Wherein I Tell Martha Stewart She Is Wrong
When you have an opportunity to eat lunch with Martha Stewart, by gawd, you do it. It doesn't matter if 5000 other people are going to join you, including dozens who never shut up for even one second and GAH! Why do people do that? Go out in the hall and talk about whatever it is you want to talk about, women who were at my table!
Anyway.
Martha Stewart did the keynote address during lunch at BlogHer yesterday. It was a question and answer session and I went because DUH. Martha is one of the most successful women in business. If you can't learn from her, you're doing it wrong.
For the most part, it was an interesting discussion that gave Martha a chance to show off her sense of humor as she honestly discussed herself and her company. But there was one thing that stuck with me and has been festering and growing and, well, you're going to have to hear about it because it's bothering me THAT much.
There was a point when Martha talked about the young women you work for her and how some of them get pregnant and end up not returning to the company after maternity leave. She wore her ability to predict whether the employees would return to work or not like a badge of honor. "It's a choice--family or work. I'm really good at predicting which choice they will make."
Martha. MARTHA.
You are wrong.
It does not have to be a choice.
There are companies who are fighting tooth and nail to create atmospheres that help people (both men and women) find better balance in their lives. I sat at a panel with some of the leaders of Coca-Cola a few months ago and listened as a VP admitted that sometimes it is hard and sometimes she can't do everything she wants, but if she needs to leave a meeting 15 minutes early to go see her son's soccer game, she can. Coca-Cola has systems in place that empower employees to make the best decisions for living a positive life. Sometimes that positive life means working late at night at home or going in on a Saturday, but it is balanced by the ability to be present for life's more important moments.
It's not just Coca-Cola, either. There are companies far and wide who are figuring out that helping employees find work-life balance is profitable. You can attract the best talent and the hardest workers when those workers don't have to make choices like the one you are so proud that you can predict.
And you know what, Martha? I expect YOU to be on the forefront of figuring out how companies can reduce the need to make that choice. If you can figure out how to peel the skin off a piece of fish with one clean motion, you can figure out how to keep those women working for you even after they become mothers. You sat in that chair on that stage in front of 5000 women and talked about how your marriage falling apart was a sad time in your life, but you can't figure out what you could have done differently so that it hadn't ended that way? Really?
Could you have had all of the successes you've had in the business world and found a way to not sacrifice your marriage and your relationship with your daughter to make it all happen?
You said that you've lost some incredibly talented women to motherhood. Find a way to get them back and keep them. Find your way to the top of this list and change the entire business world by proving that there can be work-life balance.
Pave the way, Martha.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Reader Comments (22)
standing ovation
Word. Every last bit.
I got bored with Martha and ended up going in to wander the Expo hall. After reading this, I'm SO glad that I ditched the lunch. My hair would have lit on fire upon hearing those words.
Working and parenting simultaneously is not easy, but attitudes like Martha's reinforces the false and harmful belief that it's not possible to do both. Ugh, now I'm disgusted with her.
While I agree with you that Martha should make it easier for her employees to balance work and life, I don't think Martha could have built the empire that she did and had a happy home life. There are only so many hours in the day, and it is rumored that Martha already only sleeps for 3 of them. Either she was devoting all of her energy to the company to make it the multi-billion dollar enterprise that it is, at the expense of her family, or she was devoting less energy to her company to be with her family. More and more research is showing that you can't have it all. You can have great work-life balance to a certain level of achievement. Beyond that, you're going to sacrifice your family and your personal life. When you're at business dinners, you're not going to be home to tuck in your kid at night. You're going to have business meetings, or business trips, or work obligations that prevent you from seeing your kid in the school play or the basketball tournament. At a certain level you can't tell the Congressional committee that you can't meet with them that day because your child has a solo in the band concert. So you make a decision. Do you dial back your career so you can spend more time with your family? Or do you keep the high-powered career knowing that you won't be present for many big moments?
My mom & I got our college degrees in the same year. Her success at balancing work-home proved to me how important my future was to her, and that's so much more important than any Forbes ranking or number in the bank account.
Thanks for confirming what I've always suspected: Martha is... Well, something I shouldn't say here.
Just read about this over at another blog, and was so jealous of her company! baby-bonding bucks?! sounds too good to be true but i guess some places do it right!
http://emphasisadded.tumblr.com/post/28628655817/stuffs-such-about-maternity-leave
Here's an interesting TEDx talk from Amy Jo Martin that I just recently watched how her boss wanted her to choose two of the following - "work, family, self"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=A3NvIFZUMZY
You preach it! I'm lucky that the job I have is so flexible that life and work can be well balanced but I'm friends with people that don't have that freedom. It is so much healthier to be able to make choices to suit your priorities and have a workplace respect and allow that.
In all fairness, this should be a PARENTING thing - not just mamas. Too many dads have to make choices in the same way - they just expect someone else (usually moms) to pick up the slack. Of course, I've never, ever been a Martha fan.
Great post! I have to say that Martha is SO WRONG. It does not have to be "family" or "work" ... it should be both. Women (and men!) should never be forced to choose between their job and their family - there must be a way to balance both and be successful.
I worked for an organization whose mission is to build the girls of tomorrow (think cookie sales and camping!) and I was told by the CEO (of an Ohio chapter of the organization) that I needed to decide which was more important - my job or my family. Yes, I'm serious. I told her that I was a working mother and I should be forced to choose. That didn't sit well with her - and it should be noted that she has no spouse and no kids and IS married to her job. I ended up quitting a few months later.
