Accomplishment Coaching

On recent trip to California from Michigan, I was watching an inflight TV show called Eye on American. There was an interview with an author (I’m thinking it was Linda Hirshman of Get To Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World) who made the claim that if working part time is so attractive, how come men aren’t doing it? Her position was that “stay at home moms” have created their own glass ceiling by keeping educated and affluent women at home with children.

I about grabbed the air sickness bag when I heard that comment. Was this author professing that anything less than “full time” work is questionable if down-right ridiculous? In other words, I was left with the impression that the only way to show you’re committed to making a difference in the world professionally was to be working a minimum of 40 hours per week.

This raised an interesting question for me. For whom is this message directed? Was it just educated, affluent mothers? Or was it a bigger audience? My answer = people working for someone else – i.e. employees.

Being an employee is absolutely an option when it comes to working. My personal experience in the world of working for someone (being an employee) is that when you go to work for someone, you agree to work within the guidelines presented. If that means 40 hour weeks, so be it. If it means 20 hour weeks, so be it. And if you agree to those guidelines, then there’s no such thing as a “glass ceiling” or someone “keeping you down”; there is just the result of a particular choice (choosing to work for someone for X number of hours per week).

And working for someone isn’t the only option.

So for me, the question really isn’t about if working “part time” works or not, but of how to make a difference professionally on your terms. It’s likely that, since many companies have historically been run by men, working part time isn’t an option due to a possible interpretation that “good work” is so frequently measured by “face time” or “a long day at the office”. Or perhaps another way to see it is brawn over brain; work over results. In my opinion, this is entirely misleading, but leave it to men to come up with that interpretation. I’m one of them…I should know! “-)

So here’s another option. Rather than searching for the ideal employer, why not take action to find the most ideal vocation? Consider that the most ideal vocation doesn’t just include the amount of time spent at work, the type of work or company, but includes the commute, the long term vision of the company, the spiritual or values system, what impact the work has on the world and community, and the level of personal fulfillment. How many people do you know are 100% fulfilled in their “work”? How many people do you know come home everyday with a story about how they made a difference?

Professing that “good work” is only defined as being employed by someone for a minimum of 40 hours per week is akin to saying the Detroit Lions are the best football team in the NFL. It’s just one opinion.

Here are several questions for anyone to answer, and especially mothers (educated and affluent OR not) to make a difference professionally:

- What difference do I want to make in this world?
- What’s stopping me from making that difference?
- What am I most committed to: the interpretation of others or making a difference?
- What jobs, careers or vocations align with that difference?
- Who can I speak with who work in those industries?
- By when will I have those conversations?

Working part time is an option. Working full time is an option. Working as an employee is an option. Working for yourself is an option. There is no “right” way beyond the way you choose to express yourself.

And as far as men working part time – I own a leadership & life coaching practice in which I work two days a week and am on track to earn in excess of $90,000 this year. I get to be with my wife, my two children and make a difference professionally all within a “40 hour” week. I simply created what works for me.

Go make a difference,
- Coach Preston