February 11, 2013 karencatlin

Interview with Rich Mironov

To bring additional perspectives to the intersection of leadership and parenting, I interview talented professionals who are also parents. This month’s interview is with Rich Mironov, author of The Art of Product Management, consultant to tech companies, blogger, husband, and father. He will now tell you more about himself and his views on leadership and parenting.

1) Tell us about yourself.

I’ve spent thirty years in Silicon Valley, mostly in software product management and B2B tech startups. Lately, I’m consult on software product management, agile and business models – splitting my time between startups and big companies.

Back in 2001, I started writing Product Bytes, a series of articles on software, start-ups, product strategies, Silicon Valley, and the inner life of product managers. I compiled my favorite Product Bytes from 2001-2008 into a book, “The Art of Product Management.”

I also founded the first P-Camp, now spreading worldwide as Product Camps. These semi-unstructured get-togethers provide product managers and product marketers an opportunity to network, teach, learn and share.

I met my sweetheart at Stanford Business School, and we’ve taken turns on high-risk ventures (limit: one startup at a time per household!) – and being primary parent to our daughter.

2) You’ve been blogging for many years, and back in 2003 you wrote a great post titled, Parenting and the Art of Product Management. What inspired you to write this post?

My daughter (of whom I’m inordinately proud) was 12 and doing her first startup, and it had been obvious to me for a long time that managing grown-ups at the office was a lot like raising kids. In particular, that kids depend on their parents to plan for the long term (college), to insist on unpleasant but necessary things (vaccinations, homework), and to protect them from predictable disasters (toddling across the highway). Product management maps surprisingly well to this, since most functional contributors live in the very short term (sales reps, agile development teams).

3) What three adjectives do you think describe the best leaders? The best parents?

Leaders: inspiring, practical, humane

Parents: supportive, loving, honest

4) What skill or best practice have you used both as a leader and a parent? What challenge were you facing at the time, and what did you learn?

Anticipating and countering short-term thinking. At the office, this is the bad excuse (“just this once, let’s skip our normal QA/regression testing”) or precedent-setting one-off request (“I need this special discount to close an end-of-quarter deal with an important customer, but won’t ever ask you for special pricing again”) or magical thinking (“can’t we add one more thing onto the roadmap without delaying anyting?”) . At home, these sound like “I don’t feel like going to soccer practice today” or “I’ll eat my vegetables tomorrow” or “I re-e-e-eally need that new iPad.” Small decisions have consequences, and you have to decide which issues are worth standing your ground for.

5) Is there anything else you would like to share with us?

Raising a child has made me a better manager. I try to identify my employees’ unique skills, support their aspirations while getting the immediate job done, and mentor them for long-term success. I feel parental pride when they go on to do great things elsewhere.

Thank you, Rich, for taking the time to share your thoughts with us! Dr. Madeline Levine, a child psychologist and author, also promotes the idea of taking a long term view of what’s right for children. Short-term thinking can have a negative impact on future goals, whether that is raising a healthy, successful child or exceeding that 3-year business plan. It’s great to see you taking the long term view, both at home and work.

–Karen

February 7, 2013 karencatlin

Look out for those “whatever…” responses

“Look out for those ‘whatever…’ responses.” I remember hearing this advice at a class about parenting teenagers. As the speaker explained how teens will tell you that they couldn’t care less by rolling their eyes, saying “whatever,” or just shaking their head while they leave the room, I found myself drifting off, thinking about work. Why? Because I was hearing the corporate equivalent of “whatever” in my group, which sounds like this: “Just tell me what to do.”

Over my career, I’ve unfortunately heard the phrase “Just tell me what to do” a few too many times. Perhaps you have seen this reaction at work as well? It might have come from a decision that someone didn’t agree with, or a process that wasn’t meeting their needs yet couldn’t be updated. It might have been directed at a customer who was impossible to please. Or, in the case with my group, I chalked it up to a supervisor who regularly micro-managed his team, never satisfied with the work they did. Regardless of the situation, “Just tell me what to do” is a warning sign that the employee feels they can’t be successful, no matter what. As a leader, you need to treat it as a red flag.