I have to say - I graduated from college 3 years ago now and that exact statement above is exactly what I've been told COUNTLESS times from various coworkers and other people in my life. As a young woman not only at the beginning of her career and her own family it is all just so daunting. I go into work knowing this choice is inevitable and I feel like it is a constant shadow following all of my life choices. My previous boss felt that I hated work and my coworkers because I was always excited to see my family and get home at the end of the day; I think that said plenty about how my priorities and their work life balance was always very very off. It is very sad to know this is what I will face and hope beyond anything that more companies will realize more and more that people will love their jobs more when they don't constantly have to make their job more important than their family.
AMEN! I hope that Martha reads this post. As a women who admittedly lost out on her own relationships due to work, she should put steps in place to ensure that that doesn't happen in her own business! I love your take on topics and I'm def. going to be following you, as always it's nice to meet a fellow Pittsburgh blogger.
Never been a great fan of Martha's (though she can be pretty funny when she puts her mind to it). I've never liked her attitude of defining women via cooking and decorating, even though she's a very solid businesswoman behind the scenes. And, remember, she was in jail for a while, so that does call her ethics into question.
I was lucky to work for a forward-thinking computer company with flexible hours in the '80s and early '90s when my daughter was little. And it was even more helpful when my husband came to work for the same company, as he'd worked for one of the most incredibly sexist companies in existence in the early '80s.
Hear hear! Working and motherhood are not a choice to be made. Women have been working and having children since time began, and it has never required a choice between the two until the workplace was changed to a wholly male-based model during the Industrial Revolution. The thing is, having children is a woman's choice on an individual level but, on a macro-level, on a societal level, it is NOT a choice. Women have the children -- there's nothing they can do about it and society needs them to keep having children. And if workplaces continue to follow a model that makes it difficult/impossible for a women to continue to contribute their work while also fulfilling their (unavoidable) biological role, then THEY ARE CONTRIBUTING TO THE PROBLEM.
Bloody hell, Martha! Pull your head out of the '50s, will ya?!?
Martha IS right to a degree. You can have a certain level of success without sacrificing family or career BUT to have the kind of success she has had no I don't believe Its possible. Successful men face te same challenge and many end up losin their families if not physically than emotionally. I worked on Capitol hill for several years and it was that experience that showed me you can get to a certain level but then you have to choose.
"It was a question and answer session and I went because DUH."
I don't know who you are but this is awesome and made me laugh.
Oh, yeah, Martha. I don't know Martha personally so I can't agree/disagree on your assertions; generally I feel like everyone has different areas in which they can improve, maybe one of Martha's areas is self-awareness and being more conscious-minded in relationships. Either way, good stuff.
bravo.
now you need one of those #followmyblogmartha tags and you're golden.
Well said, of course I also have to agree that at a certain level it does become a choice.
I wasn't there, but it definitely sounds like Martha was over-simplifying. Of course, that's always been my problem with Martha. I always think back to a Christmas special when she was showing how to make garlands of gilded walnuts. She described the initial steps: paint the walnuts gold then drill holes in them. She demonstrated on one then assistants brought out bushels of gold walnuts with perfect holes in them. She spent the rest of the time artistically stringing those pre-gilded, pre-drilled walnuts onto wire completely ignoring that the painting and drilling are the most tedious parts. Martha, some of us need to paint our own walnuts. We need to drill our own holes and are desperately trying to do so without the shells cracking. We are making hard choices and hoping that we end up with a nice looking garland in the end!!!
Sorry for the pseudo-philosophical ramble. I don't like Martha. I've never considered her to be a viable role model even before she became a convicted criminal.
So when can we buy stock in Burgh Baby Omnimedia?
I love everything about this blog post. Everything.
Amen, sister. I've been arguing this for... well, nearly 18 months, since I had to return to full-time work after M was born. And, yes, Martha should be on the forefront of this! Thanks! will read other comments now.
Thanks for writing this and making me write what I've been thinking about a lot recently. I had so many thoughts that I wrote my own blog post.
I hope more companies like Coca-Cola realize that top talent is worth keeping even when children enter their lives. My uncle is a Sr executive at a very large company and burned through 2 marriages along the way with the constant travel, moving every two years and long hours. 5 of his children grew up in other cities while he moved on. I wonder if he regrets any of those decisions now.
shit, i am not even married and have no children, but my company makes it possible for me to be a better person by being flexible. a happy becky makes a happier and more profitable company. whether it is leaving a little early to meet friends for a long lunch or leaving early to take my dog to a vet appointment or taking a vacation day to nurse a hangover, it all helps the company when i throw myself completely in a project and work longer hours or get pumped up to travel for work. i realize it is different when a kid is sick or has a school function or the parent needs to be away from the office for whatever reason, but i have seen my company time and time again permit a parent to leave to deal with a kid who got in trouble at school or to take a child to an mri for an existing condition...because that parent wants to stay employed at an understanding place so they bust their ass for our company when they are able. in this day with so much technology it is amazing that more companies aren't flexible.
and i kinda think martha is a twat. no, it isn't jealousy, it is just...oh man, i'm not going to take up more of your comment section, but twat. yep.