How to succeed as a workparent
Graham Allcott 0:07
This is Beyond Busy. I'm Graham Allcott. I'm the author of a number of books, including the global bestseller how to be a productivity ninja. And I'm the founder of think productive. We help people to make space for what matters and get more done. And we partner with some of the world's leading companies who share our mission to transform the world of work. Beyond busy is where I explore the often messy truths and contradictory relationships around topics like work-life, balance, happiness, and success, and explore with interesting people what makes them tick. In short, this is where we ask the bigger questions about work. My guest today is Daisy Dowling, Daisy has worked in senior leadership roles on Wall Street, and has now left that behind to start work parents helping companies to best support working parents. She's also the author of work parents thrive in your career whilst raising happy children. So if you have kids, or you're thinking about having kids, this episode and Daisy's book are for you, we talk about how to support working parents, which organisations do well what to do if your boss isn't so understanding. We talked about the zeigarnik effect, how to think about money, and also what it was like to leave Lehman Brothers just before it collapsed in the 2008 crash as well. So lots to get through.
Let's get straight into it. This is Daisy Dowling.
So Daisy, darling, welcome to be on busy. Let's just start with just arriving in this time that we're going to spend together. So what's your day been looking like and what what sort of brings you to this conversation.
Daisy Dowling 1:46
So what my day has been looking like is probably like a lot of working parent days, meaning that I got up really early that I've been, and I've been doing a variety of different things, there was the summer camp day camp drop off, there was a quick run to the grocery store, there was the urgent client email that I needed to attend to. And now we're doing a podcast. So this may not look like you know, like exactly like your day. But I think we can all relate when we feel like we're covering off on a lot of different types of things. Every day, and sometimes in a very condensed period of time.
Graham Allcott 2:22
We get to talk about your book. So congratulations on it. So it's called work parents. And the subtitle is thrive in your career whilst raising happy children, which feels like something that's of interest to pretty much everybody that listens to this podcast, either as a working parent or someone perhaps thinking about having kids in the future as well. And you have a lot to say on it. And there's a there's just a lot to talk about in the book. So yeah, where do you think organisations get their, their management of working parents and their relationship with working parents? Right, and also where they get it wrong?
Daisy Dowling 3:00
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So so as you say, I spent a long time in these pressured environments, where sort of failure was not an option. And days were long and people were really smart and hardworking, but but I came to this problem. And I came to devote my career to helping working parents into coaching them, because I saw so many people trying to push forward career wise, while also trying to be loving present on the job moms and dads. And it was my job to help coach those people individually, but also to think about some of what the organization's should do more broadly. And I came to my my own realisations sort of, you know, in this seat, seeing behind the scenes, the discussions about what should our working parent policies and programmes and so forth look like? I think a lot of organisations do an absolutely brilliant job in terms of thinking about policies and programmes about how much parental leave people should get, and about, you know, how they can phase back in after parental leave and about mentoring programmes that can be offered or flexibility schemes. What I think organisations aren't usually so good at is the third leg of the stool. So there's policies, there's programmes and then there's practices. And practices are the small things the way you and I talk to each other as colleagues or the way your manager greets the news that you're expecting, or the way if you are on a flexibility, you know, programme, the way that your colleagues kind of extend that understanding to you while you're on that and the way that you can adapt to make it work for your colleagues. And I think it's those day to day behaviours and those communications and just the the texture of day to day life that we don't always get right. We don't spend so much time thinking about we think, Well, we've got a good mentoring programme in place that should help solve this working parent programme. And then we don't think okay, well, what about the you know, the working dad who's trying to find that extra bit of given his schedule? How can we Help him and how can we make him feel comfortable doing that? And that's the piece where I think we can get the most lift. And it's where I spend most of my time.
Graham Allcott 5:08
What would you say would be because it feels like when organisations put together programmes, and they're thinking about it, because it gets the practice also, it links in so closely to culture. What do you think? What do you think organisations can do to support managers to change those practices, and to really make it more of an embedded, you know, cultural response?
Daisy Dowling 5:31
Yeah, so one thing I always advise managers to do, and listen, most of the managers who I talked to, are supportive there, they may not want to spend all of their time coaching working parents, because they're busy, or they've got their own kids at home. And they're, you know, they feel a little bit overwhelmed themselves. So sometimes they don't want to cross the line or get into the, you know, get into the support and counselling business. And I understand that. But one really powerful thing that managers can do just it's small, but it really works, is to ask the people on their teams open ended questions, to signal support to signal the fact that the door is open, that this conversation is permission that you don't have to hide what you have going on as a working parent, that can be as simple as saying, Listen, school starts again, in another week or two weeks for you, your kids will be back, you know, full time in person, which maybe they haven't been for some time. Is there anything you want me to know about how you're thinking about handling the next few weeks? Or, even more simply, how are you getting on. And as soon as you ask that, then you're you're relating in a more human way, you're not making any promises. You're not telling somebody you can work at home five days a week, but what you are doing is putting yourself in into it sort of a peer to peer conversation in which some problem solving can begin to happen.
