Show notes
Watch This Episode On Our YouTube Channel Episode 39: Lisen Stromberg Becoming a mother was the defining moment for Lisen Stromberg. If you’re thinking, “well, duh” we implore you to listen to her story, and how Lisen’s entire perspective on work, ambition, and purpose changed when she looked at the situation with her children – and honestly, all children – in mind. Lisen talked with us about the shift she’s seen over the last couple decades, from women feeling isolated, and like failures, to having open discussion about how to do things better. No longer are we trapped by the concept of linear careers. There are endless options, and we are better equipped than ever before to define success for ourselves. Through her own research, including interviewing close to 200 women and surveying 1500, Lisen found that 78% of women who paused have no regrets. No regrets. How often can we say that about… anything? Such good news! We talked about how to pause and make it work for you. One of our favorite concepts from this discussion was about liminal space: the time or space between two things. We also talked about being co-conspirators, in the most positive sense of that term. Women have to help and lift each other, especially those of us with privileges not available to other working moms. There are a lot of old ideas still controlling the narrative, but we have the power to change perceptions. More About Lisen Lisen Stromberg is a workplace culture innovation and leadership expert who works with clients to help them build next-in-class, 21st century cultures with the future-forward leaders their company needs to succeed. In her role as CEO of PrismWork, a culture innovation consultancy, Lisen and her team partner with companies to ensure their internal programs, policies, and practices align with their external branding so ALL stakeholders win. Rooted in quantitative and qualitative data, PrismWork’s culture assessments drive customized solutions to meet the unique needs of companies ranging from global Fortune 500s to tech start-ups. Through their 21st Century Leadership Lab workshops, training, and coaching, Lisen and her team provide today’s workforce with the necessary skills and insights to thrive in the modern workplace. Lisen is also a widely regarded speaker who empowers people and companies to reimagine the future of work for today’s workforce. She has been on stage at numerous high-profile conferences including SXSW, PBWC, Cannes, and others. As an award-winning independent journalist, Lisen’s work can be found in The New York Times, Fortune, Newsweek, and other top media outlets. Her book, Work Pause Thrive: How to Pause for Parenthood Without Killing Your Career, reveals how trailblazing women disrupted the traditional career paradigm to achieve their personal and professional goals and how forward-thinking companies create workplaces that enable women to thrive. When they aren’t traveling the world visiting family and friends, Lisen and her husband split their time between San Francisco and Boston. They can often be found kayaking on both coasts or skiing somewhere in between. People, Places and Things That Come Up Phineas and Ferb Our Looks, Listens, and Learns Lisen Our Separate Ways by Ella Bell Smith and Stella M. NkomoAssembly by Natasha BrownThe Midnight Library by Matt HaigThe Halloween Witch (no links for this – listen for details) Susanne Circe by Madeline MillerThe SimpsonsThe SopranosBeing transparent with our kids, and applying to the Erma Bombeck Residency Missy On The Verge, NetflixCrowdsource discussion about the complications of going back out there after Covid quarantine, and how weird it feels to go to a comedy festival after being so careful for so long. Connect with Lisen: Prismwork.comBuy the book!LinkedInTwitterInstagram How to chat with us, or follow us, and support us! We want to hear from you, and we are also excited about talking to someone other than ourselves.Please subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts! If you’re so inclined to give us a 5-star rating, we’ll love you forever. Who couldn’t use a little extra love?Leave us a message – via voicemail or use our form – with your questions for experts, or suggestions for future episodes.Check out our website, where you can find links to all the things!Follow our Facebook PageJoin our private Facebook Group (All you have to do is ask to join, and then be nice once you’re in. So easy!)Follow us on InstagramBecome a patron – check us out on Patreon! Musical Notes: Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock. Transcript transcribed by Descript – Please excuse any missed corrections. EP 39 Lisen Stromberg / Work, Pause, Thrive [00:00:00] Susanne: Welcome to the mom and podcast where our mission is to help moms figure out who they are and their ellipses, or the.dot dots beyond I’m a mom and. I’m Susanne Kerns. I’m a mom and dot dot dot writer, LGBTQ ally, and this week a refreshed Austin Pets Alive volunteer. [00:00:43] Missy: I can’t wait to hear more about that. I’m Missy Steven’s, a mom and dot.dot dot writer, foster care advocate, and this week, a comedy festival goer during a pandemic, so maybe crazy today. We are thrilled to have Lisen Stromberg on the podcast. Lisen is CEO of PrismWork, a workplace culture