Author Archives: Ingrid Biese

Why are there so many bad bosses?

Posted on by
Reply

Well, I can think of a few reasons. First of all, being a boss is hard. Leading a team or an organization takes skill. 

You may have heard the statement that people don’t leave companies, they leave bad bosses. Well that isn’t always true, but what is true is that a bad boss is one of the main reasons, if not the main reason, that people leave. And as we know, ever since the pandemic, people have been opting out in droves, and work-related mental health issues are at an all-time high. According to The Mental Health at Work Report 2022, three in four employees are experiencing mental health issues at work. 

But first, I want to say that there are a lot of really great bosses out there. For some it comes more naturally, and others have to work harder for it, but they are out there. The problem is just that there are a lot of bad bosses too, and bad bosses, without meaning to or even being aware of it, can really cause a lot of harm. 

So how do people become bosses in the first place? Often it is from being really good at what they do. A person without leadership responsibilities might be excelling at their job and then get awarded for that with a promotion to lead the team. So, a salesperson, for example, who is a wizard at sales is made head of the sales team because they are so darned good at selling. But being a wizard at sales is no guarantee that you are going to be any good at leading a team, or that you even like doing it. Do you see what I mean?

And there is a lot of prestige associated with leadership roles and having people report to you. So, people often accept the raise and the status without maybe thinking about what it really entails. 

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, but people do get leadership training to support them in their role. Yes, this is true, some do some don’t. And leadership training certainly helps. I encourage everyone who is in a leading position to get leadership training. 

But there is also something about our working cultures that doesn’t exactly foster the kind of skills and routines that you need to connect with your people.  In fact, studies have shown that there is a growing sense of disconnection in our workplaces and people are feeling lonelier than ever.

Organizational cultures tend to encourage us to push forward, be competitive and not show emotions. Business is business, right? It isn’t personal.

Wrong.

Business is personal. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s highly personal because we (employees) make up the business and we are all people. But because of this norm, we are encouraged to keep our personal lives separate and not show emotions at work, or at least only show the ‘right’ emotions. But, the thing is that what happens in our personal lives deeply affects how we act and perform at work. And vice versa, naturally. Also, when people aren’t allowed to bring their real, whole selves to work, it makes it really hard for them to realize their full potential. 

This is because we are whole human beings and as much as we are encouraged or would like to leave parts of our selves at the door, that’s actually not how it works. 

I just finished a book, HumanForce: The Power of Emotions in the Changing Workplace, and the author, Natalie Boudou, hits the nail on its head again and again. She talks about how we need stronger, more intelligent workplaces and how a strategy of greater emotional intelligence and openness is the key to successful leadership. It turns out that compassion and emotion, traditionally thought of as soft, fluffy bunny issues and words not generally used in conjunction with work, are in fact strategic issues that provide the key to healthy, creative, productive and competitive work places. 

Leaders simply need to be emotionally intelligent. If this doesn’t come naturally to you, and for most people it probably doesn’t, you need to work on it. It’s an acquired skill. And if you are a boss or a leader, you need to want to be around your people and connect with them. If you do, you will have a better sense of what they are going through and a better understanding of their needs, which will help you adapt your leadership style to different people in different situations. If you don’t, you’re not really being a leader. 

P.S. Read the book! You can find it here.

On working in places where practices go against your values, and deciding that you can’t

Posted on by
Reply

People opt out for a number of reasons. Yes, the dream and pull of a new lifestyle that is more sustainable and where you can live and work on your own terms plays in. But truth be told, it is the push of a job that you no longer can or want to do, for whatever reason, that actually makes you take the step. 

In my research I have found that more often than not it is values, or the clash of values, that becomes the tipping point. It can be values regarding anything really, but I’ve found that it often has to do with the ethical treatment of others, both humans and non-humans. 

People come to a point when they realize that they just can’t stand for whatever it is their employer is doing. 

That was the case last time I left a job. Especially with the research I do and everything I stand for regarding sustainable work, ethical and respectful treatment of others, and wellbeing, I just couldn’t continue working for an organization that didn’t seem to care about any of that. 

