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Coming to Terms with Title EnvyNovember, 2002 AFTER BUSINESS SCHOOL, Bruce Cozadd, MBA ’91, searched for a company that was not full of workaholics. “But then those bad genes took over and I started climbing the ladder because it was there,” Cozadd said of his experience at Alza Corp., where he became CFO and finally COO. He eventually resigned after the company was bought out and his position would have required much travel. Now a “titleless” consultant with three children, Cozadd and his spouse-classmate, Sharon Hoffman, constrain their careers by setting a limit on the amount of child care they will hire. “Our nanny has never left later than 3 p.m.,” Cozadd said at a June discussion of work–family balance issues organized by the Alumni Affairs office. The focus was on the balance issues faced by men, because they have fewer opportunities than women to talk about the subject, said Linda Wells, MBA ’93, who organized the discussion. Cozadd and Hoffman, director of the School’s MBA Program, sit down monthly to coordinate their schedules and make “horse trades” about the hours they each will be home, he said, confessing to occasional bouts of “title envy.” “You guys are all something,” Cozadd said to the men in the audience, “and I’m just me.” “I was so ambitious, I couldn’t have done this right out of school,” added Jonathan Visbal, MBA ’84, about his decision to trade his career in international entrepreneurship for a lower-key role as an executive recruiter. “You only have 10 years to influence your kids, and after that society takes over,” he said, explaining why he had left work at 4:30 the day before to cycle with his two daughters and why he would attend a school party the next day. How do you find a job with work–family balance? Eric Weaver, MBA ’92, founder of the nonprofit Lenders for Community Development and father of a toddler, suggested people focus their career by thinking about what things they like to do that “don’t have 10,000 other people beating the door down to do them.” |
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