As I sit here afraid to breathe on my laptop because it is within kilobytes of crashing, it occurs to me the leaders of today’s consumer products companies need a little slap in the head…er…feedback. “Attention companies, what will it take to get products that work, consistently, at what they were made for, for more than a couple of years?”

I’ll start with my laptop. Purchased 3 years ago for a whopping $2500, my IBM Thinkpad is not working properly. In fact, it has not worked properly for most of the last year. Somehow the hard drive is full, yet when I look at how much space my programs and files take up, it comes to about 10% of my 15 GB hard drive. I’m guessing it is the thousands of Microsoft and McAfee updates that occur daily and/or the basic system files (most of which I really don’t use) which also slow my boot-up process to a whopping 8 minutes. (I should send IBM an invoice for my cumulative invested time, I think, so I can retire.) There is also some kind of corrupted area of my hard drive, which prevents me from using that area and also from deleting files located there. I call it my own personal black hole. So, to remedy this, I am told I must backup all of my files somewhere, reformat my hard drive, and re-install everything. Assuming I could pull this off without any data loss, (Outlook files are NOT automatically stored in one’s documents area, for example, but are hidden elsewhere in the ether and are, in fact, “hidden files”, which you must unhide before you can even see them.) I’m guessing this process is going to cost me some time and cash or just a lot of cash.

Then, there is my dishwasher. 5 years ago for about $1000 we purchased a high-end Maytag. It was claimed to be very quiet and able to “sanitize” dishes because it adds extra heat to the water. Sounds good, right? At 3 years we had a new pump installed and lately we have found unidentified rubber parts on the floor outside of the dishwasher. Nothing on the top shelf comes out clean anymore and running the beast is louder than having a conversation in the kitchen, which is strangely what I like to do in my kitchen after dinner. The prospect of buying a new dishwasher is aggravating to me because ASSUMING we find one to fit the exact space again, I will have to spend time buying the product, arranging installation, and supervising the installation.

I recently traded in a Honda Odyssey after a 4 year lease. In less than 4 years I replaced a battery (after several calls to AAA to jump start my car) and tires, as well as responded to a recall notice to replace something with the transmission. One of the automatic side doors was temperamental, working only on even days, I think. The air conditioning was also sporadic and seemed to work opposite to what was needed. Again, in addition to money, resolving these issues cost me TIME.

In every case I made purchases of high-end, high-priced products from industry-leading brands. I did not load up on gizmos and gadgets to do anything special – I just wanted a laptop to run basic office applications, a dishwasher to clean my dishes, and a reliable bus to transport my family. What I though I paid extra for was quality, reliability, and service. While what I got was probably better than what non-industry-leading brands provide, I personally think this is just not good enough.

My parents had the same washing machine for 25 years. (My 7 year old washer and dryer have both had new motors this year.) They drove the same car for at least 10. The toys we played with were stored, gifted to my children, and are now stored again. While I can appreciate technological advances have reduced the purchase cost of these items today and increased the features, assortment, and availability, I cannot help but ask, “What will it take to use technology to create BETTER quality products than those our parents had?” Because you know what, my TIME has a cost as well.

So, to any of you market researchers visiting this website to tap into the trends, feelings, views, and preferences of professional moms, “Listen up! We want functional products that work. Period. We DON’T want refrigerators with TVs that can’t keep the milk cold, cars with IPOD connections that can’t tote kids around town, computers that can zap the latest viruses but can’t get an internet connection, coffee pots that can sense the room’s ambient temperature but can’t make any coffee, or bicycles that make motorcycle noises even after the non-replaceable plastic pedals have broken off.

And guess what, WE ARE WILLING TO PAY MORE FOR THEM!!!”

