| Register/Subscribe Home |
|
|
ONLINE FEATURES
Book Reviews
BW Video
Columnists
Interactive Gallery
Newsletters
Past Covers
Philanthropy
Podcasts
Special Reports
BLOGS
Auto Beat
Bangalore Tigers
Blogspotting
Brand New Day
Byte of the Apple
Economics Unbound
Eye on Asia
Fine On Media
Green Biz
Hot Property
Investing Insights
Management IQ
NEXT: Innovation
NussbaumOnDesign
Tech Beat
Working Parents
TECHNOLOGY
J.D. Power Ratings
Product Reviews
Tech Stats
Wildstrom: Tech Maven
AUTOS
Home Page
Auto Reviews
Classic Cars
Car Care & Safety
Hybrids
INNOVATION
& DESIGN Home Page Architecture Brand Equity Auto Design Game Room SMALLBIZ Smart Answers Success Stories Today's Tip INVESTING Investing: Europe Annual Reports BW 50 S&P Picks & Pans Stock Screeners Free S&P Stock Report SCOREBOARDS Hot Growth 100 Mutual Funds Info Tech 100 S&P 500 B-SCHOOLS Undergrad Programs MBA Blogs MBA Profiles MBA Rankings Who's Hiring Grads | | AUGUST 2, 2000 WORK & FAMILY By Jill Hamburg Coplan Growing, Growing...Gone? An entrepreneur worries that if she pursues expansion, she'll miss out on her kids' childhood
I opened a shop so I could be with my first kid, and it has been much more successful than I expected. Now my kids are two and four, and I'm ready for the next step. I'd like to open another store, add more products, go online, and start a related manufacturing venture. But I'm afraid of the cost to my kids. At the same time, I'm afraid if I wait until they're in school, someone else will do these things first. - K.M, Brooklyn, N.Y. Only you know what the right work-family balance would look like. But let's consider a few possible scenarios. Putting parenthood first makes sense if it's not really the entrepreneur in you that's raring to go, but peers, potential partners, or friends egging you on. "If people weren't standing over your shoulder saying 'You dummy, what an opportunity' -- if no one were watching -- would you rather be with your kids?" asks Laura Berman Fortgang, author of Take Yourself to the Top (Warner Books, $13.99). If it's external pressure, don't sweat it. Your ambitions aren't about to shrivel up and blow away if you postpone your plans for a few years. "I always think of Barbra Streisand on the brink of success, about to go on a world tour and pregnant," says Talane Miedaner, author of Coach Yourself to Success: 101 Tips from a Personal Coach for Reaching Your Goals at Work and in Life (Contemporary Books, $22.95). "She opted out of the tour to stay home and be a mother. It was the most important thing to her, and, as we can see, it really didn't hurt her career, though at the time it must have looked like it would." A SUPPORT SYSTEM. Even if you do decide to charge ahead and pursue new lines of business, you can't do all of it at once. You still need to prioritize, and in doing so, you can come up with a start-up schedule that doesn't monopolize all your time and energy. You can also protect family time by limiting your work hours each day and deciding, says Fortgang, that "anything that doesn't get done, doesn't get done." Another option would be to increase family time by taking on a partner. In any case, you'll need two support teams standing by: one at home, one at work. Your spouse will have to be put on notice that greater child-care burdens are in the works. You'll also have to use more outsider child care -- though that's hardly a disaster. According to ongoing research by the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, preschoolers' social, intellectual, and behavioral development is shaped far more by family life than by day care -- regardless of how many hours your kids are there. In fact, kids who attend high-quality day-care centers may have more advanced language and cognitive abilities, though it's not clear how long this persists. Be prepared to add staff at work once the growth is under way, to handle everything but the tasks that only you can do -- something that's much harder for most people than it may sound. "Distinguish the best and highest uses of your time," says Judy Feld, a business and professional coach based in Dallas. "Delegate, outsource, eliminate, or barter the rest." If you haven't got one, start at the very least with a bookkeeper and perhaps a college intern who wants to learn the business as an executive assistant. You'll also need to develop excellent delegating skills, Feld says: selecting the right people, making sure they're accountable, setting up a mechanism for feedback, putting every task in writing to avoid confusion. "It's not being melodramatic to say this will save your life," says Feld. "Otherwise, you allow yourself to stay in the mode of 'only I can do it,' and 'it' really means everything there is. Eventually, you're absolutely going to crash and burn." Send your questions to frontierlife@businessweek.com.  Jill Hamburg Coplan has covered work, family, business, and finance for the past decade as a writer and editor for newspapers, magazines, and wire services. She left Working Woman magazine, where she was senior editor, when her first child was born and now works solo from a home office in Brooklyn, N.Y. You can e-mail her at Jill Hamburg Coplan Edited by  | | |
 Copyright 2000 , by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.Terms of Use | Privacy Policy |
Printer-Friendly Version
