EP50: The 3C’s Working Parents Need To Have

Interview with Deborah Porter / Working Parent Coach

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Deborah Porter is an influential voice on parenting. She runs Porter Systems and is a consultant to organizations and businesses to provide support beyond parental leave for working parents. At a time when working parents are trying to negotiate how and when to ask for a different way of working, she has some concrete advice to get the time they need while still being great workers. It starts with the 3C’s: Clarity, Confidence and Courage. She also has advice for businesses that want to manage the Next Normal effectively. Listen now. 

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Transcript

00;00;05;06 - 00;00;23;26
Paul Sullivan
I'm pleased to welcome Deborah Porter on the Company of Dads podcast. As listeners know, we're looking to explore the sweet, sublime, strange and silly aspects of being a dad in a world where men or the go to parent often feel they have to hide, or at least not talk about their roles. Lead dad is not a traditional role for men.

00;00;23;27 - 00;00;50;04
Paul Sullivan
Whether you work full time, part time, or devote all your time to your family. Now, Deborah, my guest today, is an influential voice on parenting and motherhood and work in business. She runs Porter Systems and is a consultant with organizations and businesses to provide support beyond parental leave for working parents through Porter Systems. She has also helped parents who have been out of the workforce.

00;00;50;05 - 00;01;01;24
Paul Sullivan
get back in. Deborah has been married for 33 years, has three grown children, and lives in the Washington, D.C. area. Deborah, welcome to the Company of Dads podcast.

00;01;01;26 - 00;01;04;06
Deborah Porter
Paul, it's so great to be here. How are you?

00;01;04;10 - 00;01;17;19
Paul Sullivan
I'm great. All right, let's start. I love, systems, and I love acronyms. I love everything I want to know, right out the gate. What are the three C's in your approach?

00;01;17;21 - 00;01;39;19
Deborah Porter
The three C's are clarity. We've got to get clear on what's the priority, because what we've done in our culture is we've taken the word priority and we pluralize it. So now instead of I have something that I have to handle, that's the priority. I have a list of priorities, which means nothing is really the priority. So we identified the thing.

00;01;39;24 - 00;02;03;02
Deborah Porter
We get clarity. We get some confidence around our skill set. What are our strengths? What are we naturally good at as people, as parents, as employees, as caregivers? What are those strengths and how do I use those to my advantage? So we've got clarity, we've got confidence, and then we want to move in courage. You know, it takes courage to be able to say no.

00;02;03;02 - 00;02;27;05
Deborah Porter
Whether it's to a kid, whether it's to your boss, because you don't want to miss this next performance of your kid because you've already missed two concerts already. So once we can get some clarity, some confidence, and some courage in this thing called work life family balance, which, by the way, is never 5050. But once we get those three C's around it, I think we step into it a little bit differently.

00;02;27;13 - 00;02;52;00
Paul Sullivan
Let's go back and talk about clarity. And you talk about priorities should become priority. But so many people who are working parents, whether working moms, working dad, they talk about multitasking. I'm a great multitasker. Is are you saying that that is not a good way to be? Are you saying that they need to sort of, you know, focus on one thing at a time, you know, oh, I help, you know, the listeners understand what you mean by having that single priority.

00;02;52;03 - 00;03;15;19
Deborah Porter
Well, I will say this, that the medical research shows that we work created as mono task taskforce. That's how our brains work and work at at the optimal level as a mono task, or when our brains are having to shift from thing to thing. Okay, I'm I'm working on this. So perfect example. I'm helping with homework, I'm cooking dinner and I'm paying the bills online.

00;03;15;26 - 00;03;40;07
Deborah Porter
I'm doing all of this at one time. It is challenging and difficult for your brain to give all of its attention to any one of those things when there's a constant bouncing around. So I agree with the research. I think we were created as mono testers. However, I know that that's not, you know, in a perfect world, yes, I would sit down and just do homework with my kid, but other things do have to get done.