and leadership consultancy. She and her team work with clients to help them build next in class 21st century cultures with the future forward leaders, their companies need to succeed. Lisen is also a best-selling author. Award-winning independent journalist and an in demand speaker. She earned her BA at Dartmouth and has an MBA from , UC Berkeley’s Haas school of business, and an MFA from mills college. Welcome. [00:01:28] Lisen: Thank you. It’s such a pleasure to be here. [00:01:31] Susanne: So excited [00:01:32] Missy: We are excited. [00:01:34] Susanne: though. First of all, I just got to tell you. Your book Work, Pause, Thrive… for people who do not research this area of women and career, as much as I do, maybe don’t understand that before this book. I mean, I had read the feminine mistake, not the mystique, not that, no the mistake, the feminine mistake, uh, like the price of mother had really interesting books, but not super inspiring or a hope filling for a woman who has been out of the workforce for 15 years raising her kids. So when I just want to make a poster of your stat from your study, 78% of those who paused and relaunched have no regrets. I’m [00:02:20] Lisen: no regrets. In fact, the highest life satisfaction of anybody. [00:02:25] Susanne: So amazing. What a [00:02:27] Lisen: are told like that, right. That narrative isn’t told. So yes, I know. [00:02:32] Susanne: And I also came from an advertising background and at the time I left, I was working on apple. And my client that I worked with, there was three kids, , but I call, I literally called her. I had no shame and I was asking anybody who would come near me, like, should I, should I quit? And of course they can’t give you that answer. And it was kind of ridiculous, but just even having this statistic that, you know, women who have paused, they don’t regret it. And I, you know, pausing can be a really great time of reflection and it doesn’t have to be the end of something. It’s the thinking point of [00:03:08] Lisen: We’re all in a pause in some ways, right? I mean, look at what COVID has brought to us. We’ve brought this, the new term, the great awakening, right? I think motherhood for so many women is the great awakening and we’ve been doing this for a long time. So, um, [00:03:22] Susanne: I like to call COVID our global maternity leave where we’re living. Like literally [00:03:28] Lisen: exactly right. Well, so many men I speak to are loving this chance to be closer to their children and the way that they haven’t had to, which gives me great hope because it makes me think about all those men when they actually returned to the office, will they actually have shifted their narrative around being engaged with their children. So I [00:03:46] Missy: And understand what’s entailed in that. [00:03:49] Lisen: absolutely, absolutely. [00:03:51] Missy: not just going to the park, like there’s a lot involved. [00:03:54] Susanne: Yeah. Such an appreciation for it. And I really think there will be, I’ve talked before about how my husband, after I did my maternity leave, our childcare still had not opened up. So he did a three month paternity leave, which has scarred him to this day. It is impacted. [00:04:11] Lisen: I will say actually my husband was between roles. Um, I think our kids, I mean three kids, I think they were like maybe 10, seven and five. And we had a, you know, I wouldn’t call her a nanny, but she was a housekeeper helper. And then I was working in my husband’s working and he was pausing and he come home. He came from home from school when then he says, this is more than a three person job. I was like, yes. And honestly it shifted his whole perspective [00:04:38] Susanne: Yeah. [00:04:39] Lisen: his role as a father and his role as a partner in the housework and everything else fundamentally shifted it. [00:04:44] Susanne: Yeah. I mean, 15, 15 years later. And he’s still like, I mean, our kids are pretty independent, but he’s still like, do you need some time? Do you need some space? Why don’t you go the coffee shop to do your writing? I got this. Um, but also the relationship that, that gives them the opportunity to build with the kids is really special too. So, okay. Well, I went right into this book, but I really wanted to start with you. Um, you’ve talked a little bit about your story, but so you know where your career started, how it’s progressed over the years and some of the things that have impacted decisions along the way. [00:05:18] Lisen: you know, I was thinking about the, you sent me questions and I love it when that happens. Cause it gives me a chance to kind of remember and ponder and all of those wonderful things. So thank you for that [00:05:27] Susanne: Oh yeah. [00:05:28] Lisen: I would say that for me becoming the mother was the defining. Before that, you know, I’d gotten an MBA, I was a hard charging, you know, I was going to be in the corner office and I handle this kind of really deep ambition, but it was a vertical ambition. And once I got pregnant, literally I remember I was jogging. I was about five months pregnant. So kudos to me, ladies [00:05:51] Susanne: Yeah. Good for you. [00:05:52] Missy: I know. [00:05:53] Lisen: but I’ll never forget this moment. Yeah. Oh, wait a minute. If you’re not paying me fairly, you’re