I’m not going to get into the details right now because there are just too many for a blog post, but I had been mistreated myself and I saw how much suffering there was around me and I realized that if I accept this and just go on as if nothing had happened, it would be hypocritical. I can’t accept crap for myself that I tell others has no place in the organizational sphere. Or any sphere, really. 

So I left. And I’m no alone. A clash of values and a sense of disillusionment are reasons why many people leave. And the fact of the matter of is, values are important and they are just getting more so with every new generation that enters the work force. 

Research has shown that one thing that sets gen z workers apart from previous generations is that values play a much bigger role for them in relation to work and money. They generally want more than to just make money and also have higher expectations on their employers. They have sites where they compare notes and don’t want just any job, but one that is aligned with their values. 

Sometimes older generations will roll their eyes at this but I think they are right to expect more from their employers. I think one reason why so many work places are sites for so much suffering is that we haven’t expected enough. 

So don’t underestimate the importance of values.

Besides, research has also shown that ethical treatment of others – both those inside and outside the organization – is good for business. It’s good for the bottom line. But as I tell my students, using this as an argument to get organizations to act more ethically is really quite problematic. Because what if it turns out that it really isn’t a game changer? What if the bottom line is good enough without treating others well, is it still okay then not too?

A time of crisis is a moment of reckoning

Posted on by
Reply

I think we can all agree that we live in a time of crisis. The crises we face are many, they are serious, and they are all interconnected. 

The environmental crisis – climate change – is perhaps the biggest of all because without a planet there is no us. It’s also arguably the first crisis that literally affects everyone, every country and every person on this globe, and as such it is a crisis that we have to solve together. This can be frustrating and difficult because everyone doesn’t seem to think that this crisis is serious, serious enough to give up comfort, economic growth or profit for, or that it affects them. But that is an illusion. 

It affects all of us regardless of where we live in the world, whether it’s about lands becoming unlivable, wars that are fought over diminishing resources, mass migration to countries that aren’t seeing the worst of it yet, or just bees dying which inevitably will mean that we won’t have food.

We’re also seeing a crisis of democracy. I think we’re all acutely aware of that, whether or not we think it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Because the world is exactly that polarized at the moment that there are people who really think it’s a good thing. 

The US is on everybody’s minds, lips and social media feeds at the moment, and the things that are going on there are hard to even grasp. This is also a crisis that affects all of us; it’s not just a domestic issue, nor is it a phenomenon that is unique to the US.

This rise of populism and easy answers to difficult questions is a phenomenon we’re seeing in many different countries around the world. Populist political parties are gaining traction mainly because a lot people are just sick and tired of the status quo. 

What’s going on in the US and in many other places around the world is in other words a symptom of something. We need to take it seriously, not ridicule and antagonize those who think differently, and do our best to understand why some people are just so sick and tired that they don’t even believe in democracy anymore. Because even though democracy isn’t perfect, it’s the best system we have and we need to protect it. It’s vulnerable and can be destroyed if we don’t stand up for it. 

Another crisis we’re seeing is a crisis of the work place. There’s a lot of suffering in the organizational and corporate world. People get sick, people die. People are also leaving their jobs and careers in numbers never before witnessed. There are a lot of people who just don’t want to do it anymore. They feel like the cost to their health, to their families, and to their lives is just too high.

So what do we do? Well, as I said, a crisis is a time of reckoning. It’s a time of change and reinvention, and a time when anything is possible. The balls are up in the air and we need to decided where and how we want them to land. It’s time to change the way we think about work. It’s time to change the way we think about a lot of things.

Change is hard though, especially when it craves a new way of thinking. That’s why it often takes a crisis for change to really happen. But I believe we can do it, if not for any other reason than that we have no choice. 

The pandemic showed us that we really can rethink things completely and change at a drop of a hat when we have to. And we are already seeing some interesting initiatives that redefine how we think about work. 

The four-day work week or six-hour work day is one example. When we have been doing something in a certain way for as long as we can remember we start seeing it as a truth. But truth be told, the five-day, 40-hour work week is actually a relatively recent phenomenon.

The four-day work week questions what we think we know about efficiency, productivity and dedication. Research has shown that we really aren’t very efficient or productive if we work very long days. It’s not the best use of our time. On the contrary, a shorter week or a shorter work day allows us to be more efficient because we don’t get as tired and we have an easier time combining work with other areas of life. This has been tested in a number of different countries and test results have been very positive. So positive that some organization haven’t looked back since. 