Reading the business media is sometimes like riding a roller coaster. One minute, former GAP CEO Paul Pressler is a genius, poised to turn around the retailer’s woes. Less than four years later, the guy is considered ineffective and is ousted. Just months before leaving Enron, Jeffrey Skilling was touted as a leadership “powerhouse” by Businessweek. Even Michael Eisner’s dynasty at Disney was eventually attacked and dismembered. These leaders were all once favorites, highly compensated for their apparent accretive effect on the stock price and shareholder value. But, in hindsight, and despite their short-term successes, their leadership may have actually diluted long-term wealth for investors. So how can we objectively measure and compensate leadership results?

It occurs to me that one model may be to look at how we are judged as parents.

No, really, think about it. The parallel is somewhat close. As parents and leaders we are stewards of assets that can have a positive or negative impact on the world around us. Our job in both cases is to develop people to make a positive contribution. Moreover, when we succeed, our legacy carries on beyond us.

Now, let’s think about what would happen if we were judged as parents with the current system of rewarding quarterly growth and profit results. Imagine getting a bonus when visiting the doctor’s office because our children grew 2 inches or gained a pound since the last visit. We must be doing something right. In fact, we might be tempted to feed them a little more carbohydrates, because we know that might make them even heavier next time. After all, by the time that catches up, we won’t be in charge anymore. We also might not want to spend the money on the well child visit at all, because we can measure growth ourselves and all of that other stuff is just unnecessary expense.

Further, when our children come home with a “D” on the report card, we would put them on a 30 day performance plan for improvement. If they fail to improve, and therefore end up in the bottom 10% of their peer group, we would have to swap them with someone else’s children.

Obviously, this is ridiculous, but it makes me wonder how much more long term our thinking is because we are forced to live with the consequences of our parenting for life. The results are more cumulative and our short-term decisions are only important if they are made consistently over time. Also, our success or failure in parenting seems based upon more meaningful metrics, like character and self-sufficiency.

Here’s a thought. What if, instead of bonus performance incentives, we paid our executives an annuity that pays out over the rest of their lives if, over the long term, their organizations grow steadily, avoid negligence, satisfy stakeholders, and improve shareholder wealth; in other words, display character and self-sufficiency.

I wonder who history will celebrate under this model.

I heard recently there has been a downswing in the number of nursing mothers, especially those in corporate jobs. Anecdotally, a friend of mine who delivers care packages to new moms has noticed fewer moms in general seem to appreciate the breast pads and lanolin cream, instead snapping up the pre-mixed formula and bottle nibs. Now, not that my own experience with breastfeeding was so spectacular (a pathetic and painful six month struggle with each of my three children), but I worry about how much the work environment is playing a role in the choice professional moms make. Let me just say for the record I am not advocating either breast or bottle feeding over the other, I am merely conjecturing on how the workplace may play a role in impacting the choice or the sustainability of breastfeeding for professional moms.

When I was nursing my first, I returned to work quite quickly (8 weeks later) and dutifully carried my Medela double electric breast pump back and forth. I would install a “do not disturb” sign on my office door and my mostly male colleagues knew to stay away. So privacy was not an issue. The same company had a “mothering room” for breastfeeding employees, which attracted a really cozy coven of nursing comrades, but it was two buildings away and, after all, I had an office with a door. My second nursing experience was not as nice. It was a different company, and my office walls were glass. My options were the restroom or the executive shower room which my male peers frequented after using the gym, (apparently the gym showers were inadequate for their needs) and in which their soiled athletic wear and smelly shoes were loosely scattered. Heck, at least there was an outlet! On my “do not disturb” sign one of my comedic colleagues detailed the “top ten” reasons why entry was ill-advised.