To better understand why teens say “whatever,” I looked to psychologist Michael Bradley, author of Yes, Your Teen is Crazy. In this book, Dr. Bradley explains that at some point, most teens realize that they’ve already learned the most important teachings from their parents, and they need to look to other sources for opinions on clothes, music, and even ethics. It’s a healthy part of becoming their own person, but it can be really hard on the parents. Especially if the teenager is doing it with dramatic eye rolling, the silent treatment, or those “whatever” responses.

When an employee says, “Just tell me what to do,” have they reached a similar wall where they no longer feel they can learn from their supervisor? Probably. If you want to keep them engaged with your business, talk to them about getting a mentor, taking on a stretch assignment, or applying for a different position at your company. Help them to find a situation where they can learn. Otherwise, they’re going to start looking for a new job elsewhere.

Have you seen the corporate equivalent of the “whatever” response? What have you done to address it? I’d like to hear from you!

–Karen

February 4, 2013March 7, 2013 karencatlin

Career Tip: Got Sponsors?

In 2012, after a long career in the software industry, I decided to shift my professional focus to help others reach their career goals. My friends told me I have a unique perspective to share: I was a software engineer who was determined to have it all. I wanted to be a mom and be a leader! And I wanted to do it on my terms. Starting with my first child, I chose to work part-time and maintained this schedule for ten years. During that time, I had two children, kept increasing my responsibilities at work, and was promoted to vice president. Yup, I was promoted to the vp level while working part-time. It wasn’t always easy, but I did it.

Reflecting on my experience, I see that I made good choices and held fast to my vision for my life. It’s also clear that I had help along the way: from friends, peers, mentors, sponsors, and my family. I want to say thanks to those who helped me by “paying it forward” to others facing similar challenges.

I’m taking a multi-prong approach to helping people reach their goals. In addition to writing “Use Your Inside Voice” to share my thoughts on the intersection of leadership and parenting, I’m a speaker, leadership coach, and advisor for women’s affinity programs. I also enjoy being a guest blogger, writing about best practices for career development.

Most recently, I wrote a guest post for Global Tech Women about how to engage with sponsors, or people who are influential in your organization or your industry. Sponsors are leaders who know you well enough to advocate for you and recommend you for new opportunities. With their organizational clout, they can open doors you never knew existed. They could be the key to your career advancement. But, you can’t just ask someone to be your sponsor. You need to earn their respect! My guest post takes the mystery out of engaging a sponsor. If you think sponsors could help you meet your career goals, be sure to check it out.

Update: Engage a Sponsor is now available as a free downloadable pdf. It’s part of a series called Karen’s Tips. Each one is filled with practical ideas for growing your career and clear action items for planning your next steps. — February 2013

–Karen

About Global Tech Women

It is time to think about the gender gap in technology in a new way. The representation of women in computer science and engineering has been declining over the last three decades. It’s time for something new.

Global Tech Women, founded in 2012, believes the solution to this persistent problem is to focus on the needs of individual technical women on a personal and professional level – providing them with consistent support from their freshman year to their entry in the workforce, their first and subsequent promotions, and their successful retirement.

February 1, 2013 karencatlin

The Power of Storytelling

I knew something was bothering my son as soon as I saw him after school that day. His usual spark just wasn’t there. When I asked him about his day, he told me that he had missed the call-backs for a singing group at his high school. Turns out that he skimmed his email too quickly and went to the audition at the wrong time, which disqualified him from the group. He was so disappointed in himself, and I felt so sorry for him.

I told him I had made a similar mistake in college. I forgot to go to a mandatory meeting for students working in a computer lab, and I lost my job. When my son asked me how I handled it, I paused to think about the lesson I wanted him to learn. What an opening he had given me! I quickly decided to focus on resiliency. I explained that I was mad at myself for about a day, and then I started looking for another job. Fortunately, it all worked out for me; I found a better job as a research assistant. I think my son took this story to heart. His mood started to improve, and soon all he could talk about was the auditions for the next school musical production.

Ah, the power of storytelling. A lot of emphasis has been placed on storytelling as a tool for leaders; in fact, my former leadership coach, Christine Cavanaugh-Simmons, recently published a book on storytelling. In it, she describes three basic kinds of leadership stories, each which serves a specific purpose.