00;03;40;07 - 00;03;49;16
Deborah Porter
I would say that multitasking should be something we use sparingly. It should not be the way that we are functioning day to day.

00;03;49;18 - 00;04;09;10
Paul Sullivan
Sorry I missed the last part of that. I was just texting, but I'm a good, model. Just kidding. Deborah, I was not texting. It's one of the things I do a lot, I think, when I'm with my kids. I mean, I will leave my phone in the other room, and I will focus on what I'm doing with them when I'm, you know, working.

00;04;09;10 - 00;04;27;22
Paul Sullivan
Sometimes if I really have to work intensely, I will turn everything off except for, the one thing that I'm doing. And I guess one way that I've always justified that to myself, as long for. I started the company days back when I was at the New York Times. Is if I were in a meeting with somebody, if I was having a very important meeting with somebody.

00;04;27;25 - 00;04;36;00
Paul Sullivan
Literally not in the middle of the meeting like in the middle of our calling. Hey. Difference. Really great point. But I can I got it. Let me just text out the dog groomer. It's good to get a Christopher.

00;04;36;03 - 00;04;36;22
Deborah Porter
Exactly.

00;04;36;22 - 00;04;57;12
Paul Sullivan
You would never do that. But I think we've gotten away from it and it's it's sort of, a badge of of pride. But. Yeah, I agree with you. I think it just, you know, scrambles how we're going to do it. But when you talk about, you know, sort of courage, the courage is at a change. You know, the narrative in the way you're going to work particularly, you know, coming out of the pandemic or our work from home.

00;04;57;12 - 00;04;59;02
Deborah Porter
Yes. How to be sure.

00;04;59;10 - 00;05;18;09
Paul Sullivan
How do you help people, you know, get that courage? What are easy ways to say, like, okay, you know, you want to me stand up is the wrong word. It's not like you want to be confrontational, but you want to be able to tell your your boss, hey, this is important. I need to do this, or, you know, remember, I measured on outcomes, not on, you know, face time in the office.

00;05;18;12 - 00;05;26;26
Paul Sullivan
How do you help people develop that courage to say I'm still a great employee, but let me work in a way that's going to optimize a lot of different things in my life.

00;05;26;29 - 00;05;44;14
Deborah Porter
I think one way we do that, one way that I help parents do that and support them around that is how to have difficult conversations, right? No one is saying this is going to be easy, and no one's saying that. You're going to feel really confident walking into this conversation. But it's a skill set of how to have difficult conversations.

00;05;44;17 - 00;06;01;03
Deborah Porter
It's a skill set of knowing, timing. You know, sometimes what you have to say is great, but the timing you pick to do it is horrible. And so you've got to know the right timing. I always love to be able to give people notice, so as soon as you're aware of something, if you can put that on a calendar and fantastic.

00;06;01;03 - 00;06;29;03
Deborah Porter
If this is a shared calendar amongst your team or other people have access to it, to know that that time is already blocked off as soon as possible. And I think the other part of this is, just being human. I think if the pandemic has shown us anything and the lockdowns and just the, you know, virtual and remote working and kids running around behind us naked and, you know, just all of that going on, we're human and we have more in common than, than not.

00;06;29;06 - 00;06;44;28
Deborah Porter
And so I think just being able to come to it as a person and saying, look, there's something really important going on in my family. I've met the deadline. I can still get that to you on time, but these hours, I'm not going to be able to be here. I don't think that's going to impact anything we've got going.

00;06;45;00 - 00;06;55;01
Paul Sullivan
But I love, like, signaling, like, Hey, John, I'm going to ruin your afternoon. So what's a good afternoon for me to ruin it? I got some I got some time. I got to tell you. Like, why not give me the.

00;06;55;06 - 00;06;56;19
Deborah Porter
Best day for me.

00;06;56;26 - 00;07;07;14
Paul Sullivan
Right. I had a similar thing. Because we have to, you know, end of the year, going to meet with our accountant. And he wanted to meet on Friday. And I was like, I to meet with you on Friday, like, we're with you on Monday. You're going to that's.