While many more companies are becoming savvy to the privacy needs of nursing mothers, I think there are other challenges, too. For one thing, these crazy, back-to-back meeting schedules with barely enough time to travel between venues, let alone for a bio break, make it tough to keep pumping (necessary if you want to sustain adequate milk supply). Even with my super fast double pump, I needed a 15 minute break every three hours. While I became pretty efficient with my time during the un-tethered work intervals, I flinchingly recall those long meetings where someone endlessly pontificated until I thought my chest would explode. Travel was also challenging. Even if the pump schedule could be maintained, there was the tragic waste of breast milk because it couldn’t be stored and transported properly. Of course, there is the problem of food. It is hard, even without taking all of those “extra” pump breaks during the day, to get a sustaining bite to eat on a busy executive schedule. When breastfeeding, a typical mother needs an extra 500 calories a day, and preferably healthy ones. At work in the corporate world, this is almost impossible. The choices available for me were the vending machine or whatever I could think to bring from home and scarf ferociously between appointments; not exactly the nourishment a new baby deserves. Some women have a very difficult time with the breast pump itself. Either it is too painful to use or they have trouble getting the milk to ‘let down’ in such a sterile environment. I brought a photo of my baby to help, but I have to admit, it was hard to make the scheduled switch from thinking about marketing strategy to thinking about diapers and baby smiles.

Despite all of the challenges, there are many examples of professional moms who meet their breastfeeding goals. These determined women find a way to keep focused, carve out the time, draw boundaries, and make healthy food available to themselves. Moreover, some companies really have figured out a way to create a better environment for nursing moms.

I would love to hear your horror stories, innovative solutions, and advice for other professional moms who have made the choice to breastfeed their babies. Maybe if we can share, we can improve the odds of success for everyone.

I had coffee with a female acquaintance the other day to talk about her future career prospects. Six months ago she had given birth to twins, and while she originally thought work, and her life, would eventually be the same as they were before children, she was now having trouble returning to her pre-baby routine. I smile now as I remember my early post-baby perspective, “This is just a temporary situation. Once I get some sleep again, I will be back to my old self.” After 18 months of interrupted sleep, “sick days” where I was not the one sick, and a laptop bag full of diapers, pacifiers, crayons, and ground up Cheerios, I suddenly realized that life had changed. Luckily, I think my friend has reached this understanding much sooner.

Part of the issue is that many of us built professional careers by investing all of our waking hours in our work. We have perpetuated the belief that the number of hours in the office is the litmus test for loyalty and achieving results. Let’s face it – if you are relatively smart and willing to spend all of your waking hours at work, you get promoted. There exists a macho attitude that endurance is the mark of great leadership. Those people that habitually leave at 5pm indicate early on they are not interested in prime projects or the elevator to the top floor.

It is especially tough for moms, I think. In the first few months post maternity we are subjected to an even bigger career test. “Will she come back full time? Will she want flexibility? Will she leave?” Even if you can convince everyone you are staying, everything you do is seen as a projection of your entire future career. “She never took sick or vacation time before. Now she is out every week. I am not sure she is as committed as she once was.” Suddenly, your personal reasons for being out are also important and a matter of lengthy discussion. “Is your nanny really late again?” or “Why can’t you stay for 6pm meeting? Oh, you have to pick up your child? I see.” I also really love the recommendations. “How about you go now, pick up your child from daycare, feed him dinner, then come back when everyone is asleep, let’s say, 7pm?“ And finally there are the ‘feats of strength’ challenges. “Um, do you think you could fly to Tokyo next week to attend the partner conference? I know you haven’t slept in 4 months and your staff handled this before but we really think it needs to be you this time.” It is no wonder so many professional moms opt-out – leave the workforce and their high-level careers – so they can stay home with their children.

My colleague, a successful Operations Vice President who has been instrumental in building her organization, is one way or another going to step back from her career right now. It is not that she wants to stay-at-home; she recognizes how much she loves her work and how her interests and skill set are not amenable to full time childcare duties. But her work is one of those fast-paced, binary (“on” or “off”) careers requiring 60+ hours per week and she isn’t willing to relegate her family relationship time to late evenings and weekends. If she stays at work, she risks being sidelined (mommy-tracked), failing to deliver optimal results (at work and at home), or burnout.

