Welcome to the Christianity in Business Podcast with the Ferris Cheer, an initiative of RCW Dunham College of Business at Houston Baptist University. This is the show that helps Christian business leaders to integrate the local values into business. You can get more information about the HBU Center for Christianity in Business and sign up to receive free access to all five issues of the Christian Business Review Journal by visiting our website at ChristianityInbusiness.com.
SPEAKER_04On today's episode, we're joined by Paula Brown Stafford and Lisa T. Grimes. Paula is a clinical researcher, business leader, and lecturer. She is a distinguished alumna at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she is also an adjunct professor. Previously, she was president of clinical development at Quintiles IMS, a Fortune 500 company. And Lisa is a business leader, coach, and speaker, and she spent most of the last 30 years in healthcare and lifestyle startups, where she has served as CEO of Pure Thread Technologies, Insight Clinical Trials, and Acc Sentient. I don't make it. Did I pronounce that right, Lisa?
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, acentia.
SPEAKER_04Acsentia. That sounds much better. Together, Paula and Lisa founded Haberjan to help women achieve success, create balance, and experience fulfillment. And they're the co-authors of a new book that has just released at the time of this uh, well, not at the time of this recording, but at the time you're listening to it. This book is on the market. The title is Remember Who You Are. Paula and Lisa, welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Darren. We appreciate it very much. Yes. We're glad to be here.
SPEAKER_04Well, let's dive right into this topic and really want to hear kind of some of your personal experiences about this particular topic. What injustices are women in the workplace facing that men just don't have to deal with? And what have you personally experienced in terms of that?
SPEAKER_02Sure, Darren, this is Paula. And I will say that throughout my the early part of my career and really the first 20 plus years, I didn't think too much about the injustices because I was really following in the footsteps of really my father, who was a bit of my mentor around business, and he was in sales, and he just taught me to be me. And I didn't think about the injustices. But as I got in uh more senior levels in my career, I had other women say such things as, you're our hope. And when I said, Well, what does that mean? I found that I was their hope to getting to a senior level in the company. And that really the injustice, maybe that was there is that there were so few women in senior leadership. And trying to um, I guess one of the injustices that I saw was around double standards, that the more senior I got in the organization, the more I could see and I had perspective around some of the double standards that women and some in our book that we give examples of are if a woman needs to leave the office at 4:30 to pick their child up from school, the woman is usually saying, Well, I'm sorry, I've got to leave early and I've got to pick up my child because they have to be here and they have to be there. And the men would just say, Gotta go, gotta go. I'm leaving at 4 30, and they don't give the reason why. But then the women, in some sense, punish themselves, but we feel like we need to give those reasons. And some of the mentoring and coaching that we've even done is, you know, it's not being dishonest or unethical or any of that, not to spout and spew everything that's on your brain and that you're thinking about. Sometimes we just need to leave early, just like men need to leave early. But we ourselves put um, you know, put us in that position. Right.
SPEAKER_04So right. In that particular scenario that you just described for us about, you know, leaving work at 4 30, it is it is it there almost a sense in which if a man was to say that, people say, oh wow, he's look at him, he's putting his family first. But with the woman, it's it it's almost taken for granted, and it's like, oh, can't you sacrifice, make a sacrifice there, stay a little later, or you know, can't they ride home on the bus or something like that? I mean, is it is that what you mean kind of by an example of a double standard?
SPEAKER_02I I do. It and it is um you know felt by most women that that's the case. Uh, you know, they they feel that everybody looks at them like, oh, you're not doing um justice to your job by leaving early for the family. But you're right, when the man leaves early for the family, everybody goes, Oh, that's so sweet. He gets applauded. Right. He's going to coach his child. That's so exciting. That, you know, and and the women don't see it as exciting. You know, we we feel like we have to hide it or apologize for it. And the men don't apologize for it because they shouldn't and we shouldn't.
SPEAKER_01Right. But we've talked about also sometimes other women are the ones that stir the pot more. So exactly. Oh, well, too bad she can't stay. I'm glad I got my home situation managed. I mean, we talked talk about that.
