Families and Work Institute - The Executive Take:
Posted by Adam R. Goldberg, M.Ed. on Thu, Jun 18, 2009
As expected, the Families and Work Institute 2009 Work Life Legacy Award Dinner in NYC featured a star-studded cast of executives... a veritable who's who in work-life - our version of the lifetime achievement award ceremonies you read about in the entertainment rag mags.
What stood out this year? For me it was the CEO panel late in the evening (all due respect to the actual award recipient, Michael J. Carey - he was impressive as well). The discussion, moderated by J. Randall MacDonald - SVP of HR at IBM and including Douglas R. Conant - President & CEO of Campbell Soup Company, James S. Turley - Chairman & CEO of Ernst & Young, Michael I. Roth - Chairman & CEO of Interpublic Group, Willie A. Deese - EVP & President of Merck Manufacturing at Merck, and Vice Admiral John C. Harvey, Jr. Chief of Naval Personnel in the US Navy, provided some refreshingly and frustratingly honest commentary.
Why refreshing? How many times do featured work-life champions exclusively tout altruistic motives behind their actions? When asked by an attendee in the audience, all responded that, to a large extent, their support of balancing family and work matters in their corporate culture was driven by bottom line concerns. Michael I. Roth was frank in acknowledging that Interpublic's revenues depend heavily on marketing appropriately to women and thus need to cater to a workforce that understands buying behavior of women and is obviously heavily dominated by women. Vice Admiral John C. Harvey, Jr. followed by revealing that around 30% of Naval recruits are women today and that figure is likely to grow.
So, where's the frustration? For starters, the panel was comprised of all men. Secondly, as effusively as these guys praised their HR teams for walking the walk, they are still in the minority of executives that genuinely get it when it comes to employee engagement through work-life.
During the wrap up, when each panelist was afforded a last word of advice, the Vice Admiral's analogy hit it right on for me. He told the story of Cortez's orders to "Burn the boats," during his 1519 conquest. Those moving into new territory, new opportunity better not look back, he reasoned; the same goes for executives charging forth into a new era of family-work balance. I only wish all the "non-believers" were in the room to receive his challenge.