Graham Allcott 6:52
Yeah, and I really like that. And it also feels like a lot of those conversations, if they don't have happen in that kind of space, if you don't create that space, they end up happening with a subtext of sort of judgement, and, oh, you're not coping and so it must be something to do with XYZ, you know. And so having that where there isn't a crisis, or having that where there isn't something wrong to analyse, feels like a much better way of, I guess, maintaining that relationship
Daisy Dowling 7:17
be pre emptive. If there's a headline I'm, I'm working parent communications, I would have it be that raise issues early ask, you know, if your manager ask these open Quint open ended questions early. But don't let things get to a difficult position, I actually have working parents who I coach who have said, Well, I'm going to look for another job, or, or people who have actually left their work, because they feel their manager isn't supportive. Whereas in fact, they haven't. They're not certain about that, it just may be that the manager is busy or doesn't have doesn't have time to, you know, to talk about this stuff, or doesn't know how. So let's try and bring things more out into the open. That's, you know, that's what I'd love to see, just culturally.
Graham Allcott 8:01
Do you think there are organisations where people do just need to leave? You know, places that just get it wrong so often that actually, the best thing for you if you're working parent is to, is to go find someone that appreciates you?
Daisy Dowling 8:16
Yeah, what what I see most often is people who are in professions or in organisations, where the the sort of inalterable contours of the job don't really work with the life that they want to lead. And it's not that anybody's malicious or non supportive. It's just that if you say, Well, I really want the flexibility to be at home with my kids more. But your job is one like so many jobs, that requires physically showing up a certain number of hours per week, or I coach, for example, a lot of people in the legal field, where the unit of sale like in many other professions also is the hour. And at every point in your career, you're thinking about how many hours Can I bill? Well, if you really want to have a defined and limited amount of hours that you're working, that's a very difficult equation to try to solve when you're billing by the hour. So so I don't think anybody's I mean, there are a few people who are just, you know, not supportive, who don't get it who are harsh or mean or nasty, whatever. Sure. There may be people managers, and they're certainly organisations maybe that that need to be more progressive in their approach to working parents. But I think a lot of it is saying, alright, I'm the steward of my experience here. And as I knit together, career and caregiving, how am I going to do that and what's the right environment for me to do it
Graham Allcott 9:40
in? Do you like when you when you first became a parent, did you have Did you have a sort of definition of success? Or did you have a kind of very set philosophy about how you wanted to parent?
Daisy Dowling 9:56
Yeah, so I did have a definition of Success, although I may not have thought of it as as that at the time, I think what I did, unconsciously and what I encourage, what I see many parents do and I encourage others to do is is to know where you want to go. That's not just in terms of the day to day. So working Parenthood, as you've experienced, I've I've I've experienced is everybody else's experience, it's basically assume a daily tsunami of things that you have to attend to and tasks. And you know, you've got to rush, you know, the baby's running a fever, and you've got to rush out to the pharmacy to get the you know, and you know, you've got a deadline, and you've got this, you've got that. And when you feel like you're on that treadmill, it's a really demoralising place because the treadmill, there's no OFF button, you can't turn the speed down, you can't get off, you're just you know, it's you get ground down. But if you can say to yourself, okay, here's where just generally, I want to go. I knew when I became a mom and and I should say I wrote this book, because I needed to read it. Like I tried to find a resource. And I couldn't, I couldn't find one. So I am every bit as much an apprentice and learning here psycho as anybody else. But I did know that I wanted to keep doing the work that I really loved, which is helping other people succeed professionally. And I wanted to be the kind of parent who felt connected and close to my children day to day and week to week. And those were the two things that were sort of unalterable, and and I let those be, you know, those are my goal posts.
Graham Allcott 11:35
So how do you think about that sense of thriving versus perfection or, you know, being content with good enough, rather than being the perfect entrepreneur or the perfect employee or the perfect parent?
Daisy Dowling 11:52
Yeah, so I think a lot of this gets back to how we think about the word balance. And I kind of don't like the word balance, because I feel like it's overused and it almost puts more pressure on us, like I need to achieve work life balance. But when you think about balance, that implies like a state of perfect equilibrium like that, that, you know, two things, the two spheres of your life are going to be in perfect tandem all the time. And the reality is that most of us are going to spend a lot of our time in in correction mode, like, Okay, next week, I have a big deadline, I'm not going to spend as much time with the kids, I'm going to be heads down just trying to get to a good outcome on this one work thing. The following week, my kids start school, and I'm going to pump the brakes on work stuff so that I can be there, I can take them to school, I can be there to pick them up to really be sort of on top of things as they're getting to know their teachers, and as they're transitioning after, you know, after summer and so forth. So I'm going to be fundamentally unbalanced, I guess you'd say in those two weeks, but it's by going back and forth and correcting from one to the other. And feeling like okay, I'm not I'm not going to square keep myself, I'm going to manage towards an aggregate and and not say like, Oh, I'm a bad parent, where I'm falling down professionally because I spent more time than I normally would on one side of the equation versus the other.
Graham Allcott 13:15
And obviously, with the pandemic we've had this period where, where, I guess, just the idea of, of being a working parent has taken on different forms. And I'm sure, like here in the UK, you've had the homeschooling challenges and all of that through the lockdowns as well. And so when you think about how the pandemic has changed attitudes around this stuff, what are you particularly happy that it's highlighted? Or what are the things you think people have missed through the pandemic?