SPEAKER_04What are some of these other double standards that you've noticed?
SPEAKER_01I think um, well, I think that's probably the biggest one. And I think if we call it a double standard, I think a lot of times men perhaps can be a bit more supportive of men, and women can be a bit more competitive with other women.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So sometimes the women will support the men before they'll support the the woman. I I'll give you another example example of something that uh, you know, a lot of people talk about. One is that the men will go to the golf course and have a meeting. And so, you know, I once went on a skiing trip with a bunch of men, which did not make my husband happy, but it was because I wanted to be in the conversation. I needed to be part of that. Lisa has played golf. I don't play golf, but she has played golf with men to be in the conversation. But I remember being in a meeting of about 10 individuals, and it was nine men and me. And we were having this pretty heated debate about the business, et cetera. And then someone said, Well, we need to take a biological break. We need to um take a break. And three of the men, as I walked out the door, and we were all going to the washroom, uh, three men said, Well, let's continue this conversation in the bathroom. And I can't tell you how much I wanted to just walk in that bathroom with them. But, you know, that was one thing I wasn't willing to do, but I really wanted to because I got shut out of that conversation because they had a place that they could carry on the conversation and I couldn't because it was one on nine. Um, and and that is was an unfortunate situation, and and I think that occurs more more often than you think.
SPEAKER_04Wow. I once heard a politician say that if you don't have a seat at the table, you might be on the menu. And so, you know, you don't you want to make sure that you have a seat at the table, that you're that you're not uh being left out of these decisions because you're part of the team, you're part of the the leadership team in many cases as a woman. And and so I can wow, I mean thank you for shedding some more light on that. Lisa, have you experienced what have you experienced on your end in terms of um what women are going through and some of those injustices, double standards?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think both of those, I think the um probably the one that we haven't discussed is the expectations um sometimes of people that I knew more on a social level or people that I did things with outside of work, seeming a little shocked that I wanted to continue my career after having a family. And then, you know, trying to find that balance between, you know what, I do believe if I have my priorities in order, I can have a career and I can do a good job at hopefully being a wife and a mother to the best of my abilities as well, as well, um, really through the strength um that we're given by the Holy Spirit in us. So I think that is one that has been kind of that hard place. Sometimes you feel like you're a little in the middle there, because a lot of it's expected that the guys would have jobs and have all of that to talk about, but sometimes you're in a little feel like you're in a little bit of an isolated place there.
SPEAKER_04One of the things that my wife has brought to my attention uh in terms of the double standard is when it comes to different personality types, uh, particularly in the professional environment. And you know, you have some men that are more aggressive and they're just more domineering and and hard charging, and then you have others that are more a little more reserved, a little more compliant. But and and and that seems to be somewhat okay, but when a woman is more aggressive and more hard charging out in the workplace, I mean it's like the culture doesn't really know what to do with that.
SPEAKER_01And I mean, do you know we get a label, which we're not allowed to say on this kind of getting getting a label that we, you know, don't want to say, but that's what we get called.
SPEAKER_02Yep. And the man's just called aggressive, yeah. And that's okay, you know, but the woman gets a nasty name, and other women call them that more than the men call that. Um, and and that's where we say the women don't support women because they love to label other women as oh, she's, you know, but they don't say, you know, she's aggressive, but she is a really good leader. Um, and and I think that I see that thread starting to change as more women do get into senior leadership positions because there's not that one person that, you know, the one single individual woman who's made it to the top, and all the other women, women are focusing on, you know, what can I pick apart on that woman? Um, and but as more women get into leadership, that you're not looking at that one person and picking them apart. And so I I I feel like some of that as I I have a daughter, 23, and and I'm seeing her in the workplace now, and and I'm not seeing some of that, I'll say cattiness, that I think Lisa and I both grew up with because in the in the business world, corporate world, because we were early, early on. Um often the only female. The only female in a lot of senior business uh situations. But you know, I think that my my daughter's still a year in, she's a little naive because it's all good right now. But uh, you know, I'm hoping that things like us writing this book and sharing some of these stories is going to help that be different.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think Darren, the one other one that is top of mind most recently is uh what seems to be out in the news right now about whether or not you do you have meetings as a woman with men one-on-one or do you not? And we get asked that question quite quite often, and I think we have to be discerning in what we do. I mean, it's one of those things that there are times when you have to say no, but there are certainly times when you have to have, we both have in our careers, you have to have those meetings and you do it with good judgment and with discretion. So it, you know, that's just an area that people say, well, men can have one-on-one meetings, but what about men and women? And when there are more men in senior leadership, if you can't meet with them, it just uh gets into an issue.
