Doing it All as Mom and CEO

I heard an interview that you had where you had a mentor, where normally mentors help us quite a bit, you had one that wasn’t probably the most helpful to you. I thought that was such an interesting story about what they told you or he or she, I don’t know, about being a mother and an executive. Would you mind sharing that story and what you want?

I’m happy to share the story because it’s a great example. And actually, I think the mentor was truly trying to be helpful. It was a man— very successful in our organization, running a fantastic business, classified, so I can’t tell you what it was, but I was one of those fortunate few who’d been selected by upper management to have a mentor.
I had been assigned to him and I went to my first “get to know you” session. And he shared his perspective that you can’t be an executive and a mother. You know, it was in those days, right? This was just, you could not adequately see to the needs of the business if you also had the priority of being a parent. What was shocking to me at the moment was I was already a mother of two children.

He apparently didn’t know that, huh?

Well, okay, that was a little disappointing, right? But he hadn’t gotten the briefing. But you know what? In those days, we didn’t have social media. We didn’t have the resources we have today to virtually get to know people. And so I don’t…Had he known I was a mom, I’m not sure what he would have said. Maybe he would have stuck to his message and it would have been, “Hey, Barb, you know, love you, but I don’t know why you were assigned to me because I don’t think you’re executive material. You’re a mom and that should be your priority.” And honestly, Diane, I don’t know about you, but I heard plenty of that.
I heard…Oh, gosh, I was applying for a security clearance and the interviewer, the government investigator came to conduct his interview with me to find out about my background. And again, you know, ask strange questions like, who cooks dinner in your family if you’re here working? And bizarre things like that. I mean, in retrospect, it’s bizarre. And I’m hoping it’s hard for women today to realize that that was kind of the norm in the day. And I don’t know about you, but I was raised to be someone who respected my elders and respected authority.
And so I took a lot of this as just the fact. I mean, the reality was I had fallen in love with the love of my life, we had started a family, I was loving that part of my life. And if I wasn’t going to be an executive, well, by Jove, I was going to make the most of my experience then at IBM and do the most I could. And it turns out that all of that was the perfect training ground for being a leader.