00;07;07;14 - 00;07;09;24
Deborah Porter
A Monday meeting. Yeah. It's like.

00;07;09;27 - 00;07;19;08
Paul Sullivan
Unless you like, you know, unless it's like Oprah, like you're going to get $1 million, you're going to get a brand new account. Never tells you that you don't want that. And like, this is you're going to owe money to.

00;07;19;11 - 00;07;21;27
Deborah Porter
I'm not meeting with you on Friday and going in my weekend with that.

00;07;21;27 - 00;07;25;14
Paul Sullivan
No Monday afternoon. That's what I'm going to be, you know.

00;07;25;16 - 00;07;29;08
Deborah Porter
And it's going to be a rainy Monday afternoon on top of it.

00;07;29;10 - 00;07;53;19
Paul Sullivan
So funny. You know, your focus has largely been on un and women and, you know, a mix of women in the workplace and women getting back into the workplace. I understand, but, you know, there's a growing number of men who, are doing more at home. Not not as many as is reflected in the statistics, but also men who are, changing their, their, sort of work schedule.

00;07;53;19 - 00;08;11;22
Paul Sullivan
And there's a study, the Pew Research, that did some work, in December that that talked a lot about this. And, you know, in the company dads, we talk about, you know, the dads who work full time, part time or devote all their time, to their families. And that that latter group often called, you know, stay at home moms, dads.

00;08;11;24 - 00;08;38;17
Paul Sullivan
But we don't like that phrase. But when you when you work with that group of women, are there certain, sort of, you know, skill sets that you work to impart on them that might be translatable to men in, in a similar, position? I mean, the question is really like, you know, when those, you know, moms who devote all the time to the family, when they're feeling fulfilled in what they're doing, what are they doing?

00;08;38;17 - 00;08;45;02
Paul Sullivan
Right? And can those things be translated to, to men in, a similar position?

00;08;45;04 - 00;09;03;02
Deborah Porter
I love that, I love I love what you're doing. I love the way this is so normal in the conversations that you have and in the way that you're living and in the way that you are inviting, lead dads, I love the term. I love the company. I mean, I just think that what you're doing is you're making this normal.

00;09;03;04 - 00;09;25;03
Deborah Porter
It's not a weird thing. It's not kind of like a What? I mean, you're you're taking this, choice of how people are choosing to divide up and and work the division of labor in their homes, and you're just making it normal, So I think you and I were talking maybe a couple weeks ago, but aside from breastfeeding, there's really nothing that a mom is doing that a dad can't do.

00;09;25;03 - 00;09;33;25
Deborah Porter
And that's really just for a short amount of time. Although I have seen these, have you seen the fake boob things that men are putting bottles in and. Yeah, but that's a.

00;09;33;27 - 00;09;34;05
Paul Sullivan
I.

00;09;34;06 - 00;09;35;07
Deborah Porter
Talk about that another time.

00;09;35;07 - 00;09;44;12
Paul Sullivan
I don't say that. Yeah. That was not that. For the record, that was 100% not my question. Okay. That was not at no point did that comma you brought that up. All right.

00;09;44;15 - 00;10;06;01
Deborah Porter
I love what you're doing. And I think, what we're talking about really is the normalization of as a family, as figuring out how is this working for us and if it's not working for us, if this is the setup that we have in the division of labor we have is just working for one person, then it's not going to work, and it's not going to work for long because someone's going to move into resentment.

00;10;06;03 - 00;10;26;07
Deborah Porter
And so I think really what we're talking about, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, is, again, this is a difficult conversation. If you're asking someone to change, you're asking someone to view things differently. But I think it's how we step into this conversation. And I don't think the conversation is you never do X, Y, and Z, or how come I'm always the one ABC?

00;10;26;10 - 00;10;45;00
Deborah Porter
I think the conversation is, how do we show up in this relationship, and what can we do so that we're showing up better for ourselves, for each other, and for our family? I think that's a different conversation than being accusatory or irritated or frustrated.