Daisy Dowling 13:49
Yeah, so listen, I wouldn't, I wouldn't wish this pandemic on again, on anyone for you know, for so many reasons. This has been such an extraordinary time and experience. But I have to say what I'm really grateful for, for myself and for other people. Is that it spotlighted a reality that we were all dealing with pre pandemic. So if you go back and you think about your 2019 Yeah, maybe you weren't distance learning the kids. You weren't on lockdown. There weren't these sort of like wartime conditions that exists maybe now and that might come around again, this fall, fingers crossed. No, but you know, we'll kind of have to see. But But you still were struggling to make your daily schedule work. And you still felt yourself kind of awkward and apologising both to your kids into your colleagues, when caregiving needs and professional needs collided or intersected and you couldn't be in two places at once. You still had all of this awkwardness you were still juggling, but it was kind of hidden and you had to you had to sort of tamp that down and say, No, no, no, I'm fine. I got it. I'll show up in the meeting. You know, and sort of be be professional self now even though I'm worried about my kids because have whatever reason or my mind is still at home. And I think because now we've all seen into each other's living rooms and experiences, and we've had interruptions, I think we can get ourselves out of the business of pretending This isn't a problem anymore. So I think that's, I think that's great. What I think is challenging. And there's, I mean, there's certainly a lot of challenges for working parents, but what I think is challenging, and I spend a lot of time with parents on this in my one to one coaching work, is still they're feeling like, they should, quote, should be able to do this better. And if they just work harder, or if they were smarter, that somehow they would be able to thread this needle. So the amount of self pressure and guilt and, you know, sort of, doesn't everybody else have this figured out more than I do that that sense of anxiety is, is really common. So if you're feeling it now, if you're listening, and you're feeling it now, just know that I've spoken to hundreds of people over the past 18 months who who feel same and no, it's not just you.
Graham Allcott 16:06
Hmm, I think, you know, that's also true of people's general sort of guilt around how productive they've been, right. And so, you know, when your brain is naturally honed in on the 50, things that have been the same for years that have now just changed and having to react to that change, and scanning horizons for the next change is going to be and it has been this constant period of change, you know, that does take up a lot of, of mental energy, just staying on top of that. And so, you know, my take on it in terms of productivity is, it's no wonder that people haven't perhaps been as productive as they would be in a normal year or in a more kind of normal time. And so I think we have to kind of recognise that that's not a personal thing. That's just, that's, that's the situation. And it's the thing that's kind of outside of our control to a lot to large extent.
Daisy Dowling 16:57
Yeah, absolutely. What I also see a lot of people do, and this is kind of to the productivity point is they compare theirs themselves to other parents, particularly to their own parents, or to, you know, to pass mentors, kind of, you know, early career role models. And they say, well, they were able to do it. Yeah, but we're in a different productivity era, than our parents were, right. They, they may have your mom or dad may have worked full time. But he or she wasn't doing that with an iPhone in their pocket that they had to remain glued to all the time, even while on holiday. So the pressures are different. And and now it's time to pivot and to learn some of the compensatory skills that allow us to kind of manage, and live the lives that we want today with a current set of circumstances, the current environment that we have.
Graham Allcott 17:48
Yeah, interesting. I'd love to just ask you about gender and how you feel. working parents have have had it through the pandemic, do you think there's been a difference in terms of gender? I know, like a lot of the narratives have been about a lot of that parenting just really naturally falling on the mum in a sort of typical two parent family and the dads carrying on with more work. And that's been a kind of media portrayal. Do you think that's been the reality? Or do you think it's been more complicated than that?
Daisy Dowling 18:22
I think it's more complicated than that. I think that's there's certainly a lot of data that shows that we've seen a lot of media stories. And if that's the reality that you're living, it's the reality that you're living. But working parents come, we're huge group. We come in all different packages, we have all different life circumstances and ambitions and families and children with different needs. And so when I see these characterizations, that you know that this is harder on women than on men, certainly, for certain people. It might be were statistically it might be. But the work that I do is, is one to one coaching. So when I'm talking to a single parent, or to a dad, who just Welcome to baby during the pandemic, and hasn't, doesn't have the benefit of being able to kind of connect with other people in his workplace or compare notes with other dads because we've all been so isolated and, and distance from other people. When when I when I see different stories like that are families who are grappling with other things like elder care issues or illness or whatever. It's very hard for me to just draw a kind of a single line. And so gender issue, right. It's a working parent issue. And I think the more inclusive we can be, the more that we can sort of de stigmatise the conversation about working parenthood and start swapping, advice, support stories, ideas, tips, recommendations with each other. And when we normalise this, we're all going to be able to take a step forward and that's that's what I'd really like to see.