Who Am I stories tell who the leader is, what they stand for, and why they do the things they do.
Who Are We stories define the culture and values of an organization.
Where Are We Going stories paint a picture of where the organization is headed and guide employees towards achieving that vision.

I never realized it before reading Christine’s book, but when my husband and I share stories with our kids, we tell those stories as well:

Who Am I stories teach our kids about ourselves, help them learn from our experiences (both good and bad), and share the larger context in which we make parenting decisions. What I shared with my son that day is an example of this kind of story.
Who Are We stories help us reinforce our family values. We like to reminisce about the books we read aloud to our kids when they were younger: the Harry Potter series, The Chronicles of Narnia, the Boxcar Children, and so on. Not only do our kids have happy memories of these books, our stories also remind them of how important reading and education is to our family.
Where Are We Going stories generate excitement about family plans and ideally get everyone onboard with planting that garden, researching that vacation, or getting more exercise. However, given how much trip planning and gardening falls onto my shoulders, I think I need to work on my “where are we going” storytelling skills!

Storytelling is critical for leaders and parents. How are you utilizing this powerful tool at home? At work? I’d like to hear from you.

–Karen

January 28, 2013March 7, 2013 karencatlin

But I want to have it all!

It’s been six months since The Atlantic published Anne-Marie Slaughter’s thought-provoking article, Why Women Still Can’t Have It All. When I read it last summer, I was in the midst of planning my new blog about the intersection of leadership and parenting. At the time, I thought (and hoped) I would be able to build an audience for the blog. Once I read Dr. Slaughter’s article, I felt inspired, if not compelled, to start writing it; the blog became something I had to do. Let me explain…

Dr. Slaughter’s overall message is that we need better choices if we want to see working mothers make it to the tops of their careers. While these choices include things like part-time roles, flexible schedules, and school hours that better match work hours, we also need to make it more acceptable for working parents to acknowledge that their kids’ needs often come before the demands of work.

As a dean at Princeton University, Dr. Slaughter wanted to help change the environment to be more family friendly; she did this by deliberately talking about her children and her desire to lead a balanced life. She would end meetings at 6pm, announcing that she had to go home for dinner. She would tell people where she was going when she had a conflict such as a parent-teacher conference. She refused to make excuses for putting her family’s needs first.

As I read her article, I wondered if I could help, in a small way, by encouraging working parents to share stories about how their parenting experience makes them better leaders, and vice versa. To have it be acceptable to talk about strategies for delegation, communication, inspiring a vision, and other leadership qualities through the lens of parenting. To be able to reinforce the managerial style of the office by talking about how effective the same approach is at home. To make it okay to blend our personal and professional lives.

Because of Dr. Slaughter’s article, I knew I had to start my blog. But, my blog alone isn’t enough. What are your ideas for addressing Dr. Slaughter’s article? I’d like to hear from you.

–Karen

January 24, 2013 karencatlin

Interview with Deborah Mills-Scofield

To bring additional perspectives to the intersection of leadership and parenting, I’ve started an interview series. Today, I’m thrilled to be interviewing Deborah Mills-Scofield, an innovation consultant, author, adjunct professor, wife, and mother of two. She will now tell you more about herself and her views on leadership and parenting.

1) Tell us about yourself, professionally and personally.

I went to Brown University, where I helped start the Cognitive Science program. I graduated in three years (everyone said you can’t do it, so I did). I spent summers working at AT&T Bell Labs, and after graduating, I went to work there. I developed technology for speech recognition and messaging, started managing people, and spent a lot of time traveling globally to meet with customers.

During that time I married my husband, who has left Basic Research at Bell Labs to teach Physics at Oberlin College. Bell Labs/AT&T moved me to Ohio and flew me back and forth, weekly, to my NJ office and elsewhere in the world so I wouldn’t quit. When I had my first child, I refused to travel and worked part-time from home, still retaining my management level but reducing my management role. After my second child, it became hard to keep the enthusiasm going since AT&T was in a downward spiral, and I quit.

