Parenting experience as translatable business skills

While many employees today struggle to set boundaries that separate work and personal life, a Google business coach believes that her role as a mother continues to stand her in good stead when it comes to gaining key corporate and functional skillsets.

Writing for Fast Company, Katie O’Malley, said, “Like any job, this position [of being a mother] has broadened my capabilities and stretched me to adapt during transformational change. We’re often asked in business what skills we bring to the table. Why limit our table to the conference room?”

According to O’Malley, a mother’s duties could easily be translated into a few key skills that she exercised during her maternity period, which included Exceptional Operational Rigour, Always-On Sales Marketing Efforts, Innovative Infrastructure, Stakeholder Management, and Effective Change Management.

READ: Six opportunities to make new parents feel welcome back at work

Describing her role as mother as akin to that of a COO, O’Malley describes her daily household skills as including daily daily execution across four key stakeholders and weekly leadership reviews. She also needs to be equipped with the ability to meet competing needs in real time, create efficient systems that are designed to achieve family goals, building and maintaining relationships between all team members while also acting as a primary source of nutrition, conflict mediator and multitasker, and being able to lead through change and uncertainty with the help of the CFO (or her partner).