SPEAKER_02So I think it's a little bit of a backlash of this Me Too uh that we're going through, and and it is unfortunate um that uh the the pendulum swung so far and now it's going to swing back and I think hurt women. But anyway, that's probably another topic for another day.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I I remember uh I'm glad you brought up the part about the one-on-one meetings. Uh Billy Graham obviously is well known for just living such a righteous and pure life. Um, and and particularly in this area, I mean, he wouldn't even go into uh elevator alone with a woman, you know, let alone like a like a room alone with a woman. And he always had somebody with him. And so there was, I remember a story of when I believe she was First Lady of Arkansas at the time, Hillary Clinton, wanted to have a meeting with Billy Graham. And he said, Okay, we can do that, but it's gonna be in a restaurant in a hotel lobby. So just a very open, open place to where there's no room for, you know, he said, she said, because it's all right out there in the open. So just if you're gonna have a you can have those meetings, just be above board with it.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And that's precisely the point, you know, that we tell them. You know, you of course don't if you're traveling, you meet with the person in the lobby or at the restaurant, and you you know just exactly what you're saying. But there are ways you certainly you can sit at a table and have a conversation with a man in a restaurant because it's all out in the open. Yep. So there are ways to do it.
unknownYep.
SPEAKER_04So how do you look at and from a biblical standpoint? Obviously, everything you're sharing is from a biblical standpoint, because that's your worldview. Um, what does the Bible say about gender roles when it comes to marketplace responsibilities? And um differentiating marketplace responsibilities from the broader uh term workplace, because I mean the household is a workplace too, certainly. Um, but what in specifically in the business world, um what what do you what are you what is your perception on your interpretation of kind of some of those gender roles?
SPEAKER_01I think um a couple of things. One, I um am a firm believer if you go back and look and read, spend some time in the old testament, the Proverbs 31 woman clearly, in my opinion, was a pretty good businesswoman. So she did lots of lots of things, it looks like, and did them rather successfully. I also look at Deborah, clearly um was held in high esteem, and people sought her counsel. And I hope this is getting to to your answer, Darren. But I believe that in in my personal opinion, and is something that I have given a lot of prayer to over the years, that in the business place, the work world that I'm going to for a paying job, because clearly, as you said, there's a lot of work that has to be and needs to be done in my home as well, um, that I am fine to manage both men and women, and I am fine to be a leader, but when I come home, my husband's the head of my household. So I think that it is one of those things that can be tough because when you do work yourself up the ranks and get an executive position and you're used to making lots of decisions, and then you walk in the door and you're switching roles a little bit, it takes um a very supportive husband um to go along with that. But does is that, Darren, does that get to what you were were asking?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean, I I think that's a great answer. Uh one of the the I think the issues that comes up immediately in the minds of people, and and we've talked about this not uh directly thus far, but the the responsibility of a of a woman to her children, uh, for example, especially in those younger years of of the child's life, how did you um I mean just would love to hear from both of you um how did you manage because you're obviously very uh uh upward mobile um women in the corporate world. Was it always like that in terms of how how did you just balance that with uh childcare?