At that point, my career started growing in many interesting directions. I didn’t know many people in Ohio, so I reached out to the Brown alumni network and met lots of people, including the founding partner of the VC firm I’m a partner in. I started my consulting business and my blog about innovation, and I now write for Harvard Business Review’s blog twice/month. I also teach innovation and entrepreneurship at Oberlin College and Brown University. Working with students keeps me young, encourages me to continue challenging the status quo, and keeps me fresh for my clients whom I help with strategic and innovation planning. Of course, my two amazing, wonderful, incredible children also keep me young.

I’ve often thought, “Why the heck did AT&T let me manage people before I had kids?” I’ve learned so much about management from parenting! I think management books are great for parents, and parenting books are great for managers. I also believe children’s storybooks are the best books for innovation, and I often use them with my clients. One of my favorite series, Scaredy Squirrel by Melanie Watt, helps people see that looking at the world in new ways isn’t so scary after all. You see, I believe we’ve lost the emphasis on storytelling as a teaching tool. Sure, stories are important for the first eight or so years of our lives, but after that they are deemphasized. I like stories because they let you identify with something outside of your experience. When you hear a story, you can interpret it in a way that is meaningful to you, and apply it to a challenge or goal you are facing. This is why I use children’s storybooks with my clients.

2) You are a recognized blogger on innovation. What is the goal of your blog?

I started my blog to get people to think about innovation and see that it’s not formidable, it can be broken into bite-sized pieces, and you can learn from others. Over time, it’s evolved to less about the specific practice of innovation, and more a reflection of what I’m finding interesting that others seem to as well. I’ve also opened it to others to express their voices. I have clients write guest blogs about creating an innovative culture. I have students from Brown write about how they view entrepreneurship and society. With each post, I want my readers to think about how they can apply it, learn from it, or do things different for their company or community.

Moving forward, I’ll also be writing about how to use your network to make something happen. Regardless of how many people you know, you can and should count on people you know to help you achieve your goals. One of my recent posts in Harvard Business Review on the power of the “Ask” seems to have a hit a chord!

3) What three adjectives do you think describe the best leaders? The best parents?

Leaders:

Visionary (helping you see the forest from the trees)
Humble & vulnerable
Trustworthy

Parents:

Loving, unconditionally if possible.
Prudent, balancing the short and long term. I.e., Is what I’m doing now leading my child to be the person I think they should become, a person of integrity, character and someone who can make and keep a commitment?
Authentic, using actions, not just words, to be a role model. Don’t tell your kids one thing and then do something else. Help them to build trust in others.

4) What skill or best practice have you used both as a leader and as a parent? What challenge were you facing at the time, and what did you learn?

I’ve learned how to try to motivate people to do what’s best for them (not for me) so they can come to it themselves and learn how to keep doing it. I’ve also learned that what motivated someone two weeks ago may not work again today, and just because it worked for one kid or employee, it may not work for another person. It takes time to know what motivates an individual, which includes balancing short and long term.

I’ve also learned to motivate from the heart, both at work and home. I look at the relationships I had at AT&T Bell Labs, and I look at my clients today. Someone commented recently that everyone hugs and kisses me. I feel a genuine affection for my clients. Love has such power, but we have demeaned it in the workplace to a sexual definition, not in an Agape or Philos way. As a Jew who is also a Christian, I believe that my kids are a gift from God, and that I have been chosen to raise them on His behalf. With God’s help, my ultimate hope for my kids is that they will bring Him joy.

5) Is there anything else you would like to share with us?

Because of the generation of women who worked before us, it’s easier for us to apply parenting lessons to the workplace. We don’t necessarily need to keep our personal and professional lives separate. There is an ability to carry the lessons back and forth. The next generation should be even better.

Are those bosses who are more enlightened managers better parents and vice versa? I’d like to see research done in this area!

Thank you, Deb, for taking the time to share your thoughts with us! If anyone knows about research on the positive effects of parenting on leadership, please let us know in the comments. We’d like to hear from you.

