揭秘高管妈妈秘密社团

当某知名酒店公司全球销售总监梅根•米尔斯休完产假，重返工作岗位时，她心中充满顾虑。最紧迫的关切，莫过于即将到来的六天全国公务旅行，以及如何在旅行期间为她的女儿哈珀泵奶。她曾从另一位高管妈妈处得知，TLC公司程序开发副总裁玛丽莎•利维是泵奶和旅行方面的达人。

“在一两次电子邮件沟通后，我们互通了电话，她介绍了我希望了解的方方面面：从最好使用哪种冷却器运送乳汁，到没空清洗时如何用封口塑料袋存放泵奶器，再到如何使用客房服务来冷却我的冷藏袋等，”米尔斯表示，“我们是通过一个互助团体连接在一起的陌生人，她甚至会告诉一些我根本想不到的细节，”米尔斯回忆道。

利维表示，她经常收到“陌生人”打来的电话或发来的电子邮件，向她询问与工作和新妈妈相关的问题。“我乐意回答每个问题，我只有一个条件：她们要将爱传递给其他新妈妈，”她表示。

她是怎么做的呢？对许多女性高管而言，一个成功秘诀就是在日常生活留意并利用周围女性积累的智慧。从保姆、日间托儿所、到旅途中管理家庭需要的简单技巧等，米尔斯和利维等女性正默默地与其他希望在新妈妈角色及公司职位升迁之间实现平衡的女性，分享她们的建议和技巧。

玛丽莎•塔尔伯格是塔可钟连锁餐饮公司的首席品牌互动官。她创办了旨在为女性创造更正式沟通途径的社交组织“纽约高管妈妈”。她表示，“‘高管妈妈’是一个未能获得周到服务的群体，是一个被忽略的巨大市场”。

高管妈妈转入地下和线下为她们自己创造资源，这反映出许多公司缺乏相关的支持系统。许多女性高管表示，面对缺乏弹性的工作日程，长时间的工作安排，她们正努力抗争。

事实上，在美国，每周至少工作50小时的女性所占的比例高于其他任何国家。即使在实施弹性工时的公司，部分高管妈妈担心，如果使用弹性工时，她们可能会被视为缺乏热情或“不够积极”。

战略咨询公司Forty Weeks一个名为“工作项目”的计划，旨在帮助公司制定人事战略，以便更好地招聘并留住新父母。其创始人朱利亚•贝克表示，许多公司未能帮助女性解决这些问题，这是一个严重的问题。许多觉得缺乏支持的妈妈们最终选择辞职。贝克表示，更换高管不仅花费高昂，而且如果“考虑到她是一位领导者、一位导师，一个不断壮大的生态系统的重要组成部分”，她的离职会削弱公司的士气和凝聚力。

“我只是跟认识的其他职场妈妈互相帮助，因为我觉得我们之间存在一种默契，而且不会相互评判，”某金融服务公司一位不愿透露姓名的资深高管表示。但她也表示，即使是在一个相对较小的圈子中，她仍能获得许多宝贵的意见。“我从这个秘密社团学到的最重要的事情，就是不要向直接上级汇报过多信息。当我开始解释为何早退或没有时间时，会给其他人提供批判的机会。现在，我只会简单地说，我面临时间冲突，或我没有时间。就这么简单，”她表示。

彭博社多样性与包容性全球总监埃里卡•艾里什•布朗表示，她通过彭博社面向员工的“工薪阶层家庭网络”分享信息。该网络设置虚拟聊天，安排指导午餐、小组讨论和相关机会。她的秘诀是什么？“我会放弃非以客户为中心的晚餐，除必要外，我很少在会议的前一天晚上外出，我在家中而非健身房健身，而且每个周日会为接下来的一周做两到三顿饭，”布朗表示。

在许多情况下，女性还会提出非正式的方法，互相帮助对方摆脱工作难题。为梅根•米尔斯提供建议的TLC高管利维回忆，在她的公司办公室里，为了能处理多重任务，一些新妈妈用浴帘杆和窗帘制成防护屏，加装在隔间的透明玻璃上，这样一来，就不必跑到指定的泵奶间去泵奶了。窗帘杆在有需要的妈妈中间相互传递。“很快地，当人们看到窗帘时，就知道不能进去。当新来的员工有需要时，我们会继续传递下去，”利维表示。