SPEAKER_02Well, uh this is Paula, and I would say that I I'll start because Lisa and I took a little bit different journeys, but a lot of similarities as well. And you know, I have I've I've said this to my children. Um I have two, and they're now 19 and 23, almost 23. Um, and uh, you know, I've said it to other women because I get asked very often, um, you know, how did you do it? How did you balance it? Did you always work? Um, you know, I stopped at two children because my husband wanted to have more, and we said, if you have more, you know, your basically your third child is is work. If I had had a third child, I would have then probably quit at that point. And, you know, we made a decision in terms of our skill sets and in terms of where I thought I was best for my children. Um, and I think each woman, um, just like men and women, are different. Um, I think each individual is different. And I think our skill sets and what we bring. And I felt like I, in some sense, was stronger for my children because I worked, because um I got that part of me out of my system during the day. And when I came home at six o'clock, you know, I would put everything down. My husband did all the cooking, so that the minute I walked in the door, I sat at the table with my children and enjoyed them, spent time with them, read to them, got them in bed, and then I would go back to work. The kids, you know, in the day where there was a Blackberry and it would flash when you had a new email when we first had those, my children would say, Mommy, it's flashing, it's flashing. And I said, Well, okay, that's good. I'll deal with that later. Um, and you really have to be on when you are with your children. And um, you know, we have a lot of examples around this in the book, around how we both have taken vacations and things that we've done with our children and for our children to respect uh that we were working mothers, but we were also mothers and we were wives. And it was how we balanced um our career, but our family and our faith. And how did we balance those things? And some days you'd feel like it got a little out of kilter. And those were the days when you know you questioned yourself and you had to pray about it because you had to make sure that you got it back on track.
SPEAKER_01Right. And I think your point, Paula, I mean, we have a whole chapter dedicated to that and remember who you are, the juggling act, because you if you don't have your priorities in order on a daily by day-by-day basis and hourly by hourly basis, then it's going to get out of whack. There um, I have a little different story. I my husband and I made the choice with our first child to have a nanny that lived with us and took care of a lot, like basically all the household duties. And um, I was very fortunate for that, so that when I was home, I was home and could spend time with um our son and with my husband. We adopted our second child, and he had a lot of medical issues, and they were medical issues that while I had intended to and had already hired a nanny, for him, it just wasn't the thing to do at the time. So I did take a bit of a leave from my career and very suddenly took leave from my career, but it was what I felt that I needed to do again back to what Paula was saying, is based on priorities because at the end of the day, faith and family come first. And we have a lot of analogies about that. But if we're juggling crystal balls, those are the crystal balls.
SPEAKER_04So I'll stop there and I wonder if uh so much of our uh Seems like we have such a need to draw these sharp distinctions between gender roles and who's responsible for what in the household and so on. I wonder how much of that relates to just kind of where our culture has gone and the way, for example, commute times. I mean, I live in Houston. If you work outside of the home in Houston, you're probably got an hour each way to work. And so there somebody's taking care of the kids. It's gonna be one or the other. Whereas my situation is a little bit different. As I record this, I'm sitting in my home office where I work every day. And when my wife goes out for whatever reason, I'm with the kids. And and and so we just kind of tag team that way. We drop our kids off uh yesterday morning to a program called Mom's Day Out. Well, guess what? It was Dad's Day Out too, but they don't call it Dad's Day Out. It's mom's day out. And but you know, we had a great time just kind of going out on a on a date together. But there's just I wonder how much of it relates to uh, for example, the amount of travel that's required and the just the amount of family separation that happens versus the way it was maybe a hundred years ago. Do you think that how big of a role does that play in this conversation?
SPEAKER_02Well, you know, I I'll uh I'll pick up on one thing because there I think um that that's it's a it's a great question, Darren. And I I just will pick up on sort of one aspect of that and what has changed in terms of travel. Um Lisa and I both traveled quite a bit, and in 2005, I had well actually in 2002 I went to a global, or like maybe it was 2003, uh, went to a global course that took me to um France for three weeks and it took me to Singapore for three weeks, and the company paid for it, and um I said that I would only go if uh my family could come visit me and that I would pay. But um so when I went to France, they had to give me the handicap room so that my family could stay in the room with me when they came, and they said that they had never once been asked to do that, and that was in 2003. And then when I went to Singapore, the family flew over because I just was not gonna be gone from my children for three weeks. So, you know, I I stepped outside the box and I made it work, made it work and demanded things, and it was because of that trip that I then told my children when I got back in 2005, I went into a global role, which meant I was gonna be traveling around the world. And so they had enjoyed France and Singapore and they were quite young, both under the age of 10, but I promised them that they owned my frequent flyer miles. And this is where my husband was just awesome because he made a game of it. And when I went out the door with bags in hand, he would say, Mom's going away to get frequent flyer miles for us, and you guys are gonna add them up, and then you get to choose to go anywhere in the world you want to go. And he made a game of it, and they looked on the map and they'd see where I was going, and they were told, and and it was true, you know, I was doing something for them, but it wasn't in the abstract. It was made somewhat tangible since they had been on planes and they had seen where they had gone, and so they saved up the miles, and then we we took a big trip as a family in 2008. Um, and but they felt part of it, and it it wasn't like I say, it wasn't in the abstract. So that's just something we did because of the changing times and then and the uh you know what it took for a woman to succeed in a global company.