Graham Allcott 19:55
Okay, so I'm going to interrupt the podcast which you know, I don't do very often and that must mean I've got something very important to share with you. So what I want to share is I've got these two really big events coming up. And I would love you to join me. The first is the Graham Allcott. Productivity masterclass. It's a face to face in real life event. And it's always typically a small group, so no more than about 30 people. And we're in his LinkedIn, lift in his LinkedIn, it's on Friday, October the 15th. And we'll be walking through all the stuff from my book, How to be a productivity Ninja, my best selling book, over 100,000 copies sold, we've been in in some of the biggest companies in the world, from Google, to Barclays, to British Airways to Disney, we've been we've been all over the place. And we are bringing this stuff to you. So if you want to come and get involved, it's Friday, the 15th of October 2021 lift in his LinkedIn. And it's one day with me basically walking you through all those different key habits of productivity, we talk about capturing information, how to organise stuff, doing weekly reviews, how to get over procrastination, email overload, it's all there during the day. So if that sounds of interest, if you're a fan of my stuff, and you want to, you know, really go deep in terms of implementing a lot of this stuff yourself, perhaps you've read productivity Ninja, but just never really got around to it. And you just want to day with me to really start to make some of those things stick or you've got particular questions, then yeah, the Graham Allcott. Productivity masterclass is probably for you. And there's also still some early bird tickets. There's also discount tickets, if you work in the NHS, if you work for a charity or if you're on your own dollar basically as a freelancer. So that's all done on an honesty basis. So just basically book whichever ticket applies to you. And if you go to Graham allcott.com, and then click the little button at the top for masterclasses, you'll find all the details and be able to book your place on that one. And then if you can't join us in London, then we're doing an online thing, which again, I do, I do this once a year, it's called six weeks to ninja. And this year, it starts on Thursday, the fourth of November 2021. It's a couple of hours on a Thursday evening. And the idea is that we again, run through all the same kind of stuff, but over six weeks, nice watsapp group going on to keep everybody accountable as well. And, you know, really, it's a chance to, to go through it at quite a relaxed pace. I've sort of put everyone through their paces in terms of what we do during the two hours. But doing it over six weeks, I think is a really nice, sustainable way to make a lot of these new habits stick. So again, that's Thursday, the fourth of November 2021 is online. So you can be anywhere in the world. And it's seven, basically 715 until 915. UK time. So we've had you know, in the past, we've had people from Canada and the states and all kinds of places, you know, mainland Europe kind of joining as well. So six weeks to ninja says the fourth of November 2021. And through to Thursday, the ninth of December 2021. So if you want to get involved in those Graham Allcott, calm and then at the top of the site, you'll see the Patreon master classes. And we'll support all the details for that in the show notes as well. So if you're interested in that, have a look in the show notes, click the links through there, and go and get your tickets I'm looking forward to seeing you. Let's talk about so what I love about the book is you've got all of these, you know, sort of dilemmas and decisions where you lay them all out with kind of pros pros and cons lists. And and and you know back to where we started at the beginning, where so much of being a working parent is you're constantly in this kind of safe state of sort of spinning the plates and correcting stuff and there's just so much stuff going on. Feels like often. The thing that I say to myself about the my sort of the parenting side of my life is I just don't have the headspace to really kind of sit down and then explore that issue or that subject and really come to a sort of strong conclusion on it or a really good decision on the way forward with it. And like Eve really helps people to make that stuff easy by by just laying out all the pros and cons of whether to get you know, childcare or a babysitter or an au pair, whatever and then and then you know, and then similarly with with topics like money as well just feels like a really wide ranging you know, sort of approach to have have all these kind of pros and cons list. So the first thing I wanted to ask you about that as she was is that are those based on the pros and cons list that you wrote yourself like for your own for your own parenting experience.
Daisy Dowling 24:36
Yeah, so so the book is based in in a lot large part on you know, on my own experience, asking a lot of these questions not knowing what to do making mistakes, bruising, my shins, stumbling, all that kind of stuff. But I also for the book interviewed, you know, a couple 100 working parents in different fields and functions and family structures and said what do you grapple with? what's what's your advice? What were For you, but but also where have you found yourself stuck? And what helps you get past that? And so that the book is really sort of an aggregation. It's not just in my own thinking, the experience I've had with clients the kind of problems they tend to run into. But then where, where are these sort of sticky bits? And where do people find themselves tangled. And, you know, the goal of good coaching is to try and open up an aperture, right and say, Alright, you're here, here's your view, let's try and lay out a range of other options and approaches in a in a zero consequence way. You don't have to do any of these if you don't want. It's your game. It's your decision. But let's look at this in its totality. And usually, that takes a lot of the blood pressure down.
Graham Allcott 25:44
So let me ask you spiffy, specifically about the one about money. So. So that was just a really interesting how I spend money on my kid or on me, and is it about long term? And is it about short term? And so you kind of lay this out with grouping money into four different categories. So you've got short term security, long term security, investing in the future, and then you've got the kind of lifestyle interests and fun. So could you just talk a bit about, like, how that came about? And, and how people can kind of use that, to think about how they think about money and parenting?
Daisy Dowling 26:21
Yeah, yeah. So I, I saw for myself, and for so many, you know, clients, and the people, I was coaching and counselling, that decisions about money became really, really fraught, as soon as you had a child, so you, you know, we sort of pre kid we think about maximising our own earnings, and then we can spend them the way we want. And then you know, whether that's saving or going on holiday, or whatever, when we have a child, there can be this tremendous pressure. And I saw this so many times, there can be this tremendous pressure financially in the day to day and people sort of begin to forget about the long term. So that's one classic, you know, sort of challenge or mistake, or they feel like they have to go crazy investing in everything that's child related, and I want the best for my children, you want the best for your child, we all do. But people can almost sort of begin to undercut their own long term security or health or welfare. So so a classic example is, often people will say to me, Well, I'm, you know, I feel like I'm at the end of my rope, I'm at my wit's end. And I'll say is, is there any way you could get a little bit of, you know, help with the housework or help with childcare? Is it would that be possible? We all have limited budgets? But would that be possible? Oftentimes, parents will say, Well, no, no, because I've got to, you know, I've got to invest in, you know, all the ballet lessons, or, you know, we're saving for you know, our family to be able to do this. Whereas, it could be a much better investment in the family and in your children to take your own stress level down to know that you're saving for your future or to make your day to day a bit easier. So I put together this simple framework, not as something that's directive, but just to help people thinking in categories and buckets. Where Where do I want to be spending my money? I don't have to save it. I don't in this way, I don't have to spend it in that way. But let's just be clear about what I'm allocating it towards, is it you know, food and shelter? Which is the today? Is it saving for long term and security? Is it is it something more elective, like, you know, like doing a hobby, or travelling or whatever. And as soon as you have sort of a rough percentage allocation in your mind, and I'm not going to say what that percentage should be for anybody. But once you have that percentage in your mind, it gets you out of the business of constantly second guessing yourself. And you know, thinking about every financial decision, because that's not a good use of your headspace.