We live in a world where we idealize constant growth and efficiency. Still, resources are finite, both our personal and our planetary ones. We can’t always be efficient; if we don’t pace ourselves we burn out. If we do pace ourselves, it opens up possibilities for creativity, creative thinking and new solutions. Not to mention mental and physical wellbeing.

I know, in a world where organizations struggle to stay competitive, it’s hard to be the one leading the change.

But it’s time, it has to be done.  And we can do it!

P.S. If your organization is doing something different that challenges current thinking – anything, big or small – let me know, I’d love to hear about it!

You can prioritize people and still be very successful

Posted on by
Reply

I’m working on a book again. It’s another book on opting out, but this time it’s out of an organizational perspective. More specifically, I’m writing about what organizations need to do to create working environments that people won’t long to leave. Because studies have shown that a lot of people do. A lot of people dream about opting out.

The situation isn’t all bad. There are of course organizations that do great things and there are a lot of people who are happy in their jobs, that’s true. But it’s also true that organizations can be places of profound suffering. In the past 30 years or so, mental ill-health has skyrocketed, the main reason being work-related stress. Main factors include constant cost cutting and reorganizations, as well as work that is dehumanizing and where people are disrespected and not valued. Did you know that there is something known as Blue Monday? Apparently, people are more likely to have what is thought to be stress-related heart attacks on Mondays than any other day of the week. 

So, this book that I’m working on right now is part of my personal mission to change working life as we know it. 

While doing research for my new book, I stumbled across another book that made a really big impression on me. It’s a book by Rob Chapman and Raj Sisodia called Everyone Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family.

Rob Chapman is the CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, a large American industrial company. When he became CEO of the company, he “threw away” traditional management practices like the ones you learn in business school and replaced them with what he calls “a truly human leadership”.

This spoke to me right away because I spend a lot of time telling anyone who will listen that business is personal (contrary to popular belief) simply because it’s about people. And people are personal. Companies love to say that their people are their greatest resource, but honestly, it’s a bit problematic to think of people this way. It’s kind of dehumanizing if you think about. 

Chapman gets this. His thinking is, why do we treat people at work differently than we do people we care about? If we say things at work that we wouldn’t say to our own children, for example, why do we think it’s okay to talk that way to someone else’s child? Chapman’s point is that everyone is someone’s child and everyone should be treated as such. Everyone deserves to be treated with kindness and respect. 

According to Chapman, fostering a people-centric culture is to truly care about every human being whose life the company touches, be it employees, employees’ families, customers, suppliers, business partners… A people-centric culture is about including everyone (not just the very talented, everyone is needed and everyone wants to contribute), keeping them safe and sending them home fulfilled. It’s about respect, it’s about trust, it’s about listening to people, and it’s about treating everyone the same no matter where in the organization they are. 

This people-centric culture was implemented during a financial upswing and things were going well for company. Then when the financial crisis of 2008 hit it was really put to the test. Companies were laying people off everywhere to survive the sudden loss of business, but not Barry-Wehmiller. They were reluctant to do it because layoffs have a profound negative affect on people’s wellbeing. It’s affects them, their lives, their health and their whole families. Not only that, it also really affects the morale of those who don’t lose their jobs, which also affects business. So, they just really didn’t want to have to do that. 

What did they do instead? Well, they thought about what a family would do in a time of crisis. They wouldn’t kick some of the family members out to cut costs. Instead, they would all come together and pitch in in any way that they could so that everyone could make it through the crisis. And this is what they did. They treated the company like a family.

One thing they did was that they decided that everyone had to take a four-week furlough, including members of management. They had a system where everyone was allowed to take the time off when it suited them best. Also, if someone felt they wanted to or could afford it, they could take over some of someone else’s furlough if someone couldn’t afford taking that much time off without pay. When employees realized they weren’t going to lose their jobs, everyone pitched in and people felt committed to do what they could to save the company. They made it through the recession without letting a single person go and they came out of the recession strong, and also faster than the economy as a whole. Already in 2010, they made record earnings and decided to write every employee a check for the salary that they had given up to save the company. 