00;10;45;03 - 00;11;16;08
Paul Sullivan
Then when you find that people aren't showing up in the way they want to show up, or they're showing up in such a way that they feel that it's not being appreciated by their spouse, whether it's, you know, whichever, you know, husband, wife, whatever, what's going on there, you know, what is genuinely going on in those situations where the person you're working with feels like he or she is not showing up in the way that they would like to, or vice versa, that they are not being appreciated for how they're showing up.

00;11;16;08 - 00;11;21;18
Paul Sullivan
And I guess they probably are looking for the words articulate, how they're feeling.

00;11;21;21 - 00;11;42;13
Deborah Porter
Yeah. I think what part of what you're describing is the default parent, and the default parent is the one who is doing the lion's share of the stuff. Right? The default parent is making the breakfast, doing the lunch, doing the carpool. Default parent knows all the schedules, doctor's appointments, knows where all the important papers are, is doing nap time, nighttime bedtime.

00;11;42;16 - 00;12;04;13
Deborah Porter
They're doing it all. And, you know, I talk with moms, and we work on this whole idea of supermom. And do you see her as a superhero and an amazing thing to aspire to? Or does she really get on your nerves and you're just not into it? And I find that many mothers, many women, see her in a positive light.

00;12;04;13 - 00;12;20;08
Deborah Porter
I happen to think the term itself is negative and it's damaging to women because we've taken this guy who's not real. I'm. Newsflash kind of spoiler alert. Superman was a costume. Like it was not a real do.

00;12;20;08 - 00;12;24;14
Paul Sullivan
We'll have to disagree there, because I've not

00;12;24;16 - 00;12;46;13
Deborah Porter
But we've taken that. And now as moms, as women, we're saying, oh, but I can do that. I actually can be super. No, you really cannot be super. And so I think, managing expectations, I think not aiming for perfection and allowing to, accept that done is better than perfect any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

00;12;46;15 - 00;13;00;11
Deborah Porter
And I think also inviting and allowing people to step into that space even when they're not going to do it like you do it, even though we all know that you do it the right way. Air quotes right my way is the right way. And so I can't let him do it because he's not going to do it the right way.

00;13;00;11 - 00;13;02;09
Deborah Porter
Listen, done is better than perfect.

00;13;02;11 - 00;13;03;02
Paul Sullivan
Yeah.

00;13;03;05 - 00;13;21;00
Deborah Porter
So I think that's some of what we're we're navigating through. What does it look like to be supermom and is it working for you? Managing my expectations and allowing people to step into it, knowing that Rome wasn't built in the day? Your home is not going to be built in a day. This is going to take some intentional effort on how everybody is owning something.

00;13;21;02 - 00;13;40;00
Paul Sullivan
You know, you talk about Superman. I think of, one of my my pride, my mom. It's it on my kids, one of my favorite movies, you know, The Incredibles. And it's it's so good. And there's The Incredibles, and then there's Incredibles two, and then Incredibles two. You know, Mr. Incredible, the dad, is is out of work.

00;13;40;00 - 00;14;02;08
Paul Sullivan
He can't be incredible anymore. And his, his wife, elastigirl is out being, a superhero. And what is interesting is like, you know, for women who are fulfilling this role, as you know, either they're working moms and balancing all kinds of different things, or they opt to be in lead moms and focus on the family. There is this model that is, aspirational, you know, superwoman.

00;14;02;10 - 00;14;21;06
Paul Sullivan
Now, again, that can be dangerous for some. But for men, the model is, you know, sort of Mr. Incredible gone to see the the his belly gets big. He can't handle literally. Jack-Jack, the one who slides himself on fire and is when Elastigirl goes off. And so like, in a way, like I'm trying to change that narrative because that's not it is it's funny.