Graham Allcott 28:50
I just found interesting about parenting a kid with special needs. I love them. Edward de Bono has this lovely sort of little model, which is PMI plus minus and then interesting. And there's loads of things that are plus and minus when it comes to parenting keep, especially is what's been interesting. And so yeah, this isn't a sort of judgement on parenting, neurotypical kids or whatever, but it feels like there's a huge pressure that has definitely grown from since I was a kid. Or maybe I just had parents that were less interested in it. I don't know what to do the ballet lessons and to do to kind of over structure, parenting in general. So firstly, do you think that's true? Like, do you think we have changed the expectation society around what the role of parents is from just being about, you know, raising a kid and giving them food and shelter to churning out this, you know, very well rounded, athletic, creative, you know, curious mind at the age of 18 or 20 or something?
Daisy Dowling 29:59
Yeah, I I think this goes back to, to our identity issue again. Right? So yeah, I think societal expectations have gone up, there's a lot of pressures and you think, Well, I'd have my kid be, quote unquote, successful, we need to have them in eight activities starting when they're five years old or whatever. But I think as hardworking professionals, you and I both were goal oriented, we know how to run a project, we think about outcomes, we think about all the time investments that you have to put in, it's really easy to lift and shift that mentality, and start treating our children like their projects, like their their work outcomes, it will, you know, we'll start the tennis lessons now. So that you can play competitively when you're ready to bring that mentality. Again, it's not right or wrong, but you just want to be conscious of how you're doing that. And I think the other thing that comes out in some of this very hands on sort of parenting is that when you are working 40 hours a week, 50 hours a week or more. And when you already have this nagging little sense of, I'm not around as much, I want to make sure that I'm on it, I want to be a present a loving parent, I want to do everything that's best for my child. One of the ways that that can show up is by overspending on, you know, the tennis lesson. I had to work 12 hours yesterday, but I paid for that tennis lesson. And I think sometimes we reach for that for reassurance, when the reassurance that we should have is All right, we're working hard, we're we're making ourselves available to our kids when we can, that's the important stuff, right? We don't have to compensate somehow by, by by spending more money or by pushing our kids towards certain activities or, or habits.
Graham Allcott 31:47
Yeah, for sure. And the second thing I wanted to just pick up on with that is I remember reading somewhere in the book about from my whereabouts in the book it was but it's something to do with the the importance of blank space and, and sort of being able to create space for play. And like play really comes from being spontaneous and having and just having, you know, a few bits of you know, art materials or dressing up stuff around you. But it's actually just about miss being, being bored or being you're just having to amuse yourself as a kid as well.
Daisy Dowling 32:23
Yeah, and also how kids operate. So if you're, if you're working a long day, whether you're at home in front of a laptop now or you're off at a workplace, and you have that window of time with your kids in the evening like that, you know, kind of 90 minutes of Bed, Bath dinner, whatever. And you think, how am I going to use that in a way that satisfying and connected with my child? Well, one way is to kind of under schedule it and to do instead of to try to talk. So you know, to just get down on the ground with your kid and start playing Legos or to take you know, a ball into the backyard and start kicking it around. And and to have that be the connective time with your kid that you don't have to be doing something that's outcome oriented, or you know, asking your child how was your day? Because that's a very adult thing to do. Your child just wants to feel like they're not performing for you. They're just they've got your attention. They don't they don't have to be stressed or answering questions as my then I think she was five when she said this, but my daughter, I used to come home and say how was your day? What what happened at school, whatever. And she said first hugs, then play, then talk. Which, which was great advice, and good coaching for me.
Graham Allcott 33:37
Oh, I read that. I read that. That also sounds like the manifesto for a good day as far as hugs and play went up. Do you think they're a sort of instances where? Like, obviously, there are instances where people have bosses that are not as understanding around a lot of this stuff and how to create that flexibility. Do you have any if someone's in that situation right now? What what kind of tips would you give them around? You know, how to manage up and how to approach your boss with Look, this is what I need. here's, here's the flexibility I need. Here's what I'm dealing with? Like, how would you approach it in that kind of way?
