she recalls. “And when I looked at those who had become public company CEOs, the percentage was even higher.”

With a career focus on leadership and executive women, Lublin interviewed 86 prominent executive mothers for her recent book, Power Moms: How Executive Mothers Navigate Work and Life, to gain insight into juggling both managerial roles and families.

We spoke with her to glean insightful hacks from successful executives for managing the remote workplace, as it exists in 2021.

Not the Remote Office We Anticipated

While remote work is part of the solution towards gender equality, forced remote working in the COVID-19 context has been a curveball of mixed gendered impacts.

“I don’t think any working mother in America expected that the multiple roles that we were already playing—the first shift, the second shift, and what I call “the third shift,” the mental load—would all be exacerbated by the fact that now the kids would be stuck at home,” says Lublin, “and because we have gendered role expectations, mom would be seen as the primary teacher, caregiver, parent and all of the above.”

Lublin points out that mothers with children under 12 were nearly three times as likely as fathers to have left their jobs between February and August of 2020. As of November, research by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis reported that when it came to parents with children under five, “while nearly all fathers returned to the labor force, mothers regained virtually none of their lost ground”.

“The solutions have to be both personal and societal. On one hand, women have to stand up and insist that parenting is not a solo art. To the extent there are two parents in the home and they’re both working, this has to be a co-parenting arrangement,” says Lublin. “By the same token, they need to speak up and make their needs known to their employers, who in turn not only must trust their employees to get the work done while showing maximum flexibility, but also need to be checking in frequently with their employees.”

Here are six hacks for managing the 2021 remote working office:

 

Set Your Availability

Whether company or individual-driven, Lublin observes the trend and importance of setting hours when you are unreachable.

One Gen-X executive, who has been working remote for years, agreed 7-11 am as her protected hours with her company, reserved for her yoga, exercise and morning routine with her children.

This executive also began scheduling outside interruptions to her day (eg. home maintenance) only during the fringe hours when she would normally be on her commute.

Coordinate Your Co-Parenting

One executive and her husband were each starting their own companies, now both at home with their four and six year old children.

“They initially winged it. It all happened pretty suddenly and you think, we’ll just sort of take one day at a time,” says Lublin. “That was not working.”

The solution the two former Nike executives turned entrepreneurs found for successful co-parenting was to create a  spreadsheet each Sunday night, where they blocked off work engagements and agreed three-hour shifts of rotating parenting responsibilities for the week. While they also learned to allow for flexibility within a plan, this helped them to both dedicate time to family and their work endeavors.

Another way to manage the overall household, says Lublin, is to involve older children. One executive rewarded her teenage daughter for supporting her six year old in doing her schoolwork from home.

Embrace “Work-Life Sway”

Lublin addressed the elusive idea that is “work-life balance” in a chapter called “Manager Moms are not Acrobats” in her first book, Earning It: Hard-Won Lessons from Trailblazing Women at the Top of the Business World.

“That quote came from an executive who strongly believed that this idea of work-life balance was an impossible ideal,” recalls Lublin, “that we could no more achieve work-life balance than we could stand on one leg for that wonderful yoga pose for 24/7.”

Early in her recent research, she came across work-life sway, an approach which encourages ebb and flow between life and work, immersing in whichever you are in right now.

“The idea of work-life sway is that when we have to be a 110% in the moment for work, we will give our all and then some,” says Lublin. “But if life invades or intrudes, if the water heater overflows or the toddler comes running and dumps the contents of her diaper on your lap, you won’t get flustered or totally fall apart or give yourself a guilt trip. You will sway to being present in the other part of your life. The whole concept here is to go with the flow.”

She cites an executive who left her office immediately when she received a video from her nanny of her daughter taking her first steps, and was then home in time to witness the second and third steps.

Release The Guilt

Lublin notes that Melanie Healy, now a Board Member, Investor and Strategic Advisor to many organizations, not only inspired the chapter title mentioned above, but also encouraged her to focus on ditching working mother guilt as “a complete and fruitless waste of our energy.”

If you sit down to eat dinner at 7pm with your children because the day was full until then, as an example, then celebrate that you’re sitting together for dinner rather than guilt yourself about the time.

Unlike many boomer moms, Healy did not hide the personal importance of her work, and instead involved her children in work decisions. She would share with them why a work trip was important to her as much as why their school and extracurricular events were important to her.

Another executive mother with young kids gave her children the power to invoke family time in the evening on demand.

Take Self-Care Time

“The book points out is that self-care is not selfish care,” says Lublin. “If we don’t take care of ourselves, we’re going to burn out.”

From taking two hours to herself on a Sunday when the other parent has the kids to taking a sabbatical, executives found time for personal regeneration to prove essential, even when they resisted doing it.

After a sabbatical, one executive mother decided no longer to be CEO of her company, and instead became Chief Visionary Officer to reduce the amount of operational work she was involved in.

Leverage Job-Share or Reduced Schedule

Turning to personal experience, the first time she proposed a four-day work week with a 20% cut in pay and benefits at WSJ, Lublin was declined.

At that point, she had one child under four years old and was just back from maternity leave with her second. But later that year, WSJ published a front-page story about moms returning to work after maternity leave only to throw in the towel. Norman Pearlstine, Managing Editor at the time, reached out to her.

“I could really relate to that,” she told him. “You know, I’ve got two kids under four. I’m working full-time and I’m dying. I really can’t do it. It’s just too much.”

He invited her to re-propose her reduced schedule and not only did she receive the four-day week work, she also kept full pay and benefits—with the condition she could not work on Friday at all or the deal was off.

Not only did the reduced hours not diminish her productivity, as her bosses had trusted, but she was promoted to management a few years in. Her reduced schedule helped her effectiveness and set a newsroom precedent that allowed other women to job-share.

Lublin advocates that women consider job-sharing as a strategy for advancing in management.

Recognize that Parenting Builds Your Leadership

Lublin feels that parents learn delegation, multitasking and other skills that help them become better leaders. “I think women in particular are able to hone certain skills that make them more effective bosses,” she observes, “particularly, they learn the importance of being an empathetic listener.”

She reflects that being a highly successful reporter did not prepare her to be a successful boss, but parenting was complementary and did help.

“Having children before I moved into management taught me how important and how good it is to be a great mentor,” Lublin concludes. “To be a good human being is to give back and pay it forward.”

By Aimee Hansen

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