By the way, did you know that regular restructuring, downsizing and layoffs is a relatively recent phenomenon? It isn’t something companies started doing systematically until1990’s. I’ll leave you with this quote:

“Rightsizing, de-layering, business reengineering, streamlining… these are some of the other euphemisms for the now-routine business practice of eliminating jobs to improve profit. Downsizing has become a reflex response to business adversity…to preserve financial performance, raise investor confidence, and boost share price. We know of one company that deliberately over-hires when times are good so it can let people go and get a bump in the share price when it wants to… Simon Sinek puts it this way: “In the military, they give medals to those who are willing to sacrifice themselves so that other may gain. In business, we give bonuses to those that are willing to sacrifice others so that they may gain.””

                                                               (Chapman & Sisodia, 2015: 95)

If you want to hear Bob Chapman talk about this in his own words, google him. He’s all over the internet. 

If we all know something has got to give, then why is it so hard to change?

Posted on by
Reply

All the years I’ve been researching, writing and talking about opting out and in, sustainable solutions for work and work place wellbeing, I’ve never come across anyone in the organizational world who doesn’t think all this is of the essence. I’ve been at it for a while now, and the whole time my work has been received as timely and important and with great interest. 

Still, even though there is a lot of consensus regarding this, people continue struggling with the same issues at work and more and more of them dream of opting out. 

Okay, before you say anything, I do know that not everything is the same. The pandemic showed us that we can change when we have to and there are a lot of organizations that now provide their employees with more flexibility regarding where, when and how they work. Also, some organizations have started prioritizing mental health more and now have routines and policies in place to support that. 

Nevertheless, there are a lot of organizations that don’t. Some may talk the talk but not walk it, and some – all too many – don’t even talk it. 

Why is this? Why is it so hard to change?

Well, one of the main problems is that the way we understand work; and what we know to be a ‘good’ way of working or organizing our work has become something of a truth. When things have been in a certain way for as long as we can remember, we tend to think that is the natural way for them to be and it becomes hard to even imagine doing things differently. It is simply the way things are done. 

But let me let you in on a secret. The way we understand work isn’t a truth. It isn’t a law of nature, it has been invented and implemented by us and not even that long ago. It’s actually quite a recent invention. 

The current career ideal was developed as a result of industrialization and the prosperity many nations experienced after World War II. Employees were expected to be loyal to one employer and career advancement involved an upward movement in the organization in a timely fashion, brought about by promotions. As mainly men started working in the industries, some argue that the career wasn’t created for one, but one and a half people: the man with the career and the wife who took care of everything he didn’t have time for because he was so tied up at work. 

Although a lot has changed in society since then, this is ironically still the career ideal today: the timely upward movement and the expectation of complete dedication and devotion to work. Anything else it considered suspect, at least if you want to advance to the upper echelons of corporate hierarchies. 

But guess what, we don’t have to organize work the way we do! There is nothing natural or predetermined about it. We can reinvent why we work, how we work and how much we work. 

The problem is just that in order to change we have to want to change. And not only that, we also have to realize that we need to change. We have to have that lightbulb moment. Until we do, and if it’s going well enough, it’ll just feel easier to continue the way we have.  

So how do we do that? How do we get people and organizations to see the light? Do we have to wait until things get so bad that there will be no choice but to change?  

Why are middle managers so unhappy? (And why is it so hard for me to write about?!)

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been trying to write a blog post about why middle managers are so unhappy for about a month now. I’ve kept the Word file open on my computer and every once in a while I’ll stumble upon it amongst all the other windows that are open on my screen (I’m telling you, I feel like I have a hundred things going on simultaneously at the moment), and it glares accusingly at me, reminding me that in my last blog post I promised you all that I was reviving my blog. And here I am, having not posted a thing since December.

It’s not that I don’t know why middle managers are so unhappy. I do. According to studies, they are the unhappiest group in the organizational world and the main reason is that they are just that – in the middle. They don’t generally make the strategic decisions, but they do have to implement them. They deal with and have to manage expectations from both above and below and are burdened with administrative responsibilities. They reportedly spend about 35% of their total working time in meetings. That’s more than a third!