Daisy Dowling 34:23
Yeah, so the first thing I would recommend to you is think of yourself as a peer with your boss. I know it's easy to go in and say just sort of be crouched in defensive stance or feel like you want to say, Well, here's what I need from you treat it just like mutual problem solving. So if you go into a boss, even one who's a little bit difficult, or, you know, sceptical in some way, but if you can say Listen, you know, john, over the next several weeks, as I transitioned to a new form of childcare, I am going to have to be available to my kids or to my family at different hours and slightly more than I usually am I know we have the big client deliverable coming up next month. And in order to make sure that I'm doing my part, and then some to meet that, what you're going to see me doing is sending emails, maybe later at night, then you might, you know, prefer or catching up some work on weekends or, you know, working asking Bob, if he can come help, you know, with some of the analysis that we have to do before the report is due. But we're going to get there, you know, just letting you know what we have going on and how I'm going to handle it. And in that way, you're you're not asking, really for permission. You're not making, you're not saying I need Give me your sort of more informing, but you're doing it in a way where your cards are on the table. But you're still your professional, you're upholding your professional brand. You're talking about deadlines, deliverables, commitment, quality, I'm doing my part. Yes, you're leaving your boss with all of these different phrases that allows him or her to say, Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, that right. That's what I want to hear. So I so I often tell people to think about using as their framing out what they want to say, think about touching on your commitments, your priorities, your next steps, your enthusiasm, my commitment is starting the new daycare, my priority is the client deadline, my next steps, getting this analysis run with Bob and my enthusiasm, we're going to get a great project, this is going to be a great client meeting, if you can wrap your comments in that frame, the land, and you also don't have to feel inauthentic or, like you're going in supplication to somebody for a favour. It's it's just, you're taking professional charge in a way.
Graham Allcott 36:42
And it's back to that pre emptive thing, right? So as much as possible, if you can do that ahead of time, rather than when you're in the midst of it. And and it also kind of that also shows your commitment to the project or the deadline or whatever, whatever it is, because it's like, yeah, I'm thinking about that in a, in a professional way.
Daisy Dowling 36:59
Yeah, I think what people, what managers and what leaders, they, for the most part, they don't resent that people have full lives. I think what they resent is feeling like they have to come up with special solutions, and, and also being put into emergency modes and having to deal with surprises. And if you can get rid of emergency mode and surprises. And if you can make some of the suggestions about how to make things work, and ways to compensate or work around saying, hey, it's not ideal, but here's my ideas, here's how we can move past it, then I think it all of a sudden you're in a very different conversation.
Graham Allcott 37:35
Hmm, that's, that's really good advice I wanted to ask you about, there's a bit in the book, there's a chapter in the book, which is called, if it takes a village, then you're the mayor, which I really love. So firstly, that whole, that whole thing about it takes a village to raise a child. Definitely something I've had just a lot of just a lot of experience with obviously being a single dad and then having to. So that just means there's kind of less flexibility. You know, in terms of some of those juggling the days where I'm, I'm, I'm the only parent right so and then there's obviously also times where I would have more flexibility than the average parent to on the flip side of that, but it kind of really highlighted for me. So you talked about in the book, this kind of the phrase you have read but it's something around being an idiot being a DI wire. Is that the one or do it yourself or or something? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, that really hit home for me big. So go Go ahead, go ahead. I was gonna say that really hit home for me because I, I guess for a long time had this whole thing that it was more difficult to ask for help with my son, like because he was a special needs kid. And there was there was a bit more to some of the parenting of him. And it's like it kind of takes a long time to for people to build trust with him or to really feel confident in looking after him and stuff like that. That's kind of changed a bit now but I don't think my my reluctance to ask for help has changed with it. And I kind of feel that maybe this is just a thing for me in life is that I am a bit I'm a bit of a do it yourself. Like I'm a bit of a you know, that it feels like there's a kind of pride thing for me with asking for help sometimes or I'm just reluctant to accept help. And there's been a few things recently where people have kind of offered help and i've you know, kind of said yes and accepted the help but also then felt found myself feeling really guilty about it and just you know, really feeling like I shouldn't be this shouldn't be as easy as it now is because I'm getting some someone else to help and someone else is pitching in enthusiastically to help. So I would just love to hear your your thoughts on that and And, you know, I'd love to hear whether that's the thing that you struggle with personally to. But I'm sure that's something that a lot of people can resonate with just in terms of that, that that feeling guilty about going to the village and phrasing it in that way where you're the mayor, I was like, wow, this is, this is incredible, because you know, just as an idea, because then you can kind of direct it and you can, you can, it just felt like something that really gave me confidence when I when I read that.
Daisy Dowling 40:25
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I've struggled with this tremendously. And I think I think most parents have because we're, we're doers, right? And if it's, if it's not really hard, we're not doing our jobs, right. Like we, you know, we're dropping a ball somehow, if it's not really hard. So I have a quiz actually in the book. And it's meant in a sort of light hearted way, but it's a very serious thing, just to take your own temperature as to how much you're doing this, like how much of a hero narrative you have going on, I have to cover off on everything, myself, I need to take care of all of this myself, I can't ask for help this is, you know, it's my job, etc. Other people don't, you know, get as much help. And as soon as you realise some of the habits and tendencies you have there, it's really instructive. So if you say, well, gosh, I, you know, I, I tend to feel really awkward when asking for help, or there are things that realistically, I could automate or outsource or get a little bit of a helping hand on, and I, I tend to hang on to them anyway, because it makes me feel productive, like, whatever, whatever the the insight is, you can then push back on it gently, and begin to say, okay, you know, maybe maybe you're not the kind of dad who is going to be constantly asking other people for help. But maybe you can pick your spots and start, start finding just bits that not only help you take care of your son, but help you take care of you. Right, because you're important in this, you know, in this picture also.