SPEAKER_01Right. And I do think, Darren, back to your question too. Yes, I think with people living further apart, maybe from extended families, that certainly factors into it. But I think something that's a little different than what Paula and I experienced 30 years ago and even 20 years ago, it was expected then that we drove to our offices. It really wasn't an option to have an office in the home, which I think is a much more flexible option and is much more helpful, as you mentioned that you and your wife do now. And that was something that that wasn't really heard of at the time. Right. Yeah, there was no uh remote workforce.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. I mean, that's one of the I think one of the best things is happening for families um is is the the move toward home offices, remote workers, because so much of the work that's done over the internet and so on can be done from uh from your house. And uh the studies are showing that the workers are actually more productive in many cases because if you're if one of you has to commute an hour away every day, uh, or you know, even going across across the world or across the country on travel, unless you're bringing your family with you, and I know that some companies that are a little more established actually have uh you know child care, or you could bring your kids to work and let them play together, visit them during the day, things like that. But where the separation is, it forces us to kind of default back to these kind of gender stereotypes. Would you agree with that?
SPEAKER_02I I do. I think we both agree. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So so let's dive into the the book, Remember Who You Are. That as of the time you're hearing this interview listeners, this book is on the market. Um what what do you mean by the title Remember Who You Are as it relates to this conversation?
SPEAKER_02Well, um I'm gonna give you a little bit of a um uh a teaser because it's in chapter one of the book. And uh Remember Who You Are was a saying that my parents uh would say to there were four of us growing up in Raleigh, North Carolina, and when we went out the house out of the house without them, they would always say as we walked out the door, remember who you are. And it meant remember who you are inside. You are a Christian, you know how you've been raised, you know how to act properly, but remember who you are. You know, and we knew what it meant to the point I just had my 30th high school reunion and a young, uh, I say young, he's my age, but anyway, a uh friend um mine from high school, uh, people were talking about the book, and he said, Well, what's the name of the book? And I said, Remember who you are. He goes, Oh, your dad used to say that every time we always went out. There you go. You know, so it had stuck with it with him for the last 30 years. He remembered the saying that uh, you know, came from my parents, and so they they knew.
SPEAKER_01Um And we just thought that that was what the message we wanted to give to really everyone, but really the book started out being more for women, but it's what we wanted to say as you grow in your career, remember who you are. If you remember who you are, you remember that you want to be a person of integrity, you remember that you want to be a servant leader, you remember those things, and it just was the logical title for our book. So great beginning and how it came to be, but it was the message we wanted to deliver.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that's perfect because I like I said, it was it was my story how we got there. But when we were, and we kept thinking that our publisher was going to change the name. Um, but you know, they they understood it, they liked it. Reading the book, they knew that it went with exactly what we were saying throughout the book is be you. Don't think as a woman that you need to go into a meeting dressed in a suit like a man and you need to act like a man. You don't need to act like someone else. You know, we are different. Um we can have equal seats at the table, as you said earlier, but we think differently, we have different perspectives, and in a business that certainly has men and women in it, you need both those perspectives, um, and you need to have those differences represented. So um men and women need to be who they were born to be.