–Karen

January 22, 2013 karencatlin

Say thank you, and then stop

Last weekend, my children went to a semi-formal dance held by their high school. My husband and I hosted a pre-dance party for my daughter and her friends to put the finishing touches on their hair and make-up together and for the parents to snap some photos. When my son came downstairs dressed for the dance, someone said that they liked his tie. He said, “Thank you.” And, then he added a bit sheepishly, “It’s my Dad’s.” One of the moms kindly suggested, when he gets another compliment on it, to say just “Thank you.” There’s no need to let anyone know you borrowed it.

A few days after the dance, I happened to watch a keynote from the 2012 Grace Hopper Celebration, an annual conference for women in computing. The speaker was Nora Denzel, a talented computer scientist, well-respected executive, and engaging public speaker. Towards the end of her presentation, she shared some career advice, including control your career PR by not disclosing your faults or limitations. Nora told a story where she complemented a woman after she gave an outstanding presentation at a customer briefing. The woman replied by talking about the mistakes she had made, how she was up half the night with her sick son so it wasn’t her best work, and even that she didn’t think she wore the right dress. Nora’s advice is to say thank you, and then stop. Don’t share your inner critic’s voice!

Just like that woman, my inner critic’s voice can be much too loud. I remember a time when I was responsible for managing the localizations of the company’s software portfolio so that we could sell them in other countries. Just two weeks after I joined the company, the CEO asked me to give him an overview of all the localization projects. I had barely figured out what I was supposed to be doing, and the CEO wanted to hear from me! Well, I met with him and presented each project, the risks, and next steps. At the end of the meeting, he told me he was impressed with how I presented the information and that he was confident I would see each project through to completion. Instead of just saying thank you, I told him that all I had done was some formatting of the information that my manager had given me. To this day, I don’t know what I was thinking.

As a leader and as a parent, I’m going to look for coachable moments when people should say thank you and then stop. How about you?

–Karen

p.s. While I highly recommend all of Nora’s keynote, I understand your time may be limited. Her career advice about saying thank you and then stopping begins about 36 minutes into the video.

January 17, 2013 karencatlin

Have you filled any buckets today?

Photo of a yellow bucket — Photo via MarlonBSB via Wikimedia Commons

I had the rare opportunity to have lunch alone with my teenage son yesterday. After bringing him to an orthodontist appointment in the late morning, we had time to stop for a bite to eat on the way back to school. As we ate our lunch, I mentioned that I was behind on writing my blog. He then suggested I write about how leaders and parents need to schedule their work. Ouch.

Instead, I told him I was considering a blog post about How Full is Your Bucket? This book presents the simple metaphor of a bucket, and how, with day-to-day interactions, people either “fill our bucket” by making us feel more positive, or “dip from our bucket,” leaving us feeling more negative. Ideally, our buckets are filled often enough so that there is a reserve to see us through disappointment, put downs, rejection, and so on. My son then chimed in, “So, leaders and parents both need to fill buckets every day.” Absolutely!

The book has an interview with a CEO who believes that bucket filling is his secret weapon. He takes time to understand the contributions individual employees are making, and then makes the effort to thank them in person when he visits their offices. In return, he gets to know his employees better and builds a lasting rapport.

Don’t you think bucket filling can be a secret weapon for parents as well? Our kids face all sorts of challenges when we aren’t around to support them. They might second-guess their outfit once they get to school, they might have forgotten to do a homework assignment, or they might have been benched for most of a game. With a bucket full of positive feedback and love, they should be able to get past the negative emotions that might come their way.

Today, with every interaction you have with another person (your kids, your co-workers, or a clerk at the store), ask yourself if you are adding to or taking away from their buckets. Are you filling as many as you can?

–Karen

January 14, 2013 karencatlin

Never try to teach a pig to sing

Photo of a pig — Photo via sneakerdog via Flickr Creative Commons

The best leaders can spot natural talent and provide opportunities for employees to be outstanding. How do they do this?

First, let’s look at parenting. Everybody has natural talents to nurture, hone, and strengthen into life-long skills, hobbies, and even vocations. To uncover these talents, parents help their young kids explore lots of activities: sports, dance, music, art, and so on. Over time, children learn about themselves, what they find enjoyable, and what they’re good at.