Graham Allcott 41:52
Yeah, and you mentioned somewhere else in the book about the idea of putting on your own oxygen mask first. And I think as parents, we find that really tricky, right? Because we're so ingrained in a lot of these hero narratives.
Daisy Dowling 42:06
Yeah, I think the thing that's hardest for people though, is to then operationalize this. So it's, it's one thing to say it's just get more help. But in that chapter, I have a whole worksheet kind of an exercise that people can do by themselves, or with a partner or with a friend, somebody they trust, and you know, who supports them, but can be candid and honest. And you, you go through a set of eight different categories or types of help and support you can get as a working parent, I call them the eight C's. And they're things like, career help from a boss or manager, mentor, community help, clinical help computer it help. And as you go through each of these categories, yeah, maybe maybe you can't get help from each of them. Or maybe, maybe there's just tiny bits of advice or support a pep talk you can get from a colleague or some small aspect of your life, you could streamline by putting the groceries on to automatic reorder on that, you know, on that special app, whatever it is, those things when you put them all together, they're not going to totally change your life, right? Mary Poppins isn't gonna fly in on her umbrella, and you know, change your household and you won't find 25% of your calendar back. But putting together those bits and pieces and being thoughtful and thorough about how you find that help, makes you feel like you're in the driver's seat again, as opposed to simply soldiering through. And you can also with those bits and pieces of help, you can take working parenthood from something that's totally overwhelming to, like, merely really demanding. Yeah, and, and that's a big step. that's a that's a really big lift.
Graham Allcott 43:53
I mean, that feels empowering to me, before we move off this topic, I just also realised that we so we talked about your career background, but we didn't talk about work parent, the organisation, which we really should do so outside of, obviously, the book, which by the way, is 500 pages long, like it's the just the level of detail and like sort of comprehensive exploration of this topic, I think, you know, I mean, I think it's going to be really amazing for people to just be able to kind of dip in I was like the manual to think about this stuff. But you do you know, events and coaching and work with people through this organisation that you founded work parents who just you want to just tell us a bit more about that before we finish.
Daisy Dowling 44:36
Yeah, so we really do three things. One is that we coach and counsel individual working parents, oftentimes in organisations that say, hey, our parents need support and oftentimes just parents who come to us and say I'm thinking about a career change, or I'm expecting my first child and I need a couple hours to you know, to talk to an outsider or a coach and expert to help me You know, get through this and create a plan for it. So that's the one to one work. We also do a lot of training and workshops and lectures and, and sort of group events. And that's for groups of parents, community groups, school associations, working parents, networks, now inside corporations and institutions of all kinds. And the pandemic has had this wonderful proliferation of these networks of parents coming together. And so we we do workshops here, you know, here are the things that you can do as we pivot into fall and as you return to school that are going to make your life easier. So we do a lot of teaching work in seminars, which is so much fun and so exciting to meet that need right now it feels like we're really being of service. And then the third thing that we do is, is help organisations that just want to figure out their their sort of a working parent game that can be setting up or working parents network, or creating a flexibility policy or trying to figure out how to help managers be more responsive to working parent needs. And so we're working at those three different levels. But But the issue is really, for what we're working towards is really the same. We want every man and woman to be able, who wants to, to be able to succeed at work and earn a living, while being the loving, attentive parent they want to be, and while remaining healthy and whole in the process. And so everything we do kind of tails back to that, to that goal.
Graham Allcott 46:32
Amen to that just feels like a really good go. One, one thing I had to ask you about before we finish is when I looked at your CV, and one of the things on there was that you worked at Lehman Brothers for about a year and ended in 2008. And I was thinking, were you one of those people that we saw on the TV, taking the boxes out of Lehman Brothers. So I just wanted to ask you about that. What was the What was your experience like? And yet, I guess you were, in some senses inside that news story to some degree.
Daisy Dowling 47:09
I was I left the firm eight weeks before the bankruptcy. So Timing is everything as as they say, or are better lucky than smart. I'm not sure what's the right proverb for that. Listen, I have the privilege of working with some really smart, incredible people at Lehman, while I was there, it was clear that the firm was in really a really, really tough situation. And I felt it was personally better for me to leave, I happened to do that shortly before. You know, I didn't have to carry my things out of the building in a cardboard box, like, you know, like you saw on CNN or whatever. And I felt fortunate for that. So I remained employed and everything was okay. I think that kind of career experience, though, is, is really, it's all kinds of no fun, but it's also really instructive. And as somebody who's an executive coach, to have been through that kind of very, very pressured time, I think it's, it really helps me in my work today. Because oftentimes, when I'm talking to parents, they feel they're at an important point, even a breaking point, can I keep going in my career, I need to make this decision. I don't know how to be the parent I want to be and it makes you It gives you a lot of empathy. So I you know, I'm not trying to sugarcoat it, it was not a fun experience for so many people. But for me, personally, I chose to use it is fuel for what I do now.
Graham Allcott 48:38
Yeah, absolutely. And did you feel like because obviously, you know, one of the the things that banks have to do in their branding all the time is it's all about safety and security and being this long term stable thing, and that was that was a big, obviously big part of the layman brand and then it just disappeared. Do you? Do you feel like that gave you a sort of sense of perspective around work and and sort of not taking anything for granted? In a way?