SPEAKER_04What was what would be one of the most uh practical ways from the book that one of the strategies that you equip the readers with to, as you say in the subtitle, to achieve success, create balance, experience fulfillment, um, specifically as it relates to balancing the prior their priorities, because you talk about uh you have a lot of these ball analogies. Um, how do you use those in the book to help the reader?
SPEAKER_01We really set those up as more of a juggling act. A juggler in a circus, of course, is taught to juggle, and unless they get to be or until they get to be really good, they're juggling balls, and then maybe they're juggling bowling pins, but they're juggling similar articles. And we use the analogy as career women, who particularly career women who are also wives and mothers. We have multiple balls that we have to keep in the air, and sometimes they get dumped on us fairly quickly and without no prior experience or training. And we talk about the importance of prioritization, and we say, you know, for us, everyone has to make their own choices, but our faith and our families are crystal balls. They're balls that if you drop them, they're going to shatter. It is going to take an inordinate amount of effort to try to piece it back together. So keep your priorities focused. You know, your crystal balls are key. You have rubber balls that if you drop a rubber ball, guess what? It's going to bounce right back up. You might not even know you dropped it. And some of the examples are anywhere from, you know, having a clean house to, you know, maybe fitting in the suit that you could fit in last year that hopefully you'll fit in again next year. But if you don't fit into it today, it's okay. And we talk about lead balls because I think a lot of us can tend to carry around a weight that we were never meant to carry. And one particular example is guilt or worry or feeling badly, like, oh, well, I I did have to have that business trip. And it was a decision that I had to make, but it was the night of my child's recital. And oh, I feel really badly because of this. And then we just start blowing it out of proportion. And so we talk about that ball being one that we don't we need to drop, and we don't ever need to pick it back up. So we have several different categories of balls and just the different examples of of those things. So really look through your to-do list, look through how you spend your day, and decide what kind of ball it is, and then treat it accordingly.
SPEAKER_02And that's mainly chant shared in one chapter of the book of Remember Who You Are and as you said, achieve success. There's three sections to the book, and there's three chapters per. So there's three chapters on things you can do in terms of trying to achieve success in the workplace. Uh, there's three chapters on creating the balance, the juggling act being one of those, um, also calendar jam. So how we jam our calendars as much as we can into it, but you also have to protect, and then um one chapter on the conquering guilt and worry. And then the last section is on experiencing fulfillment, where we also have three chapters. So just to give a little highlight on uh you know what's in in the three areas.
SPEAKER_04Excellent. And what would be the best place for our listeners to go and and get a copy of the book?
SPEAKER_02So our website is haberjan.com. You can also type in book.haberjan.com to go straight to um places to pre-order, but it'll be in Barnes and Noble and other book sites. Uh it is as of March 6th. Um and uh also be online. Yeah, and uh the book.haberjan.com will get you to the online sources. Um, and then also our our welcome page with you, uh Darren, is Habergeon.com backslash C C B for the Center for Creation Christianity and Business. So we thank you for uh supporting us.
SPEAKER_04Excellent. Well, thanks for making that custom link for us. Everybody go and check out the book and uh get your copy. Uh Lisa and Paula, what would be a parting piece of advice you could leave with our Christian business professionals today?
SPEAKER_01It probably is a little corny, but remember who they are, because at the end of the day, we were created uniquely and with a purpose. And if we pursue our purpose with passion instead of trying to pursue someone else's purpose, then I think we will find the fulfillment that we were born for.
SPEAKER_02Because not only do we remember who we are, but we remember whose we are.
SPEAKER_04Well said. Paul and Lisa, thank you so much for sharing your time and your wisdom with us today, and um God's blessings over this book, and thank you for bringing this message uh to the world, and may God continue to bless everything you put your mind and your heart into.
SPEAKER_01Well, Darren, thank you so much, and um we pray God's blessings on you too. Thanks so much for hosting us. Thanks, Darren.
SPEAKER_00We hope you've enjoyed this episode, and if so, we would greatly appreciate it if you would leave us a quick rating and review for the Christianity of Business Podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about the HBU Center for Christianity Business at Christianitybusiness.com. Thanks for listening, and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your business.