The crazy thing is; people like her are exactly who we need in leadership roles today. Moe Grzelakowski studied the traits of 50 female leaders who were moms in her book, “Mother Leads Best.” Not surprisingly, she found women honed critical leadership skills through motherhood and these skills are exactly those often missing in organizations today; Values-based leadership, empathy, humility, long-term perspective, and maturity. Add to that the ability to diaper a child with one hand while conducting an overseas teleconference with the other and I think it is clear moms are all about productivity. What sucks most is if my friend leaves her job for the unpaid joy of full time mothering, statistics say she will only be out on average for 2.2 years, she will have a very difficult time re-entering and she will take a 38% pay cut to do so. Ouch!

There is currently a world-wide leadership shortage. I know this seems hard to believe with all of the labor arbitrage to India and China, but it is true. India projects to need 5000 new CEOs per year for the next 10 years and has no idea where they will come from. The baby boomer generation will leave the workforce over this same time and yet should continue to consume products and services somebody needs to produce. Further, flattened organizations and a lack of succession planning have left dangerously few managers ready to lead. Look at runaway executive compensation: Companies are chasing a shrinking labor pool for top roles and therefore costs are continuing to rise.

My point? They need us, ladies. And where there is a need, there is a solution. Don’t opt out. Instead, ask your organization for what you need. If they won’t give it to you, find an organization that will. Because companies that figure out how to tap us will survive; those that don’t will wonder what hit them.

I know you have all been there. You are trucking along, executing the plan, with everything organized in a routine. You fly from meeting to meeting with ease. Everything is prepped in advance. You can put your finger on the data, just as someone asks for it. People are in awe at how together you are. You swoop into an open parking spot in front of the preschool and retrieve your kids in plenty of time. Teacher appreciation week – no sweat – you have bought gifts in advance and you get the kids to make sweet cards as a pre-dinner activity. Even a sick child doesn’t derail you – you have planned for this and your backup care system kicks in. You even have crayons in your purse when there is a meltdown at the supermarket. Your energy level is high and endless. You are in the groove, together, polished (like your finger nails, which you have somehow managed to keep manicured.) Other moms hate you because you secretly wear the superwoman cape.

That was me three weeks ago – in the groove, working it. Then someone must have handed me the mommy kryptonite.

For the past two weeks I have been without my Mother’s Assistant due to an unexpected personal emergency. At first reliable, my backup daycare plan has now crumbled as well. My kids’ schools are in the annual wind-down, which you probably know means countless end-of-year parties, trips, and boondoggles – all of which require far too much parental involvement. Additionally, work has gone crazy, mostly due to the endless energy I put into it three weeks ago.

Me, I’m a wreck. I showed up at a meeting today mismatched, with a black purse, brown shoes, and no agenda or notes. I had to hide my chipped fingernails under the conference table while I scrambled to recall the salient points of my presentation. Usually calm, positive, and friendly, I barked at the attendance monitor when she called to inform me my child was tardy this morning. (“I KNOW that, I’m the one who made him tardy!) Yesterday I drove around the block four times waiting for a parking spot in front of the preschool, then had the dubious honor of being the last parent to pick up. “Where have you been, Mommy? And what’s for dinner?” Oh crap, I forgot about dinner.

Where did it all go wrong? What part of my utility belt is broken?

Applying business principles for a moment, let’s start with the plan. Was it realistic? Did I do enough competitive research? Maybe I need to expand my scenario planning model? Or, is it the execution? Do I have the right people, in the right place, at the right time?

I think one of my biggest faults is the tendency to over-commit, especially when things are going well. I forget that life, like the market, has cycles and I am not always going to be at the top. Three weeks ago when I was scaling tall buildings in a single bound, it was probably a bad idea to schedule five days in a row of back to back meetings. Moreover, when my son’s school asked for help for the end-of-year picnic, I should have resisted the temptation to volunteer my time to pick up ice cream. Now, in addition to being a wreck, I feel GUILTY because I don’t want to let everyone else down.