00;14;21;06 - 00;14;40;17
Paul Sullivan
Of course. It's funny to see Mr. Incredible struggle with being, lead that, but it's not really, you know, beneficial. And this is a community that has done a lot of work on this and like how men are portrayed, in, in popular media. And if men are portrayed in popular media, as you know, dads who are angry or dads who are bumbling or dads or buffoons or.

00;14;40;17 - 00;15;14;11
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, exactly. Or who are only really dads because their wife died, I think get more, you know, these are not positive, you know, models. And when you, you know, think about, you know, the positive models that that you help your client with, you know, what comes to mind if they're the ones who don't look at, you know, superwoman or supermom or Superman as, as a model, how do you help them, you know, find find the place that is, you know, right for them and not get into some sort of competitive Instagram battle with their.

00;15;14;14 - 00;15;36;00
Deborah Porter
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So we spent some time working on family core values. I don't know how many of us as families really sit down to figure out what what is it about us? What is it for us? What is the thing, that for us is most important. More important than anything. And how do we show up?

00;15;36;02 - 00;15;55;07
Deborah Porter
How do we show up in this family for each other? More importantly, how do we show up at school, at work? So we spend some time on a family core values exercise. And that involves the kids. I mean, as young as five. They can be involved in that exercise. And then what that does is we take what we find, as as family core values.

00;15;55;07 - 00;16;21;26
Deborah Porter
We put those values in, sentences that inspire action. So it may sound like for our family, one of the, one of our action sentences around our core values was we are helpers. When we show up. Whoever we're with knows that we're willing to roll up our sleeves and help, whether that's in school, with a teacher, with a friend, a new kid, whether that's a new employee, whether it's me with a new mom on the block.

00;16;21;29 - 00;16;47;26
Deborah Porter
It's just something that applies to everybody. So I find that once we understand and know our family, core values are what matters to us. The need and even the desire to compare kind of minimizes. Because I'm clear on me, right? That clarity is important. Again, I'm clear on what we're doing. I'm clear on why we show up. So the idea I think we compare because we're not really clear on what's important, what's valuable to us.

00;16;48;02 - 00;16;59;28
Paul Sullivan
That's great. Do you get buy in from all the members of the family? You have three kids, a husband. Did you all sort of come up with these core values together? Or a how does it walk me through the, the, the exercise is sort of, you know.

00;17;00;03 - 00;17;03;01
Deborah Porter
Yeah, it's a family meeting. It's a, you know.

00;17;03;04 - 00;17;06;00
Paul Sullivan
It's one of a super vote or something like that. What.

00;17;06;03 - 00;17;19;02
Deborah Porter
It's a it's a family meeting setting. And you know, the earlier you can do this with them the better. I think our daughter was just approaching teenage years. So it was a lot of eye rolling. You know, she was like, this is so.

00;17;19;05 - 00;17;20;20
Paul Sullivan
She your oldest of the three was so.

00;17;20;21 - 00;17;36;00
Deborah Porter
She's our oldest. Yeah, she's our oldest. And she's like, oh my gosh, mom, where did you find this? This is so corny. But now she's the kid that's now, you know, that's not what we do, people. That's not how we show up. And I'm like, oh, really?

00;17;36;02 - 00;17;43;01
Paul Sullivan
You gave her something that she can use against her brother. So that was also very good. So it's in the other okay. So she's got that right.

00;17;43;08 - 00;18;03;11
Deborah Porter
So it's lighthearted. It's fun. It's not an intense time. So we each take a sheet of paper and we're either writing down right words that mean something to us. Action words. Name an action word that describes something we've done in the family. Or what I'll do is I'll write a bunch of these words out myself, put them in a big bucket, and we pass the bucket around and everybody pulls out a word.

00;18;03;14 - 00;18;21;19
Deborah Porter
Once we can narrow it down to about four or 5 or 6 words. And, you know, the baby always gets the pick to the youngest always. But I can't decide which word. So the youngest gets to pick two words, but, you know, whatever. And then we take those words and we make them apply. We make them to apply to our everyday life.

