snarkwife » Blog Archive » Better Management Through Mommying?

From the Amazon.com website, here’s what the publisher of Motherhood Is the New MBA: Using Your Parenting Skills to Be a Better Boss would like you to know:

When it comes to being a good leader, we’ve read the sports analogies, we’ve read the war analogies. But how about hitting a little closer to home?

As a mother, the following rules and tactics probably sound familiar to you:

Never Underestimate the Power of Kiss-It-Make-It-Better
Hold the Line on Tantrums
Remember the Magic Word
Count to Three Before Giving a Time-Out

These are good, solid rules for how to raise children. But can these same rules make you a better boss? Absolutely.

In her impressive first book, Shari Storm takes the lessons attributed to parenting and shows how they can be directly applied in the workplace, making you a more effective manager and giving you the confidence to lead and shape your staff into the employees you want them to be. Shari gathers a wonderful collection of funny and inspirational stories from a wide range of executive mothers—TV producers, firefighters, accountants, teachers, baristas, corporate leaders, pilots—for an engaging, easy-to-absorb read.

These pages will provide both laughs and enlightenment. For the woman who wants to excel in her business, this goes beyond your average management book.

Oh my. Barista as executive? Really?

Any book, blog, newspaper article, or bunco game conversation about how mommies make better managers and parenting skills are easily transferred to the business world always pisses me off. Why? Because children aren’t adults and parenting children isn’t the same as managing employees.

This one’s worse because it minimizes the MBA as nothing more than 48 units teaching you how to deal with ~~bickering employee~~ human resource management issues. That was a 3-unit class and might I add, the easiest one I took. I bet there isn’t a chapter in the book about maximizing shareholder value. After all, that’s the whole point of financial management as part of an overall business strategy. Sorry, couldn’t work “boo-boo” or “potty” into that.

But, I digress. I’ve managed people, teams, and projects for fifteen years, but I don’t have a book deal so I suppose what I have to say isn’t as relevant. If women are smart and savvy enough to pick up these “managerial skills” (which honestly, are the softest and squishiest of ‘em all) while raising kids, they’re certainly smart and savvy enough to pick up the same skills on the job with actual adults. You can’t fire your children, and by the same token, you can’t tell two warring co-workers to get out of your hair so you can get some work done. Oh wait, you can do the latter.

I’m still unclear as to what the “magic word” is…profitability? Accountability? Stakeholder?

Hmm. Household CEO. The transfer of business skills and knowledge to the household. I might be on to something.

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Amen. Well said. I’m a good manager, but I suspect that those skills won’t ensure that I’m a good parent, now will they?!
Kevin Donahue´s last blog ..Cheetahs [Flickr]

Just because you’re a parent doesn’t mean you have good managerial skills (and vice versa).
Sheri´s last blog ..Room a month: China Hutch

Thanks for the book review. And congratulations on earning your MBA. It’s no easy task, I know! You should be proud. It’s clear you learned a great deal.

You blog is good. You have a great writing style.

Best to you.

The one thing about having a family that has helped my managerial skills is NOT the parenting aspect. It’s the running-a-household aspect.

You have to be organized, efficient, able to delegate, and patient to run a household full of children and adults who all have different personality types.

And really, parenting has taught me more about my communication skills than how to manage people, heh.
Rachael´s last blog ..I’m Feeling All Random Today

What I appreciate about my organization’s leadership team is the different perspectives we each bring to the table. Some have extensive experience, some have the best education money can buy, some are simply the hardest workers you will ever find, some are great organizers, others are great visionaries, and some simply lead with their passion. None of these perspectives is “better” than any other. In fact, the combination is much better than the sum of its parts.

I think the unique perspective that our managers who have experienced motherhood first-hand bring to the table enhance our effectiveness as a unit. Their problem-solving, stress management, and inter-personal skills have no doubt been positively impacted by their experiences as mothers.

I personally can’t wait to read this book, as I think it will enlighten us even more about the value of life experiences. I will, at a minimum, reserve my opinion on the book until it is actually available to be read.

I don’t dispute for a moment that mothers (and fathers, really…parenting skills aren’t limited to just women) bring a unique perspective and set of skills to the workplace and management in general. People who grew up in large families also generally have the same skills of patience, negotiation, and working within larger groups.

However, really…everyone brings a unique perspective to the workplace. I was raised by a bullying father, so I generally believe a heavy-handed and bullying approach to management is as ineffective on employees as it was on me as a child. I was also an only child and spent a lot of time around people significantly older than me. I tend to get along better with Baby Boomers than people in my own generation.

Does all of this make you a better manager, though? Maybe, maybe not.

My issue was more with the ooey gooey cutesy marketing approach to the book…likening managing employees to parenting toddlers who clearly haven’t learned to use their words yet.

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