A good friend advised me today to decline every new request, both work and personal, from now until my assistant returns next week. I need to lean on others and ask them for help; my husband, my friends, my coworkers. This is generally hard for me to do. She also reminded me to live fully in the moment with each action I take between now and then, so that instead of a worried, distracted, and stressed mother/leader/friend, I am the person everyone needs me to be. It is sound advice and I know it will take everything I have to muster the discipline to follow it.

Ahhhh. Maybe I should invest in a new invisible airplane, just in case.

This past weekend I joined 20 other women for our semi-annual scrapbook retreat. We leave our families for two nights and drives four hours away to a gorgeous bed and breakfast where we are pampered, fed gourmet meals, and sleep in luxurious surroundings. While we mostly talk about our families as we paste photos of them in our albums, we also bond, share girl-talk, and celebrate milestones of womanhood. (“Celebrate” is a loose term.)

In most cases our husbands call only a few times to ask where the toothbrushes are kept or to determine the exact moment of our expected re-entry to the real world. My husband is really good – he usually doesn’t call at all, so when he does, I know something big happened. On Saturday morning I got a note on my Blackberry that my youngest daughter had a fever of 103.4 degrees. He just wanted me to know they had already administered Motrin and he was going to keep a chart of her temperature throughout the day. Some of my colleagues reacted. “Wow, that’s amazing. He is really a great husband to look after three kids like that, especially with one so sick. Are you sure you don’t need to leave the retreat? My husband would be panicking, etc. etc. etc.”

Now, pardon for a moment the rant I am about to have. WHAT?????? Attention women everywhere – we do NOT have an exclusively female gene for raising kids, cooking, cleaning, and taking temperatures. Nowhere on the second x-chromosome is there an indication for making beds, brushing children’s teeth, checking homework, sending thank you notes, or arranging play dates. And husbands who do these things are not miracles or genetic mutations who need to be showered with accolades for simultaneously wiping chocolate off a preschooler while picking legos out of the dog’s bowl. (Sorry, babe!) These are things all men can do, though they may not readily volunteer like we do.

We all need to understand that when husbands screw up something to do with child-rearing it is intentional. It is called, “feigned incompetence” and it is effective both in the workplace and at home for getting out of doing anything dirty, demeaning in its appearance, or just plain not fun. They also seem to have a much better perspective than we do about what is truly important and what is only considered “necessary” because we want to look better than someone else or meet someone’s ideal of the “perfect mother”. (What is that, anyway?)

Whew! Thanks for that. But seriously, if we are going to be successful as executive mothers we all need to expect our husbands to equally match what we do in the home. My husband and I recently came to the realization that our frustrations with the workload had to do with the workload and not so much with how much each one of us was doing. The reality is that, in our household, there is more work than two people can do. So, fighting over who wasn’t doing 50% was counterproductive: Neither of us was capable of doing 50%! At that point we seriously looked at our goals, what we were willing to let go, what absolutely needed to get done, and what we could outsource. In addition to our gardeners and housekeeper, we hired a “Household Assistant” who runs errands, mails packages, make doctor’s appointments, buys groceries, and shuttles the kids to their after-school activities. We also know we can back each other up on any task at any time, if necessary, because there are no exclusively “boy jobs” or “girl jobs”. I can take out garbage and he can brush the kids’ hair like a pro. We both still work like crazy and fall asleep exhausted, but it is comforting to know if something ever happened to me, my family is in good hands.

The crazy thing is that we mothers are often the enablers. We contribute to the problem by creating the magic black box that is mothering, and we belittle men whenever they attempt to participate in the process. My sister recently chastised her husband because she felt he was holding their firstborn infant incorrectly – how on earth would she know any better than he does? We then perpetuate the problem of husbands feigning incompetence by letting them off the hook. Instead we should hold the line and if it is truly important, they will step up. They aren’t going to do something that puts their family in danger, at the end of the day. Finally, we absolve them of their fair share of the work when we reward insignificant contributions. “Oh, good job for changing a poopy diaper! Nice work matching that pink shirt with those butterfly pants! Isn’t he awesome for administering cough medicine!” If men are smart enough to be at our level in the workplace, they are certainly capable of figuring out how to pull a Cheerio out of someone’s nose. I don’t know how insecure we must be if we feel the need to differentiate ourselves from men by being self-appointed household experts. But, if we want to be successful as equals in the workplace, then it’s time for us all to expect more equality at home.

