Advice for navigating business world, fatherhood

Wanted: Qualified applicant for critical leadership position. Must be able to effectively balance short and long-term goals, make strategic decisions, and effectively motivate subordinates. Must be willing to build teamwork and cultivate values. Negotiation skills essential.

Sound like a great executive position? You're right, it is. It's called being a parent.

The skills of parenting and management are not that far apart (something many moms have known for years.) Tom Hirschfeld, venture capitalist and father, has written a book especially for dads. It's called Business Dad: How Good Businessmen Can Make Great Fathers (and Vice Versa) (Little Brown, 1999, $23.) Read as either a business book or a parenting book, it has good advice for navigating the sometimes chaotic world of work and family. "I had some problems at first adjusting to life as a father and a businessman," said Hirschfeld, who has two children, ages 5 and 2. "I got complacent after my son was born. I wasn't being a full partner. It took a lot of encouragement from my wife to get me up to speed." It helped that his wife, Julie Hirschfeld, is a family therapist. She's also co-author of the book. "I have my priorities straight now," he said. In the process of straightening them out, he landed on a theory that he felt would help other fathers feel more confident and capable at home. "One day when my son was 3, I came home from a long day negotiating deals, and ended up negotiating with him about his bedtime," he said. "The light bulb went off. "You don't have to be two different people at work and at home," he said. The life of a manager can be broken down into four activities: Gathering information, making decisions, executing decisions and managing other people. Parenting requires many of the same skills it takes to do those tasks. To gather information, for example, you must be able to listen, empathize, observe and employ critical thinking techniques. Those skills will give you the information you need to make decisions in a rapidly changing environment. The workplace is constantly changing, and kids change every time you blink, he said. "In both business and fathering, keeping up is much easier than catching up." Certain people management skills also translate well into family life. "Mentoring at work is morally right, and smart since you get better work and support from subordinates," he said. "This applies ten-fold with your kids." And tolerance is critical for both dealing with employees and children. "Kids are harder to manage than employees, but the basic skill set is the same," he said. Hirschfeld hopes that couching parenting advice in the language of business, will inspire men to be more confident in their parenting. "Wives spend more time with children and naturally become experts," he said. "That can be intimidating for fathers." The culture of many corporations doesn't encourage men to feel entitled to take time with their families, Hirschfeld said. "There's still a kind of social expectation about macho, mucho hours," he said. "At work there's a culture of face time. Worth is based on how many hours you spend at the office, not on what you've actually accomplished." That forces fathers to put in quantity time at the office and quality time at home when it should be the other way around, he said. The office is the place to be efficient, while kids need as much time with their parents as they can get. That corporate culture won't change, however, until men start speaking up about their family commitments. "Guys have to stop being silent and say, `Look, I'd like to stay, but I promised I'd read my son a book before he goes to bed,' " he said. "It's gonna take individuals to change the culture." Many companies already have programs to help employees balance work and family needs, but men often don't take advantage of them, he said. "Those policies, such as flex-time, telecommuting, parental leaves -- it doesn't say anywhere that they're for mothers, but that's the way it usually works out," he said. "A lot of managers still think of working parents as mothers only. "

Copyright 1999
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