But, what if a parent wants a child to be good at something that simply isn’t a natural fit? I know I’ve been guilty of this. For example, I didn’t learn to ski when I was young and always wished I had. I took lessons as an adult, but I never invested enough time to feel comfortable on the slopes. Wanting things to be different for my two kids, I made sure that they took lessons when they were little. Now that they are teenagers, however, it’s clear that one of my kids likes to ski and one doesn’t. My daughter just doesn’t find skiing fun.

I love this quote by the author Robert Heinlein: “Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.” If I had insisted that my daughter keep taking skiing lessons every winter, she definitely would have been annoyed. (For the record, I’m not comparing my wonderful daughter to a pig!)

This quote also makes me think about leadership and times I’ve tried to fit employees into roles that aren’t good fits. I once worked with a man who is a talented story teller. I remember introducing him at an all-hands meeting. Thinking he would enjoy sharing a few stories about himself, I invited him up on the stage and asked him to say a few words. However, he was not at all comfortable with public speaking, and it didn’t go very well. He felt uncomfortable, and so did everyone else. During the next year or so, I encouraged him to give demos or other talks at meetings, and he kept making excuses why he couldn’t do it, always delegating to someone else. While public speaking is an important skill to practice and hopefully master, he just wasn’t interested. And I bet he was getting annoyed with me.

Not too long after that, my company ran an employee engagement survey. It asked the usual questions…how long do you expect to work here, how likely are you to recommend our company to a friend, and so on. It also asked, “Do you have skills that are not being utilized?” When I saw that the results for my direct reports were lower than I’d expected on this question, I decided to follow up with each of them individually. I wanted to identify opportunities I could open up so that they would be applying all of their skills. I wanted to leverage all that they had to offer.

When I talked to the man who didn’t want to speak in public, he told me that his favorite days at work were when he was invited to meetings to help solve problems. He loved being inquisitive and brainstorming solutions. He loved using his brain. As he shared this, I realized that this was his natural talent. I’d seen him in action in these kinds of meetings, and he was truly outstanding. I then made a resolution to get him invited to more meetings where we needed someone with his capacity for creative problem solving. As you might imagine, each time he attended one of them, he loved it. There was a new bounce in his step.

You can observe someone and think you know them, but you may still find yourself teaching them to sing when they don’t have that skill. To help spot natural talents in my employees or my kids, and to look for opportunities for them to be outstanding, I try to:

Look for passion. Pay attention to how they spend their free time. Talk to them about what they like to do or something they’re interested in exploring. Chances are, you’ll see the passion come alive.
Complement the “how.” Tell them that you liked how they accomplished something, and then keep giving them tasks, stretch assignments, or extra-curricular activities to exercise that ability. By doing so, you will let them know you see their talent, recognize it, and want them to do more with it.
Ask about underutilized skills. For employees, ask if they have skills that aren’t being used. Talk to your children about what they would do if they could squeeze in another after-school activity. You may be surprised by the answer.

Even with these best practices, we may still try to teach a pig or two to sing. Has this happened to you? In hindsight, what would you have done differently? I’d like to hear from you!

–Karen

January 10, 2013 karencatlin

Sometimes you just need a fresh start

The other day I was talking to a man who used to work for me. He was seeking advice about his current job, where he doesn’t feel his team respects or trusts him. As we discussed some approaches to build trust, I also told him it can be challenging to shed a reputation. Co-workers see you one way (fairly or unfairly), and they might not be able to see your full potential.

I then told him about a parenting class I had taken with Dr. Michael Thompson, a child psychologist and co-author of the best selling book Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Lives of Boys. Dr. Thompson told us that teenage boys can get cast into a role that prevents them from growing up to be confident, talented young men. If they get teased about something or labeled in a certain way, they may not be able to shed it. However, if these boys get away from their peer groups and make a fresh start, they can often reinvent himself. Dr. Thompson shared an impressive story of an insecure boy who was on the lower rung of the high school social ladder. He went to an outdoor education camp for the summer, where he took on the leadership role for his group. He returned to school a changed person.

In the workplace, there are similar situations where you get stuck in a certain role or with a reputation that holds you back. Sometimes the best thing is to just move on, to a new team or a new company.

Have you seen examples where your kids or your co-workers are held back by how others view them? How did they move past the prejudices? I’d like to hear from you!

–Karen