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Stanford GSB News

 

It's Not Easy Earning Green, Agree Top Women Execs

April 2005

STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS—How do you maintain a high-profile job and still have a life, particularly if you are a woman with children? Pick jobs that fit with your priorities, know when you have to put work first and when you really don't, and make sure you have the financial resources to help out with home maintenance and child care. This was just some of the advice that three senior executives from General Electric offered to a Stanford Graduate School of Business audience as part of a broader discussion on how to achieve career success. The April 5 discussion was part of the student-run View from the Top speaker series.

Kathryn Marinello
Marinello

Juggling work and family priorities is no longer just a women's issue, said Kathryn Marinello, president and CEO of GE Commercial Finance Fleet Services. "I see the men who work around me struggling all the time with wanting to be with their kids and wives," she said. Bringing the matter into sharp relief, she shared a recent conversation with General Motors Chairman Rick Wagner. Wagner told her that when his wife went back to work after raising their children for a number of years, they were both hit with just how difficult it is to be both parents and career professionals. "And these are people with every possible resource at their disposal," Marinello said.

Such questions have nothing to do with gender anymore, Marinello said, but rather with knowing and being comfortable with who you are and making job and personal decisions accordingly. Establishing a vision for one's life early on is an important part of the mix. "When I interview people for jobs, they inevitably don't know what their personal and professional goals are. This means they're letting companies dictate their lives. It's also as important to define what you're not willing to do as it is to determine what you want to do," she said.

The juggling act involves "knowing when you have to put work first and when you don't," she said, although Marinello admitted she sometimes succumbs to staying late at the office more out of paranoia and "fear that everything will fall apart" than anything else. "It's all about developing confidence."

Deborah Reif
Reif

Speaking more generally about what it takes to be successful, Deborah Reif, executive vice president of financial structuring at NBC Universal, offered students some laser coaching based on her 32 years with parent company General Electric. "The most important question you have to ask when you come into a leadership position is: Do I have the right organization and people under me? The culture is the software that runs your operating program, and you need to understand it really well," she said. Having taken over organizations in which morale was low, Reif learned that getting people behind her involved finding out who holds formal and informal power and soliciting their advice and cooperation.

Eileen Whelley
Whelley

"You're only as good as your team," echoed Eileen Whelley, executive vice president of human resources at NBC Universal. "You cannot afford to have even one person on the team who does not reflect the vision you have of the way the department should be running." In going into turnaround situations, Whelley has learned that it's important to mentally make decisions in the first two weeks about who needs to stay, go, and be reorganized. "I then give myself about six months to carry out those decisions so as not to be too disruptive to the organization," she said.

Audience members wanted to hear more from the panelists about how they manage the work-life balance question in their own lives. Marinello admitted that "it stinks" to have missed important milestones in the lives of her three children due to the exigencies of running a large global business with thousands of employees and international companies. "I've sometimes worried that I'm going to raise the next Jeffrey Dahmer because I'm not home. But the good news is that my 17-year-old has reassured me that I've been there for him and it's been a good thing that I've had my own life," she said.

What has helped, Marinello noted, is keeping an attitude that turns negatives into positives. Because job duties have prevented her from being home for her youngest son's birthday eight out of nine years, for example, she has given him two parties—one for when she's there and one for when she isn't. Double the presents, double the fun. Whelley said using email and telephone to keep in touch with her children during the day, even just for small talk, also takes the edge off. "Bring your kids to the office and let them see the environment you work in so they understand it," she also suggested.

Reif amused the audience with an anecdote about her own daughter, who apparently has gotten more benefit from hanging around her office then Reif herself realized. "At age 10 she handed me a pitch letter with an introduction, body, and conclusion to persuade me to allow her to do a sleepover," she laughed. Marinello reassured listeners: "Your kids will actually be fine."

—Marguerite Rigoglioso