This leads to a feeling of not having agency, that their hands are tied, which in turn affects wellbeing. I see this again and again in my opting out research. 

So why is this so hard to write about? 

The thing is, I already wrote the blog post, I had a version ready for publication, but when I looked at it I just thought it was boring. And if it bores me to read, I’m pretty sure it will bore you too. 

So, the other night I decided that’s it. I need to get this written. This is part of my book project on what organizations need to do to create work places that people won’t long to leave (because let’s face it, a lot of people dream of opting out), and the crass reality is that I need to produce texts. No words, no book.

I sat down at my computer and started reworking the post. I wrote and rewrote. I reorganized the text, moving sentences back and forth and back again. But no, it didn’t help. It didn’t make the post any more interesting. I just wasn’t feeling it.

And this is the thing, I need to start from me. I need to have a connection to what I’m writing, I need to feel it. I can’t just spew out text on command if I’m not feeling it and think anyone will want to read it. What I had written wasn’t a blog post, it was more of a well-formulated list of why middle manager are so unhappy. 

So today it hit me. I need to write down my experience. It’s ironic, but maybe understandable, that writing, which I love to do, which feels meaningful and provides me with such a sense of accomplishment, can also be so painful and angst-ridden. I was actually watching an Instagram live by an artist I follow, Philippa Stanton (@5ftinf), and she said exactly this (maybe not in those words, but that was the gist). Hearing it made me feel relieved and understood. Maybe it isn’t so weird. After all, writing (or any creative art form) is actually a very personal endeavor. 

But back to middle managers. Why is this important? Well, for one, every once in a while, I see stories and reports of how it’s become increasingly difficult for companies to get people to accept promotions if the result of that promotion is a middle management position. Despite the promise of a raise and a more prestigious job, people are increasingly saying thanks but no thanks. 

Then there is also the issue of people leaving. When I started researching opting out, it was more of an exception than anything else, simply because leaving is hard. But now people are doing it in numbers never before witnessed. 

So what do we do? Well there are a lot of things we can do to help the individual middle manager. But on a whole, we really need to look at organizational working cultures and practices. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, something has got to give. 

What about you? Are you a middle manager? Do you recognize any of this? Or are you in a workplace where you can thrive? Tell me about it, I would love to hear from you!

You can email me at theoptingoutblog@gmail.com. All emails are confidential.

PS. Those of you hoping for a list, here is one from a study published by The Harvard Business Review of reasons given by middle managers on why they are so unhappy (in order of importance):

  1. Bad leadership
  2. They see no career or promotion opportunities
  3. Their work lacks meaning and purpose
  4. They feel that they are treated unfairly compared to others
  5. They don’t feel valued or appreciated
  6. They don’t believe the problem will be addressed if they raise an issue
  7. They’re overworked
  8. They see the organization as inefficient and ineffective
  9. Their distinctiveness in not valued or appreciated

The Great Resignation, Opting Out, The Quit, The Great Reshuffle, The Great Attrition… What’s really going on?!

Posted on by
3

It’s all over the media:

The Great Resignation! No no, no one is calling it that anymore, it’s The Quit. The what? No, no one wants to quit altogether, people need to make a living. The Great Reshuffle is more accurate. Although since it is something that is happening to workers all over the world, maybe The Great Attrition is the thing?

…and on it goes. Meanwhile, I’m still talking about ‘opting out’. 

What really is going on? What’s what?

I’m going to let you in on a secret. It’s actually all the same thing.

I started researching opting out in 2009. Yes, it’s that long ago. When I started, it was a debate that had been going on for a few years already, ever since that by now famous New York Times article The Opt-Out Revolution was published in 2003. And the truth is, although people were talking about a revolution, it really wasn’t that revolutionary at all. People have opted out to work on their own terms long before we knew to call it opting out. What was different in 2003 was that they were thought to be doing it in larger numbers than before. 

No one really knew, though, exactly how large the numbers were. No one was measuring how many people actually were leaving their jobs or careers to work on different terms. There were numbers on how may left the workforce altogether, but as I already mentioned, people do need to work, so not surprisingly those number weren’t very high at all, nor were they on the rise. 

But then COVID hit and suddenly everything became extreme. 

