Actually, every business should be celebrating Mother’s Day more than us. Not in the sense of cashing in on Mother’s Day celebrations or guilt. But rather, how the mommy brain brings advantageous skills to the workplace.
Usually, the mommy brain is viewed as this state of upheaval due primarily to hormonal changes pre and post pregnancy affecting memory and emotions, as well as, sleep deprivation.
The primary issues that have plagued businesses around motherhood have been the effects of maternity leave, the loss of talented women choosing to interrupt their career path, and how to create flexible family-oriented work schedules.
However, what is often unrecognized are the brain skills that are gained from being a mother.
Mommy brains are smarter. Click To Tweet
Mommy Brains Are Smarter
According to Katherine Ellison, author of the Mommy Brain, pregnancy, early motherhood and the experiences of raising children make women smarter.
Ellison attributes five significant brain skills to the mommy brain:
- Perception: A mother’s sensory-rich life with her newborn actually remaps part of her brain—improving her ability to interpret new information.
- Efficiency: Pregnancy and early motherhood enrich the brain, improving memory and setting a mother up for a lifetime of multitasking.
- Resilience: Oxytocin, a powerful hormone abundant in mothers, so effectively combats stress, clearing the way for improved learning, that scientists are studying its, potential as an antidepressant and even as a therapy for Alzheimer’s.
- Motivation: The fierce biological urge to defend their children, bolstered by mind-altering hormones, helps mothers become more creative and competitive.
- Emotional Intelligence: Mothers get basic training in this important kind of smarts as they tone their brain’s “empathy muscles” by instinctively imitating their babies’ facial expressions.
But, where’s the greater mommy brain business advantage?
According to Perry Yeatman, CEO of Perry Yeatman Global Partners LLC and author of Get Ahead by Going Abroad, the business advantage is already apparent in current CEO’s who are mothers.
Some prominent CEO mothers are Mary Barra at General Motors, Indra Nooyi at Pepsi, Ellen Kullman at DuPont, Meg Whitman at Hewlett-Packard and Irene Rosenfeld Mondelez from Kraft Foods.
8 CEO Mommy Brain Skills
Yeatman boils it down to 8 CEO mommy brain skills which all women can apply to their business endeavors.
Everything is a negotiation
- You get your daughter to wear a dress for church on Easter and she gets to wear her favorite boots.
- The advantage is being able to negotiate with anyone about anything.
You don’t have to know all the answers – questions are powerful
- Your child asks endless questions.
- The advantage is “You’d be amazed how often you can uncover powerful insights and potential issues just by asking intelligent questions.”
Different isn’t bad – it’s better
- Each child is a different kind of challenge.
- The advantage is working from a different perspective creates “… new ideas, better solutions and better results.”
Coaching, nurturing and role-modeling get you further than lecturing
- A child often does the opposite of what you tell them. Finding different ways to teach and communicate the skills they need is important.
- The advantage is being able to do the same for those that support your business success.
Don’t sweat the small stuff
- It’s natural to anticipate what can go wrong with all the things a child gets into. With that comes the realization that you can’t control everything.
- The advantage is not to micromanage but focus on the outcome and “… look at what they achieve much more than how they achieve it.”
IQ without EQ isn’t enough
- A mother’s empathic understanding begins before her child can speak.
- The advantage is connecting with the people you work with to “ …build [a] better understanding but also trust and team spirit.
Relationships matter
- Having a child is about investing in a long term relationship.
- The advantage is knowing that investing in working relationships are “…not optional but critical.”
It’s not just about you
- Mothers very quickly realize that having a child is a “transformational experience.” Things that were of personal and paramount importance take a backseat to the new bundle in the backseat.
- The advantage is knowing that a business is not about you, it’s about the people you serve.
This is Little Miss Wonderful and her advice for staying productive. She teaches the business importance of a time for sleep, a time for play and a time to eat. These are lessons that cannot be ignored. She will insist on getting on your lap while at the computer as a reminder it’s nap time. She will use her paw to swipe anything off a surface until you walk away from the desk and clear your brain with some play. She will insist it’s time to stop working and eat by staring at you until you share a meal with her.
Whether you are a mom, a big sister, an aunt, teacher, caregiver or pet mom your brain has been affected by those you take care of.
What have they taught you that makes your business better?
Resources:
http://fortune.com/2015/05/07/8-reasons-moms-make-better-ceos/
http://www.themommybrain.com/synopsis.html
Image: CC0 Pixabay 1245764
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This is perfect and so true! I never thought about some of those examples. Not that I didn’t think I was doing a lot during the day but really …. no wonder I am so spent by the end of the day. 😀
So true, how easy it is to not have much left by the end of the day. Life at times is intense, but we always need to remind ourselves that we don’t have to do it all.
I agree with you on these especially “The fierce biological urge to defend their children, bolstered by mind-altering hormones, helps mothers become more creative and competitive.” I enjoyed your post and thanks for the reminder.
Glad you enjoyed the article, Apolline. Yes, mothers are real fierce defenders and not to be messed with.
I love this Joyce! All the health benefits are outlined beautifully and what a tribute to moms! I think this is true of pet moms too! Your focus was so much on relationship and being present. This is so different than how I was raised, but first as a mom, and then as a counselor and a business woman, it is so important! Thanks for this bright light!
So glad you enjoyed this post Candess. Being female gives us so many more opportunities and roles to explore than men.
Love different is better- that’s something I let go of for a while and now reclaiming xxx
Suzie, thank you for sharing your experience. Funny how we circle back to things when it becomes more meaningful in our life.