Most professional women get to a point in their careers where the majority of their peers, and bosses, are men. Only 16% of corporate executives are female, so chances are high if you sit in the corner office, you are the only woman on your floor. This can make asking for, and getting, work flexibility difficult. As compelling as the business case for flexibility is, you have to convince your male boss you are as good as your peers (or better) and that your effectiveness will be enhanced by increased flexibility. If it is granted, you have to work like crazy to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.

It is understandably challenging for a guy who probably has a wife at home full time raising the family, who always has clean, pressed clothes ready and available for work, who has food prepared and ready to eat, and who can work crazy hours without guilt to understand you and give you an audience. So if you have a women boss, at least she should be more willing to provide you some flexibility, right? You would think she would be able to empathize with how difficult it can be to work those same hours when you also make all of the babysitting/daycare/housekeeping/laundry arrangements, ensure food is available and cooked when the family needs to eat, coordinate and arrange all school functions, Halloween costumes, doctors appointments, and birthday parties, not to mention arrange social engagements, family outings, vacations, and date nights.

Surprisingly, many people find they have it even worse with a female boss. A friend of mine once applied for a Friday off to take her family skiing after a long period of intense work with long hours. Her big deadline was to end at 9am that morning and she felt confident she could have all of her team’s deliverables done by the previous night so there would be no issue. Her boss declined and reminded her about company policy for vacations during busy time. So, she dutifully went to work that day, hoping that she could at least leave early once the project was delivered. She submitted the project at 9am and received a “thanks for your hard work” pat on the back by her boss, who then booked an appointment on her calendar to meet about a completely unrelated and irrelevant discussion for 4:45pm that day. Her boss coyly commented, “Oh, I know you probably were hoping to get an early start on that weekend with your family, but it is the only available time I have today.”

I also have known many executive moms who resist allowing part time employees or telecommuters and demand even more hours from their teams than their male counterparts.

Why is this? I think there are several reasons. First, I think executive moms often feel they had to work so hard to get there without the flexibility they needed, that they almost resent those who ask for breaks they didn’t get. Second, I think some female executives had to sacrifice having a family or being their perfect ideal of a mother to get where they were, so they are jealous of anyone trying to have it all. Third, many professional mothers have stay-at-home husbands, which makes them as well-supported and un-sympathetic as their peers.

So, my sisters, I make of you this request: Use your executive power to change the world. We cannot alter what went before us and how people have treated us in the past. However, work flexibility won’t happen unless those in charge make it happen. So, it is our responsibility, as executive moms, to do our part. Suppressing our jealousy of younger women and offering them options we never had is hard, but knowing we made a difference, even in small ways, can be very personally rewarding. Also, statistics show flexibility makes people more productive and increases employee retention, so it’s good for your business. And to those who do “Pay It Forward”, I salute you. You are the pioneers that will give women and men of the future a better place to work.

I recently attended an Entrepreneur’s Conference hosted by Harvard Business School.  The sessions were high-quality and there were ample opportunities to network with other business owners, investment banks, and potential investors.  Overall, it was a great day.  However, I was shocked by the attendee demographics: Despite the fact some 40% of businesses are owned by women entrepreneurs and a large number by minorities, attendees of this conference were predominantly white men.  I would estimate that of the 1000 or so people I saw, 5% were women, and less than 1% were minorities.  Most attendees were from Ivy League schools.  The panel sessions were stiff and the Q&As, formal.  Moreover, blue suits and ties were the dress code – quite an uncommon sight these days in post-bubble Orange County, California. During the opening keynote address, I had the sudden realization I was sitting smack in the middle of a meeting of the proverbial “Old Boys Club”.   I have been to these meetings before, but, since opting out of my executive career to join the “Mommy Track”, my club membership has lapsed so I failed to recognize the signs this was one of THOSE gatherings. 

