I’ve been radio-silent on the blog front for a bit. Sorry about that. Life, and summer camps, and work (does the volume of work seem to rise in the summer because there’s more hot air?), and the change of kids’ routines, and settling in with a new team, and preparing to launch a groundbreaking book, and…, and…, and… all contribute to the silence.
This is a tough blog for me to write. Why? Because, in part, I’m conflicted about talking about what I’m conflicted about. (You’re following this, right?) OK, let me start at the beginning. A while back I took some time to really think through the issue of flexibility in the workplace. Thinking squarely, at the time, that flexibility was predominantly a women’s issue, it seemed like a good thing to tackle given my role in leading our women’s initiative. Well, it didn’t take long to figure out that flexibility is not a women’s issue. Nope. It’s a people issue and comes in all genders, shapes and sizes. Women, as it turns out, just happen to be the canaries in the corporate coal mine on the topic.
To briefly sum up the findings: the workforce has changed—a lot—while the workplace has not. So our little crack team sketched out a corporate solution to the problem, which is dubbed “mass career customization (MCC).” Some time has now passed during which we’ve piloted this notion of customizing careers and even got coerced into (and delivered) a manuscript to Harvard Press on the topic (the book will be formally published in September). With me so far?
I’ve subsequently been given a new role in the firm leading Talent for the Deloitte U.S. entities, and in this role, one of my jobs is to make the workplace of the future a reality, which of course, includes a broad rollout of MCC across the organization. This is where the first layer of conflict comes in. I’m conflicted by the inherent conflict of authoring such a broad sweeping change in the way we will work and also being responsible for its implementation. My concern, in a nutshell, is that it may come across as self-promotional, as in “of course we’re moving in this direction, it’s her thought ware after all.” Besides self-promotion not being lady like, my fear is that this line of thinking will detract from the power of the innovation.
But that’s just the first layer of conflict. There is a second as well. I’m conflicted about expressing my conflict. You see, as a leader, I’m conflicted about what I should or should not be transparent about.
In the spirit of being compulsively transparent, I’m coming clean about the conflicts. This doesn’t mean I’m not conflicted anymore (far from it!), but just that I’m past keeping mum about it. So I ask: What’s your recipe for conflict resolution?
Cathy
By blogger Cathy Benko, Deloitte LLP