最后，塔尔伯格表示，高管妈妈们共享着“我们共同面对一切”的体验精神，她们会迅速向面临相同困境的其他妈妈提供秘诀和技巧。

“女性知道什么是支持，得到支持是什么感觉，这也正是她们乐于相互分享的原因，”贝克表示，“她们不想失去‘其中的任何一位’”。（财富中文网）

翻译：乔树静/汪皓

审校：任文科

When Meghan Mills, director of global corporate sales at one of the top hotel companies, returned to work after her maternity leave, she had many concerns. Among the most pressing: An upcoming six-day, cross country business trip and the question of how to keep pumping milk for her daughter, Harper, while on the road. She had heard through another executive mom that Marisa Levy, VP of program development at TLC, was the go-to person for everything related to pumping and travel.

“With one or two emails, we set up a call and she filled me in on everything I needed to know—from which coolers are best to transport milkto using Ziploc bags to store my pump if I don’t have time to wash it, to how to use room service to freeze my freezer packs,” Mills says. “We were complete strangers connected by one mutual connection and she told me everything, details I had not thought of,” Mills recalls.

For her part, Levy says she often gets calls or emails or phone calls from” virtual strangers” with work and motherhood-related questions. “I happily responded to each and every request with one condition: They then had to pay it forward to other new mothers,” she says.

How does she do it? For many female execs, one secret to success is informally tapping the knowledge of the women around them. From nannies and day care to easy recipes and tips for managing family needs from the road, women like Mills and Levy quietly share suggestions and tricks with others trying to balance motherhood with the corporate climb.

“Executive moms are an underserved community, a giant niche,” says Marisa Thalberg, chief brand engagement officer at Taco Bell, who founded New York City’s Executive Moms, a networking group designed to try to create a more formalized way for women to connect.

The fact that executive women go underground and offline to create their own resources points to the lack of support systems in many companies. High-ranking women say they contend with inflexible schedules and long hours—indeed, the percentage of women working at least 50 hours a week is now higher in the United States than in any other country. And even at corporations where some flexible options exist, some exec moms say they fear that, if they use them, they risk being viewed as less ambitious or as “leaning back.”

The fact that companies aren’t doing a better job of helping women wrangle these issues is a serious problem, says Julia Beck, founder of the It’s Working Project, an initiative of the Forty Weeks company, which helps firms develop HR strategies to better recruit and retain new parents. Moms who feel unsupported often end up quitting. Not only is replacing these executives costly, but when you “factor in her role as a leader, a mentor and a part of a thriving ecosystem” the departures hurt company morale and cohesion, says Beck.

“I tend to only trade favors with other corporate moms in my personal network because I feel like there’s an unspoken understanding and no judgement,” says one senior level executive at a financial services firm, who asked that Fortune not use her name. Yet even within a relatively small circle, she says she’s gotten valuable advices. “The most important thing I learned from the secret society is to not offer my direct report too much information. When I start to explain why I’m leaving early or not available that allows others to offer their judgment. Now, I simply say, I have a conflict or I’m not available. End of story,” she says.

Erika Irish Brown, global head of diversity and inclusion at Bloomberg, says she shares information via an employee-driven Bloomberg network called Working Families, which features a virtual chat and hosts lunches, panels and opportunities for mentoring. Her tips? “I forgo dinners that are not client-focused, I rarely travel the night before a meeting unless necessary, I work out at home instead of at the gym and I cook 2-3 meals every Sunday for the week,” says Brown.

In many cases, women also come up with informal ways to help each other out in the office. Levy, the TLC executive who advised Meghan Mills, recalls working at a company withglass-paned offices. Some of the new mothers at the firm fashioned a shower rod and curtain into a privacy screen that could be easily used when pumping at work for women who wanted to multitask in their office instead of using the designated pumping room. The curtain rod got passed around from one mother to another as needed. “In no time, when people saw the curtain they knew not to enter and when someone new needed it we would just pass it on,” says Levy.

Ultimately, Thalberg says, there’s a strong “we’re all in this together” shared experience spirit among executive moms who are quick to offer their tips and tricks to anyone else in their predicament.

“Women know what support looks like and feels like—this is why they are so eager to share with one another,” says Beck. “They don’t want to lose ‘one of their own,'” Beck says.