hurting my child. And all of a sudden I became this kind of, I wouldn’t call it a tiger mom, but, but cause it wasn’t about the baby. It was about you hurt me. You hurt my children. You hurt me. You hurt the world and that’s not okay. And I got really clear about what I wanted to do in the world. And my ambition became much less vertical and much more horizontal. I was much more opening my eyes to the impact on the world to legacy, to impact in my own life. It was a gift. I, I, I think motherhood made me a better human I’m so grateful. And we don’t talk about that enough. Right? So [00:06:37] Missy: and nothing changes your perspective, like a human who’s completely reliant on you at all times. [00:06:44] Lisen: Exactly. And it’s not just them, it’s their friends. And then the community they’re engaged in and the liberal that large it’s sort of this concentric circle of impact and legacy. And all of a sudden you realize it’s not just about me. That for me was a clarifying moment, a clarifying reality. And since then, everything has been kind of in relation to that in so many ways. [00:07:07] Susanne: kids will, they’ll bring you back. We say that, you know, when you do pause, one of the dangers is this loss of identity [00:07:16] Lisen: completely. I really felt that. [00:07:18] Susanne: Oh so much. And, and you know, this loss of you’re not getting praise, you’re usually just getting complained at or cried or yelled at, which can really tear you down to a, a whole new place. So, you know, one of the things that we’ve really tried to focus on getting our listeners is to either keep that identity. If it’s one that they feel is working for them or to explore and look at, you know, redefining who you are and really taking that time to think about who you are. Um, is that something you went through or that you also [00:07:51] Lisen: Oh, deeply can relate to that. So after my first child was born, a son. Um, and I was on kind of the fast track of my company. I actually got promoted when I was on maternity leave and that was a big deal. I was like, oh yeah. Right. And I got back to the office and they put me, , under two men who had stay at home wives and my son was primie. He spent, he was six weeks early and there was a lot of, kind of drama around his premie-ness and every day they would ask me don’t you want to be home with your baby? Doesn’t your baby. Need you? And you know, of course I’m already struggling with this and everything else. And. [00:08:24] Missy: All [00:08:24] Lisen: And I was just so struggling and I, and I really loved what I was doing, but that pressure and I was also finding myself, not getting invited to certain meetings and of getting sidelines. And I didn’t understand the term motherhood bias, but boy did I experience it. And I got recruited , into a role as a vice president of advertising agency. And I bought this is awesome because I get out of working with a woman and I just lost my get out of that. And I got pregnant with my second child and of course two weeks before I was supposed to come back to, to work , our caregiver quit. [00:08:58] Missy: No. [00:08:59] Lisen: my husband, you know, we couldn’t figure this out. I couldn’t get them into daycare. There was nothing I could do. And I said to my boss, I, you know, I need a little bit more time. And, you know, it’s kinda like you’re either in you’re out, you know, there was no, it was just, it was so binary at that point in life. And this was, you know, 20 years ago was 20 more, more than 20 years ago. I was like, if you’re either in, you’re out and you’re not working with me. And by the way, I’m the one who drove all this business. I brought in all these clients while I’ve been on maternity leave, I’ve still been navigating all this. I’ve got a team and you’re just like giving me this binary option. I am out, I’m taking my human capital elsewhere. And I sort of took about three or four months to sort of figure out what I wanted to do. And, , I kind of put a little shingle out and I ended up making more money that year, working fewer hours on my own as a consultant, the marketing and strategy consultant and realized there’s another way to do this, but it didn’t even dawn on me. I could do so for me, the gift of saying you’re making me choose and I choose me and I choose my family and it created abundance in a way that I never anticipate. [00:10:09] Susanne: yeah. [00:10:09] Lisen: So I share that, but I will say the crisis, the crisis of identity that I went through because I thought I was a failure. I thought everyone else could figure this out. I didn’t realize that all of us were struggling because, you know, we didn’t have wonderful podcasts like you have, we didn’t have the stories. We weren’t collectively sharing our experience. And so we were still isolated. And that to me was heartbreaking in the book I write about, the not so new mothers club, which is what we call it now. But at the time we were all new moms, we actually met at Stanford hospital. We all gave birth within six weeks of each other. And we joined this, um, kind of mommy and me class that Stanford offered. And this group I’ve stayed with all of these years together. And these women have done such compelling things and alm…
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