00;18;21;24 - 00;18;48;09
Deborah Porter
Ideally, my husband and I have already had a meeting, aside from the kids, and what we're trying to do is help them to walk into their gifts and the things that we see in them and the leadership we see in them, or in the the help or gifts that we whatever it is, we're trying to connect that for them so that not so much when they're in the house, because I think our kids don't have any plan on living any of this kind of stuff out when they're at home.

00;18;48;11 - 00;18;51;13
Deborah Porter
It's also always when they're outside of the house.

00;18;51;16 - 00;19;02;04
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. It's like that's always the, you know, as they fight and they go back and forth because, you know, like you, I have three kids. And like when you see them out in the world, you're like, okay, I guess I'm doing a halfway decent job that, that that's a good rep.

00;19;02;06 - 00;19;07;12
Deborah Porter
People come up to you and say, your kids are so amazing. And you're like, thank you. And then you go, wow.

00;19;07;15 - 00;19;33;00
Paul Sullivan
Which one are you doing this? These are my kids, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You mentioned your daughter, and I remember when we talked last, you told me a story in which, you knew that as a as a, not a as a mom, not as a, as a coach, but as a human human being you needed at some time, you know, every month or two or however often it was to go and do something for yourself.

00;19;33;00 - 00;19;54;13
Paul Sullivan
And it was often an overnight and, you know, not crazy. But there was one moment where you had had everything set in motion and, you talked about it, you talked to your husband about it, but then one of your kids, was sick, and you were faced with this conundrum of, you know, do I stay or do I go?

00;19;54;15 - 00;20;12;04
Paul Sullivan
I don't want to ruin the story, but tell us, you know, what happened, how you work through it, and what you ultimately did, because they can be a great example of how people need to think through and prioritize. Yeah. Time, for themselves and for the, the family.

00;20;12;06 - 00;20;35;17
Deborah Porter
Yeah. Yeah. So I would do this every quarter. We had three kids. Still have three kids, but, our daughter was, I don't know, somewhere around 13 and, she woke up that morning sick. She wasn't feeling well. She had something going on with her I like. It was just a whole thing. And the mother in me was like, there's no way to allow.

00;20;35;19 - 00;20;45;13
Paul Sullivan
Me that last minute, Minister, you said a raccoon had attacked her. And so that you can sanitize the story. That sounds a lot better, but. All right, it's your story to tell that.

00;20;45;15 - 00;21;04;19
Deborah Porter
So, you know, obviously, the mom and me, it's like you can't leave. Like, look at your kid. What, are you, crazy? But I knew that not only was this moment important for me, but it was as important for my kids and for my husband. I needed him to know that. I know you got this. There's no way I can step into this and go.

00;21;04;20 - 00;21;23;29
Deborah Porter
There's no way you can handle this. I'm not going. Right. And in the same token, I needed my kids to know your dad is capable and able. I know I'm the one that's here all the time. And I know I'm the one doing all the things. But he can do this. So I wrote down the phone number of our doctor, and our pediatrician was like a mile and a half away, and I was like, here's a pediatrician's number.

00;21;24;01 - 00;21;40;23
Deborah Porter
I'm sure he'll get you in right away. By smooches sweetie, you're going to be fine. It's going to be great. And I'll see you guys in two days. And I pulled out the driveway and I was crying because I the girl. It's hard to move past that guilt, but I knew I'd done the right thing. It wasn't easy.

00;21;40;27 - 00;21;55;07
Deborah Porter
I mean, doing the right thing is never, always easy. But I knew that I had done the right thing. So by the time I got to my destination, they called. Oh, doctor gave her a couple of drops. She's fine. She's sitting there eating chips and pizza. I'm like, I'm not even going to ask about that, but okay, she's eating chips and pizza.

00;21;55;07 - 00;22;11;19
Deborah Porter
Okay, whatever. You guys have a ball? But but what? I think we all learned something in that. And what we all learned is this thing can function, this ship can move, and I don't have to be the one steering it all the time. Right. And things can still get done.