As a childless woman who fought infertility and lost, this is a particularly difficult article to swallow. I don’t feel like I am less than or have less value or intelligence because I am not a mother. In fact, I have many of these skills and characteristics. However, society often reminds me that that’s simply not the case. If we want the patriarchy to treat us with respect and as equals, we need to start by treating all women with respect ourselves.
Agree with you Jennifer, not being a mom in a culture that places emphasis on motherhood is unfair. For too long a woman’s value has depended on her childbearing capacity and not on her equal value and contribution. It’s kind of like when you were a kid. You had straight hair and your friend had curly hair. You wanted the curly and she hated her curly hair and wished it were straight. Some women wish they were mothers while some mothers are jealous of the freedom and independence a non-motherhood life offers. I also think there are other kinds of mothering experiences that come along – whether it be with pets, mentoring and coaching, or dealing with men who revert to being childish as they age. The last can be extremely challenging at times. LOL. Whatever our circumstances, respect for all women needs to be a primary part of our cultural and human identity.
I’m not a mommy, but you’ve really given me some things to think about! I like the points you’ve made and think they should be highlighted more often because they all make perfect sense to me. Thank you for the eye-opening article!
Your welcome Marquita. Whatever our circumstances, I think mothering is an inherent quality we express in many different ways under many different circumstances. Having children, however, is more demanding and a longer commitment. Some of us get a reprieve and get to express it differently.
I’m with you on the Mommy brain – both from what my Mom has taught me as well as my own experience in raising my Miss Coco Chanel (we fur baby Mommies count too).
I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned is you can wear different hats and still be a winner with grace provided you address the right priority at the right time.
Vatsala, great insight about wearing different hats. Whoever it is that we mother challenges us for the better.
This is very insightful Joyce. I’ve always stayed home to care for my kiddos and also always have been working on building a business. I’ve gone though several of them but one thing is for certain, and you definitely give plenty of examples in your article, A mommy brain “is” a Sharp brain. I especially like what you say about Perception: A mother’s sensory-rich life with her newborn actually remaps part of her brain—improving her ability to interpret new information. There is a lot to say about this…and somehow I also feel it’s a little hard to explain how we are able to “understand” so much about things we barely know about 😉 Great share!
Definitely, Nathalie, there’s something to this mommy brain. As you say, hard to understand things you barely know about.
Great points. Motherhood is the best thing I ever did. Grandmotherhood is second and my businesses are third. I’ve learned from my children. My children have learned a lot from my businesses. I enjoyed your post.
Cathy, so great to hear that you and your children have learned from each other. That’s certainly a positive in their life, as well as, your grandchildren. Lucky grandchildren.
Oh Joyce, I love your article so much! I could relate to all the points you made about the mommy brain and mommy CEO skills. As someone who has taken care of my kids and took care of my parents for 2 1/2 years, I learned SO much such as compassion, resilience, nurturing relationships, asking questions, being objective, and so much more. I appreciate how you combined motherhood and business with this article. I’m learning lately the incredible power of asking questions… always asking questions! Thanks for the reminders.
Really delightful post, Joyce. It reminds me of a satiric video I saw of a female newscaster who doesn’t miss a beat while she handles multiple challenging interruptions, from a crying baby to a ticking bomb. Nothing fazes her – that’s the Mommy brain at work!
Yes, the days of “Super Mom” when women could have it all. Now, we realize there needs to be a balance for both mother and child, if not there’s burnout.
Joyce,
This is very good article and how you took motherhood and integrated business. Yes, this is something that I am in now and this article is very helpful for mothers all around. Great suggestions and well written.
Thank You,
Lori English
Thanks, Lori. I’m glad this is useful for you.
I really enjoyed this post, Joyce and it got me thinking about myself and how much of this resonated with me as a mother of one daughter. I think I really learned resilience and compassion, plus a sense of awe, wonder and love, from being a mother of a preemie who was born 8 weeks early.
I love how you shared how so many of these mommy skills relate and translate to being an effective business person. I relate to all of these that you shared too! Especially negotiating, asking questions and also that different isn’t bad. I’ve always strived to find the unique and different in everyone and certainly that was enhanced through mothering my daughter!
You certainly got a more intense mothering experience Beverley with your daughter coming 8 weeks early! And, I think you’ve also been fortunate to have your own mother be with you longer than most. There’s much to learn from the mothering experience and it seems it has been a very rich one for you.
What a delightful read, Joyce. As someone who has experienced Mummy and Grandy brain, I truly appreciate what you are saying. Our babies really do bring to the fore such wonderful skills such as nurturing, understanding and negotiating. They teach us to focus on what is really important and to manage our time, essential skills for business. More than that, they teach us how to play and have fun, just as important as the other great reminders Little Miss Wonderful gives you on a regular basis. 🙂
Tami, you have the double blessing of children and grandchildren. We have a tendency to believe that all our learning comes from school and books. Yet, what you’ve shared confirms that children are the wisest teachers of all. Thanks.
Efficiency was probably the number one thing I gained when I became a mom. While devoted to my children, they do take a lot of time. It helped me create priorities and truly organize my time.
Thanks for your comment Christy. Children, certainly do require mother’s to schedule their lives and take them into consideration first.
What a great way to combine motherhood and business, Joyce! And so true. I especially like “You don’t have to know all the answers – questions are powerful” This is something I remind myself of every day, and keep asking questions!
I think by asking questions it’s one of the most important qualities we can for understanding and dealing with life. Keep up the good work Susan.