Companies started doing things they thought were impossible. Governments and organizations started cooperating in ways they had never dreamed of. Restaurants and entertainers fell on really hard times – harder than most of us can imagine. People actually slowed down enough to smell the coffee, except for healthcare worker of course who became the temporary heroes of the world (I say temporary because let’s face it, we have really short memories and now that things are somewhat under control I think most people have gone back to taking them for granted).

Things became extreme and people in the US started quitting their jobs in never before seen numbers. Hashtags like #quittingmyjob or #antiwork started circulating on social media. Terms were coined left and right to describe what was happening (see my first paragraph) and people started to feel a pressing need to measure what was really going on. And presto, now we have numbers:

About 40% of people are considering quitting their jobs and up to 70% (depending on what study you read) are dreaming of doing so. In addition, over 50% of the work force is burned out. These number are shockingly high!

But when you scratch the surface, it turns out that it’s always about the same thing: It’s about people. It’s about stress. It’s about feelings of insecurity. It’s about not having control over your life. It’s about exhaustion. It’s about lacking a sense of meaning. It’s about feeling that something has got to give. 

And all this is hugely important regardless of what we call it. 

There have always been people who have opted out. That isn’t new. But what is different now is the sheer magnitude of it. Up to 70% percent dream of doing it!

So yes, something has got to give.

I’ve written a book on women opting out, and another on men, and now it is high time to focus on what organizations need to do. 70% is not sustainable, organizations need to act and they need to do it now. We need work places people don’t dream of leaving, we need organizational cultures that make people want to stay. 

With that, I’m starting to work on my next book. I’m going to revive this blog (yes, it’s been relatively quiet here lately) and I’m going to use it to explore and discuss issues and aspects of my book. 

I hope you will follow me on this journey. In the meantime, I would love to hear from you. If you work somewhere where they are doing things right (anything, big or small), or if your workplace is a place you don’t long to leave, please tell me about it. 

What are they doing right and why is it good? You can email me at theoptingoutblog@gmail.com

Maybe my craziest idea so far

Posted on by
Reply

It all started with a vision. Imagine it: an outdoor art show with silk paintings hanging from tree branches in the very forest that inspired them.

Hmm… amazing as that sounds I wasn’t quite sure my silk paintings would be able to withstand the elements. Then I remembered, there’s a tiny cabin on the island where we live that has been empty for the past 30 years or so. It’s surrounded by pines, birches, rowan trees and junipers. It’s right next to a shore where terns screech and reeds sway. All the things I love. Plus, it’s ancient, really old, and I really like old things. It was perfect. I decided I would turn it into a gallery; a summer gallery in the magic forest that tickles my imagination and inspires me to paint. 

Well, when does anything ever go as planned? It was originally a completely realistic project, and I had plenty of time to turn the little shack into a gallery whenever we visited the island during the spring. But then I came down with Covid, which turned into post-Covid, and was simply unable to do anything, really, for weeks on end. Come midsummer, I was finally getting my strength back, and I thought I could quickly transform the abandoned house then. That in itself was of course ridiculous because before any transforming could be done the place needed to be emptied. But alas, we had a heat wave and it was too hot to do anything much. Besides I was busy with other work, I was on a deadline. So, nothing happened then either.

By the time July came around, I started wondering if realizing this dream was even possible anymore or if it would just have to wait until next year. I was quite disappointed by the thought and I wavered and I wondered. Then I decided, no, I was going to make this happen if it was the last thing I did. I can and I will!

Off I went to my studio in Helsinki to pick out some paintings to hang in the gallery. Note, at this point no renovating had been done yet. I came back a couple of days later and sent out invitations to the opening. It was high time because people obviously need several days’ notice. That gave me exactly nine days to turn the place into the much dreamed of gallery. 

At this point I have to tell you, I have done some painting and wall papering in my time, but in no way am I a professional, nor do I really like it that much. Also, my husband who is good at all things renovation and very supportive of all my endeavors, no matter how headless, was not able to help me very much. I was on my own. 

Every day I trekked through the forest to the tiny house, lugging paint and other supplies one way and giant bags of old stuff and trash the other. And as is typical for old houses, every time I did something in the house, I was met with unexpected, ugly surprises that needed to be dealt with before I could continue.