00;22;11;26 - 00;22;20;01
Paul Sullivan
But you're right. You could have undermined your husband's authority as a father. Like it? This is, again, not like, you know, it wasn't life or death. And literally she needed some.

00;22;20;01 - 00;22;20;23
Deborah Porter
Drop right.

00;22;20;23 - 00;22;34;27
Paul Sullivan
In her eyes to it instilled some, independence, in your oldest child, your daughter to say, okay, I can do this. And then surely it scared the hell out of your other two kids because they're like moms leaving us. What are we doing here? We better behave next time.

00;22;34;28 - 00;22;56;14
Deborah Porter
So, like, what's happening? Mom is leaving. Oh my God. It was it was great. But, you know, it's one of those things that you push through. And just because something is uncomfortable doesn't mean it's bad or wrong. I think a lot of times we get uncomfortable, and so we freeze. Sometimes you just gotta push right through that uncomfortable feeling and go ahead and get to the other side of it.

00;22;56;19 - 00;22;59;06
Deborah Porter
Uncomfortable? Does it mean wrong or bad? Yeah.

00;22;59;08 - 00;23;30;08
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. Let's segue a little bit and talk to some of the about some of the work you do with businesses and talk about, you know, some of the stuff that has happened in the past, you know, past year. I mean, I want to go all the way back to the start of the pandemic. But but really, as businesses have tried to figure this out and as I often say, like, you know, there are very few businesses that have taken, you know, sort of a really hard stance or a few we all know, hearts and about, you know, working in the office, most of them I'm willing to give people the benefit of doubt,

00;23;30;10 - 00;23;55;02
Paul Sullivan
are trying to figure this out, and some of them are doing a little bit better than others. They're all make mistakes. They'll look back on this and do a postmortem. You know that, right? Right. But when you look at the ones that are in your opinion, you know, what are some of the things that they're doing that you find to be, very supportive for, you know, working parents and also ultimately, you know, good for the company in the business because, yeah, people engage.

00;23;55;02 - 00;23;55;05
Deborah Porter
What?

00;23;55;05 - 00;23;57;29
Paul Sullivan
Absolutely that that stand out.

00;23;58;02 - 00;24;18;28
Deborah Porter
I think one of the things they're doing first and foremost is they're listening. They're not telling their working parents what they should or need to be doing. They're listening to what they're working parents are saying and what they need. I think the other thing they're doing is they're not only, being flexible with remote and, and virtual, but they're being flexible with time in general.

00;24;18;28 - 00;24;45;12
Deborah Porter
You mentioned a term before is, outcomes, right? If it's if it's getting done, are we going to micromanage the time and the hours that people are putting into it? Because I don't know that we even get the biggest bang for our buck when we do that. And I think another thing that the companies that are serious about this, they are not only, intentional about the formation of these employee resource groups for parents and caregivers, but they're funding them and they're bringing in the resources.

00;24;45;12 - 00;24;53;27
Deborah Porter
So it's not just about the flexibility and time, but it's also about the resources to provide the working parents with more support and what they need.

00;24;54;00 - 00;25;17;29
Paul Sullivan
And that last part is really crucial because, you know, ERGs are a big part of what, the company dads is doing. But, you know, one of the knocks against him is it's just can be one more form of unpaid labor if you don't really fund them, if you don't somehow recognize or compensate or consider in the review the person who is, you're running that group, an employee running the employee resource group.

00;25;18;02 - 00;25;42;29
Paul Sullivan
It's it's problematic. Yeah. You talked about before the one of the three C's was was courage. And and you talked about the courage of difficult conversations when those employees who are trying to figure out their balance between, you know, working hybrid work in the office, where do they need to have courage and, and, and where are they struggling with those conversations with work?

00;25;43;02 - 00;26;10;29
Deborah Porter
I think part of it is, trusting their gut. I think that's a big part for all of us. Trusting what what I know, I mean, like what my own Northstar is and what I know I need to do in the face of people on my team who don't even have children, and how this may come across or look to them, or there he or she goes again, another performance by another kid, you know, little remarks and things like that being made.