Most professional women have experienced, and to some extent, penetrated the ivy (league) walls of the Club at some point.  Successful entry requires looking and acting as much like everyone else as possible.  This is not the place for discussions about work-life balance, corporate diversity, or the challenges of working motherhood.  Yet it is important to be part of this, because this is where businesses get funded and where life-long professional contacts are made.  The “Old Boys Club” works, so we can’t be blamed for aspiring to join.

However, it is in this context that I have so much admiration for what WorkitMom’s founders are trying to achieve: Building a community of professional moms so we can help each other achieve strong careers, healthy families, and meaningful personal lives.   It all made me think, “What if I could help design the ideal “Old Girls Club”?  Here is what it might include:

• Membership would of course be open to the top performers from any school or profession, not just the Ivy League
• The dress code would include bright colors and fun, flexible fabrics (Baby drool included!)
• Meetings would be held outdoors or somewhere with access to fresh air, healthy food, and comfortable, conversational seating
• Childcare would be available
• Topics of discussion would include work-life balance, a diversity of thoughts and ideas, and the search for meaning
• We could help each other get access to capital, sit on each other’s boards, and tap our network for a good carpet installer.

I’ll bet the boys would wanna join too.

I have been asked to write about my experiences as a former executive mom turned entrepreneur and to share some of the case studies I see every day of executives who job-share senior management roles.  My company, Career Partners, plays matchmaker for companies trying to retain great talent – professional moms who need more balance or retiring baby boomers who want more of a life.  As niche executive recruiters, we go beyond keywords and pedigree: We employ personality technology to build ideal work teams and we train companies to leverage job-sharing for executive roles.  We also support the job-share teams throughout the process with certified executive coaches.  We launched last August and are already seeing lots of demand for our services from both candidates and employers.

Here is a bit of my background: I started my professional career in sales for a technology reseller in Toronto, Canada. When my husband and I moved to Los Angeles, (after backpacking through Europe where we eloped) I took another sales role for a technology distributor. I moved from sales to product management and eventually to marketing, where I really found my niche. Ultimately, I served as a marketing vice-president for an international telecom company. While my career trajectory was going according to plan, my life with two (and eventually three) children was unexpectedly challenging. For awhile I did the travel and the 70+ hour workweeks; then one day, exhausted, I left my full time career to get better “balance”. I consulted part time, was an at-home mother, served the local community, and completed an MBA. No less tired, but certainly more fulfilled, I shunned the idea of returning to the “corporate rat-race”. An executive coach helped guide me to my current venture, which I hope to grow into a $100 million business within 15 years. For now, all of the members of my executive team telecommute and work flexible hours.

My dream is for every one of us to job-share, eventually.I believe job-sharing is our best chance at long-term work flexibility because it can be done in any position, at any level, and it provides benefits to both the employer and the employees. Employers get the ideal collaboration of two people’s background and experience, built-in backup, full-time coverage for the role, refreshed executives, lower absenteeism, loyalty, and a succession-planning tool, while employees get the opportunity to continue doing mainstream, meaningful work, with half the travel, in fewer hours per week. Executives have successfully shared senior roles in the past: My job now is to make this more widespread.

When I was working full time, I thought asking for the flexibility I needed or participating in work-life balance programs would be career-limiting. I know now that if the business proposition is right, getting what we need can be a benefit to employers and have a positive bottom line impact. By writing this column, sharing experiences and eliciting your comments, I hope to remove some of the isolation we executive moms feel and spread around, with confidence, the message “We truly CAN have it all”.