There were mouse droppings everywhere, more than I had ever seen in my life. And there was bigger poop in a hole in the wall that had to be scooped out. I can only guess that it had come from a marten. I was trying to come to terms with the fact that my gallery was also a wilderness toilet. 

Every once in a while, I would traipse to the hardware store in town, my husband in tow, asking for help to solve whatever my latest challenge was in the fastest and cheapest way possible. I mean I was working against the clock. At one point, when a very helpful salesperson was suggesting one intricate solution after the other, solutions that in normal circumstances would have worked perfectly fine, my husband exclaimed, “It doesn’t have to look good, it just has to work!” The poor man, the salesperson that is, something seemed to die a little inside him as I tried to stifle a laugh. 

I worked every day all day. My body ached all over and I even had to take Ibuprofen a couple of times in the evening in order to be able to sleep. I constantly second guessed myself, thinking I must be mad, but I just kept telling myself keep going, keep going, keep going. At least I was saving the house from complete decay. 

Then all of a sudden it was the day of the opening. Everything wasn’t done, but the most important things were. The walls were painted, the paths cleared. Signs had been put up and the paintings were hung (my husband actually had to help me with this last part because by then I was a nervous wreck). There were tags on the wall beneath the paintings and brochures on the table. Refreshments had been bought and set out on the table on the lawn outside the gallery. It wasn’t even raining (although they had originally forecasted 21mm of rain for that day…). We were ready for guests. 

So, we waited. At first no one came. We took some pictures and poured ourselves some bubbly. Still no one. I was getting worried.

Then suddenly they started coming. Over 20 guests in total walked through the forest to see my little gallery. We talked, we laughed, and we had a great time. They admired my paintings and I even sold a couple! 

And, as it turns out, a gallery in the middle of the forest in the Finnish archipelago isn’t such a crazy idea after all!

My summer gallery is open until August 14. If you’re in the neighborhood, do drop by. Contact me for exact coordinates or visit my Instagram account @ingrids_silk_painting for pictures and more information.

Now I’m happy and tired and more than ready to take a few much-needed days off. Over and out!

Do men want to be involved in the day-to-day care of their kids or are they secretly relieved when they can’t?

Posted on by
Reply

In my last blog post, I wrote about how corporate cultures and ideals can override national legislation. Employees may have legal rights to certain things but are sometimes still dissuaded or simply not permitted by their employers to act on these legal rights. One example I gave was paternity leave. 

After I published my post, I was asked by one of my readers if I have, in my research, asked any of the men who have been prohibited to take paternity leave if they were secretly relieved that they couldn’t. 

Well first of all, no, I haven’t. I’ve researched men who have opted out of high-powered careers, not men who have opted out of other things to stay in these high-power positions. Also, I have conducted in-depth interviews so I simply don’t have the numbers to make any generalizations. That’s why I rely on research conducted by other people for statistics and trends and to understand issues on a broader front. 

But even so, I have to honestly say, the question is kind of missing the point. Let me tell you why.

First of all, I know that there are men who, for whatever reason, feel relieved over not having to take time off to care for children. Heck, there’s a whole book written about it. In Men Can Do It! The Real Reason Dads Don’t Do Child Care and What Men and Women Should Do About It, Gideon Burrows, a man who has taken time to stay home with his children while his wife worked, argues that men are just as capable to take care of their children as women are, and the reason they don’t is that it is tedious and they simply don’t have to. 

What Burrows says is true. Research has shown again and again that men are just as capable to care for children as women are. The idea that women have a biological advantage and intuitively know what to do isn’t true. Mothers may be very attuned to their children’s needs, but it is an acquired knowledge that comes from hours and hours of taking care of their children. Hours that most fathers don’t get since they don’t generally spend as much time alone with their children, being the main caregiver. (You can read more about this in my book Men Do It Too: Opting Out and In (Chapter 5))

What he says about childcare being tedious is also true. Those of us who have stayed at home to take care of infants and found ourselves up to our elbows in breast milk, baby food, diapers, baby pee and poo, or spent hours on end on the edge of a sandbox making row after row of sand cakes, knows that it can feel pretty tedious. But we also know that it can be hugely rewarding. The rewarding part is the connection and the bond between parent and child. It’s good for both the parent and the child and has a huge (positive) impact on both. This is something that fathers (and mothers for that matter) who haven’t participated in the care of their children in this way probably don’t even know that they are missing. 