Daisy Dowling 49:07
Yeah, I mean, I, I've always had a policy for for myself, and I kind of nudged my clients towards this, of thinking about thinking about redundancy. And by that, I mean not being made redundant. But think but thinking thinking about your own options, right? So let's say you have a certain childcare arrangement, well, then you have to work late or you know, your caregivers ill or something like that. what's what's your plan B, what's, what's the thing that you're going to turn to it, you know, what, what's sort of your next step or career wise, let's say your employer isn't doing well or you are laid off or whatever, you know, how are you going to make certain that you can keep going kind of, you know, what's, what's the plan after that? And so I think I think it's a really great working parents skill set is to sort of plan for the worst Knowing that it may not happen, but knowing that you have some real reassurance, by having played that through in your mind, sort of catastrophize a bit, have a plan that goes with it. And then step back and just get on with your day, sort of more confidently knowing, knowing that you that you you have that in your back pocket is such
Graham Allcott 50:21
good advice. And often, when we ask ourself, what's the worst that could happen? And then like you say, you play that through, you realise that it would probably be okay. Like something, something else will will come along or something else good will come out of a lot of situations that feel like the end of the world, like in that particular moment, right. So I just think that's, that's a really nice way to end the interview. So I just wanted to say, go out and get the book. And I'll leave it for you to say where else people can connect with you and find out more about what you do.
Daisy Dowling 50:57
Yeah, so you can go to my website, which is www dot work, parent calm, you can get in touch with our team through that our email address is on there at Hello at work parent.com. Or you can also sign up for our free weekly coaching newsletter, which has fresh tips and ideas and specifics about what you can do to bring together these two spheres of your life and feel confident and capable and calm along the journey.
Graham Allcott 51:24
Fantastic. Daisy, thank you so much for being on beyond busy.
Daisy Dowling 51:28
Thank you so much for having me.
Graham Allcott 51:31
So thanks as ever to Emilie and Pavel, my team on the podcast and also to Penguin Business for making that episode happen. Thanks as always to think productive our sponsors for the show. If you're interested in bringing think productive in to help your team to become more productive to have less stress and more balance in your work. And a whole range of other stuff. We can fix your meetings, we can fix your inboxes head to think productive calm and you'll find out more. I would love you to sign up for those, those events that I talked about in the middle there. So six weeks to ninja and my masterclass still some tickets available for those. So head to Graham Allcott calm and you'll see the Masterclasses page on there to find out more. And as you can also sign up to my weekly Rev up for the Week email, which is just at GrahamAllcott.com and then you'll see the little form to fit in. I just want to tell a little quick story before I finish. So this was this is a funny one. So a friend of mine over the summer and was up in Scotland I met up with a really old friend of mine who I hadn't actually seen for a couple of years but used to live in Brighton I used to hang out with him a lot. And I'd really miss hanging out and we went up to Scotland met a really lovely day together. About a year of maybe like no belonging that we will be maybe like three years ago, he kind of came to Brighton and visited me. And he was kind of doing the rounds to a lot of his friends that had kids. And so this story is related to Daisy’s podcast. He was doing the rounds to all the people that he knew that had kids. And he was basically saying, Look, I'm not sure if I want to have kids or not. What do you think like, what advice can you give me? And of course, it's like such a huge question. And the advice that I gave him was, I can't remember who wrote it with as a poem, which is called something like you ruined everything in the most beautiful way. And that's kind of how I feel about sort of parenthood, right is like, it's, it's full of so many beautiful moments. And also it does rob you of lots of things that you have in your life before you have a good so. So that was my advice to him is like yeah, be aware of what you're going to lose. But also it all the stuff that you're going to gain is kind of sort of intangible, it's difficult to explain. Because it's so because all those little tiny moments are so kind of personal to you. But just be aware that it's a shift in gears, and it's a kind of shift in life. But I asked him, you know, what did everyone else say? And one of one of our other friends gave this piece of advice, which I just thought was really great. It was like you're asking the wrong question. Don't worry about whether you want to have a kid focus on this question, which is, do you want to spend time with the person you're gonna have a kid with for the rest of your life? Which sounds obvious, right? But like, obviously, in a relationship, every relationship splits up, then you may never see each other again, and you might not ever talk again. But when when there's a kid involved, that still has to happen. So like, it was just a really savvy observation, which is like, you know, even if the relationship breaks down, you're still locked in as parents and you still got to do that together. And that's a partnership the last forever. So really make sure that you're with the right person. And then whether you should have kid kind of looks after itself. And yeah, that wasn't my advice. That was is one of our mutual friends. And I just thought was such good advice. So I just thought I'd share it in this little outro while we're on the same topic, so thanks again to Daisy for being on the show. We're back in two weeks time, which is, coincidentally The day after my birthday.
We've got Denise nurse on the podcast. She is the co-founder of the black founders hub, doing some incredible work to support black entrepreneurs predominantly in the UK, but not only in the UK. And yeah, she's just the force of nature to she's been a TV presenter and all sorts of other stuff entrepreneur lawyer.
Really interesting. So yeah, she's on in two weeks time and I think you're gonna really love that one. So stay subscribed, and I hope you're doing okay, and I'll see you in two weeks time.
Take care. Bye for now.
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Buy “Workparent: The Complete Guide to Succeeding on the Job, Staying True to Yourself, and Raising Happy Kids”: https://www.amazon.com/Workparent-Com...
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