Business dad how good businessmen can make great fathers -- Hirschfeld, Tom, 1962-, Hirschfeld, Julie, 1962- -- Uncorrected advance proof, Boston, -- isbn13 9780316219150 -- 86f1d04b8937c13b5596440e6f1db898 -- Anna’s Archive
The book is a practical guide for male executives and professionals who also want to be effective fathers. It argues that the skills, habits, and mind‑sets honed in business – such as strategic planning, negotiation, team building, time‑management, and efficiency – can be deliberately transferred to parenting, and that the reverse is also true: fatherhood sharpens empathy, creativity, crisis management, and leadership. The author first reframes the work‑family conflict as a resource‑allocation problem, urging readers to view themselves as a key resource for both their children and their companies and to allocate time in a “Pareto‑optimal” way. He then outlines concrete steps for re‑engineering one’s job (flex‑time, telecommuting, redesigning workflows) and for influencing corporate policy to be more father‑friendly, noting the systemic bias that often privileges mothers. The book provides a wealth of real‑world examples – from Ernst & Young’s flexible‑work program, Deloitte’s partner‑friendly policies, Marriott’s Fatherhood Project, to individual anecdotes of CEOs who have reshaped their schedules – to illustrate how firms are beginning to accommodate fathers and how business dads can advocate for change. A major portion is devoted to time‑management. The author compares the scarcity of bandwidth in telecommunications to the limited hours in a day, warning against the illusion that technology automatically frees time. He offers a hierarchy of time‑use: (1) office efficiencies (output‑focused work, ruthless prioritisation, delegating, limiting meetings), (2) home efficiencies (blending chores with play, avoiding “quality‑time” traps, embracing quantity‑time), and (3) design‑for‑living – a personal blueprint that maps required family time, discretionary time, and work time, with regular “locks” (sacred family days) and “alarms” (checks on drift). He stresses that quality‑time that is overly scheduled can be counter‑productive, advocating instead for spontaneous, unstructured interaction. The book then translates fatherhood‑derived competencies into business value: empathy, creativity, crisis management, efficiency, negotiation, authority, tolerance, team‑building, and leadership. Each skill is illustrated with anecdotes (e.g., a boardroom crisis resolved by honest communication learned from parenting, a CEO using a “time‑out” for a misbehaving employee, a father‑CEO negotiating with a prima‑donna). The author concludes that while work‑family conflict can never be eliminated, it can be managed through intelligent planning, consistent effort, and a mindset that treats family as the permanent bottom line versus the transient corporate bottom line. The final call to action is for fathers to design their lives, lobby for supportive policies, and remember that the legacy of fatherhood outlasts any corporate achievement.
Topics
Job Redesign and Policy Advocacy for Business Dads
Explores how fathers can re‑engineer their own roles—adjusting after‑hours work, delegating, and setting boundaries—while also pushing corporations to adopt father‑friendly policies that counter the bias toward mothers in work‑life programs.
Flexibility Landscape: Market Forces, Technology, and Exemplary Companies
Describes how tight labor markets, telecommuting tools, and evolving employee expectations are creating opportunities for flexible work, illustrated with case studies of firms like Ernst & Young, Deloitte, and Marriott that have pioneered family‑friendly policies.
Efficiency and Time Management: Scarcity, Technology, Office and Home Practices
Combines the bandwidth metaphor of limited daily hours with a critique of technology’s double‑edged impact, and offers practical office‑efficiency tactics (delegation, meeting limits, email batching) alongside home‑efficiency advice that favors abundant, unstructured “quantity time” over rushed “quality time.”
Personal Life Blueprint: Designing a Balanced Schedule and Priorities
Introduces a systematic blueprint process—assessing core priorities, drafting a weekly schedule, installing “locks” and “alarms” to protect family time—to help business dads align professional goals with parenting responsibilities.
Frequent‑Flier Fathering: Managing Business Travel and Family Communication
Offers concrete tactics for minimizing the disruptive effects of frequent travel, maintaining consistent communication with children, and handling the emotional dynamics of parental absence.
Translating Parenting Skills to Business Leadership
Maps fatherhood‑derived competencies—empathy, creativity, crisis management, negotiation, authority, tolerance, team‑building, and leadership—onto corporate contexts, showing how parenting can enhance executive effectiveness.
Legacy Perspective: Long‑Term Family Impact vs. Corporate Success
Concludes with a reflective reminder that a family’s lasting legacy outweighs corporate achievements, urging sustained, intentional effort to balance work and fatherhood for enduring fulfillment.
Re‑engineering the Job for Father‑Friendly Flexibility
Strategies to redesign one's role—flex‑time, telecommuting, remote work, and workload reallocation—to align work hours with family responsibilities and reduce direct work‑family conflict.