But even that isn’t the point here. 

The point is, what would you say if a woman decided she didn’t want to care for her child because it is tedious? 

Society would be shocked and call her a bad mother. 

But when a man does it, it’s okay?

So, no, I’m not really interested in how many men are relieved that they aren’t able to take paternity leave. Those of us who bring children into the world need to take care of them, whether or not it is tedious.

If Finland is the happiest country in the world why do people long to opt out here too?

Posted on by
1

I’m reading Anu Partanen’s book The Nordic Theory of Everything at the moment. It’s really an excellent read; I wish I had read it sooner. Partanen’s book so clearly explains the differences between life in Finland (or the Nordics) and the US and how these two very different social, political and cultural systems come together to create independent or not so independent individuals. 

Now, especially if you’re from the US, you may be guessing that the US system is the one that creates independent individuals, not the Nordic welfare state, but, perhaps surprisingly, it’s not. It’s the Nordic system that does that. 

One of Partanen’s messages is that the Nordic countries are most certainly not socialist, despite popular (American) belief, and that any Nordic person would balk at the idea. On the contrary, the Nordic model of social security and support allows individuals to be independent and to create good lives for themselves, instead of having them depend on for example parents, family members and employers just to be able to afford important, but basic, things like education, health care, day care etc. And yes, if you visit the Nordic countries, you will see that individualism actually does run strong throughout our cultures, for better or worse.

I strongly recommend the book, but that wasn’t actually the point of this blog post. What I want to talk about is how it is possible that opting out experiences can be so similar in both countries despite the differences that rank Finland at the top of so many lists* and the US much further down? How is it that people in a country like Finland long to opt out of their current jobs and lifestyles just as much as Americans do? 

Finland has recently, once again, been declared the world’s happiest country. It kind of makes you wonder, if this is the case, why is it that the opting out stories I have collected in Finland and the US are so remarkably similar? Why is it that people who live in a country with free education, free health care, more reasonable working hours, five weeks of legislated vacation time per year, long maternity leaves, paternity leaves, even longer parental leaves after which they are guaranteed their job back, high quality affordable day care etc. etc. etc., have very similar experiences to those who do not enjoy any of the above? 

How can it be that they also feel exhausted, they feel a lack of control over their lives, and they also have difficulties creating coherent life narratives? How can it be that they also reach a point when something’s got to give, or if not, at least long to leave their current way of living and working?

How come so many of the world’s happiest people don’t seem so happy?

Well, first I want to say, that no system or country is perfect. The happiest country in the world does not necessarily mean absolute happiness at all times. Finland is also ranked one of the most gender equal countries in the world, but that does not mean that the work here is done. Finland has not reached a state of perfect gender equality, nor will it any time soon at the rate we’re going.

I recently read that Finnish mothers are among the most stressed and exhausted in the world. The main problem is (in addition to the all-consuming motherhood ideal of today) that while Finland has among the highest percentage of women working fulltime, women also continue to be mainly responsible for childcare and household chores. While working life has become more equal, home life has been lagging behind, compared to Sweden for example. 

But one factor that has become glaringly obvious to me during all these years of researching opting out and having the privilege of hearing countless people’s opting out and in stories, is that regardless of any national differences, one common denominator is corporate cultures and ideals. They tend to be similar throughout the world thanks to globalization and global organizations, and they also tend to override local practices and sometimes even legislation. 

Let me give you an example. 

It happens, in Finland, that when a man wants to take some legislated paternity leave to get to know his child and to share the load with his partner, his employer may let him know that ‘it is simply not done in this company’. 

Research has also shown that men with low incomes are more likely to take time off to care for their children than are men in high-powered corporate positions. 

So what should we do? We need to work on changing work. We need to create corporate cultures that belong in the 21stcentury. 

* In addition to being ranked the happiest and one of the most gender equal societies, Finland is also considered one of the most stable, best-governed, least corrupt, and best-educated countries in the world.