00;26;10;29 - 00;26;34;21
Deborah Porter
So I think in the place of courage, it's just really being able to stand in what may not initially be the most welcoming remarks, comments or, or even culture. So I think just being able to stand in what's valuable to you and what your, truth is and what your personal values are. I think that takes great courage.

00;26;34;24 - 00;26;51;26
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. I've always thought that if you get, you know, it's the top performers in the firm. If they can, you know, push it because they have the most job security. They have the absolute, most job security of anyone in the firm. You don't want to lose the top performers, and the bottom performers, you've got the top 30%, the bottom 30%, the bottom 30% and grumble all they want.

00;26;51;26 - 00;27;07;20
Paul Sullivan
They're not going to go anywhere, you know? But if you can really get those alliances at work so that those top performers are saying, hey, this is how I'm going to work. And this is why it's important this way. I think they can really, by taking a lead, help everybody else, because there may be somebody in the middle.

00;27;07;22 - 00;27;08;19
Deborah Porter
Who, yeah.

00;27;08;24 - 00;27;14;14
Paul Sullivan
Doesn't have that standing who is is very replaceable. You don't want to say this about you, but they're replaceable.

00;27;14;14 - 00;27;27;08
Deborah Porter
It's exactly right. And that's what people if that's what parents are thinking in the back of their mind. Well, I really won't go to this performance, but hey, I really need this job. Like, yes, you know, how how, how am I going to how am I going to do this? So you I agree with you 100%. Absolutely.

00;27;27;10 - 00;27;58;23
Paul Sullivan
All right. There. This is you're going to be the one of the first podcast of 2023, even though we're recording this at the end of the year. Tell me when you look at, you know, next year, you know, I'm a little raspy now, probably the beginning of my so-called triple demic year or something I have. But you that aside, when you look at, you know, the landscape for working parents, for parents who had been the lead mom or dad who are looking to sort of be more fulfilled or returned to work, what does that landscape look like, in 2023?

00;27;58;23 - 00;28;13;09
Paul Sullivan
And just no, I'm not going to call you up in a year and tell you what you got, right or wrong. I'm just curious. You are, you know, you're right. Like, you know, point number seven was way up. I'm not going to I know I don't, I want to you're talking to you both sides all the time.

00;28;13;09 - 00;28;19;22
Paul Sullivan
The business leaders, the the workers. What do you think 2023 is going to be like?

00;28;19;25 - 00;28;52;01
Deborah Porter
I think 2023 is going to be one of the strongest years for working parents yet. And the reason I say that is because we cannot unsee and unknow what just happened. You know, I hate to keep using kind of the pandemic. It's kind of like everything is like, before the pandemic or after the pandemic. Right? But I don't think we can unknow that and unsee what moms have known and families have known forever is how this kind of burden, disproportionately has impacted mothers, up until this point.

00;28;52;08 - 00;29;18;11
Deborah Porter
But what we've also been able to see now, you know, the curtain has been moved when work came home, when school came home, when home became Grand Central Station, it became really obvious this is not sustainable. The way that we've got this set up is not going to work. So in my opinion, I think 2023 is going to be one of the strongest years for the working parent one, because I think we're finding our voice too, because I think we've got the organizations and the urges that are forming.

00;29;18;11 - 00;29;45;04
Deborah Porter
So the isolation of being that parent that has to keep leaving or that parent, that kid keeps getting sick, all parents can relate to that now. So I think the idea of having this kind of culture, this caring culture around families, is going to become more prevalent and more obvious. And I think those are the organizations and companies that are going to not only retain who they have, but they're the ones that are actually going to get the really great talent that's out there.

00;29;45;06 - 00;29;51;27
Paul Sullivan
That's where we're going to end it. That's perfect spot. Deborah Porter, thank you so much for being my guest on the Company of Dads podcast.

00;29;51;29 - 00;29;53;22
Deborah Porter
Thanks for having me, Paul. This was great.