Some Thoughts from Padmasree Warrior
Dear friends of women in science,
Here are some interesting thoughts from Padmasree Warrior, Chief Technology and Strategy Officer at Cisco Systems. She began her career as one of the few women at Motorola, and still finds only a quarter of Cisco's employees are women today.
She is a wife and mother of two children, in addition to her high-powered career. In her view, the right mental image is not balance but integration. The family life cannot seem to be an add-on irrelevant to your life as an executive. You must construct a life whose parts are related and support each other. Of course, to do that, a woman needs supportive co-executives and personnel policies that allow her to integrate all the parts of her life.
On this site (click here) you can listen to Warrior being interviewed on this subject. She says she had her son when she was an engineer. She felt guilty when son was at daycare, but if at home, she felt guilty not working. Instead, she figured out that you should integrate work, family, community, and self, not to try to spend equal time each day on each, but to see if you can't build in all four aspects into your life. You will miss some important milestones at times, your house may not be cleaned all the time, etc, but you'll feel more integrated if you consciously build in all four.
In her interview, she said she got her son invlolved in her travel planning, instead of having him cry when she began to pack, for example. She said women approach and solve problems differently, but we women should focus on being effective, not on trying to be like men.
What do you think about these thoughts, is this new formulation useful?
cheers,
Laura
Laura-- I think she has something. We talk about balance but we sort of mean sequential, time-variable commitment to each part of our lives. Integration is OK but I suspect there's an even better word for this idea that none of us has come up with yet. But she's right that we need to plan in each aspect that matters to us, or it'll never happen and guilt builds up. And I love the idea of trying to use a former guilt-trap situation to build family fun (planning her trips with her son). Thought provoking!
CRR
