If You’ve Raised Kids, You Can Manage Anything: Ann Crittenden
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Crittenden (The Price of Motherhood) offers an engaging look at working mothers and how their parenting skills make them more adept managers. Based on interviews with 100 parents (mostly women) who were the primary caregivers in their family, the book offers an intriguing look at the changing face of American executives. Quoting her subjects directly, Crittenden illustrates how being a parent helps someone be a more creative, if sometimes unconventional, manager. One woman talked about a producer who shouted obscenities at her. The woman did nothing, viewing the behavior as the equivalent of a toddler’s temper tantrum, and the producer apologized the next day. Sometimes, parents have added knowledge that has a direct impact on their job. Working parents in any field will readily identify with many of the scenarios discussed in this book by some visible CEOs including CNBC’s Pamela Thomas-Graham, Oxygen’s Geraldine Laybourne and actress Lindsay Crouse. Crittenden concludes that mothers are everywhere and they’re “slowly changing the work world—its language, its atmosphere, and, more glacially, its norms.” The book’s theme is positive and its message inspiring. No doubt, the book will generate buzz because of the subject matter even if there’s little startling to be found here.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
–This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
Leadership begins at home, Crittenden intones in this book that expresses the feeling of parents (mostly mothers) that if they can deal with the demands of raising a family, they can deal with virtually anything the business world can throw at them. Author of The Price of Motherhood (2001), Crittenden deconstructs the talents and skills needed for successful parenting and compares them to the talents and skills needed to succeed in a variety of professions. Based on interviews with 100 primary caregivers who have also been active in careers in business, law, politics, academia, and nonprofits, the book highlights skills that are directly translatable from parenting to professionalism. It focuses on four categories: multitasking, interpersonal skills, growing human capabilities, and habits of integrity. A conscientious parent has all the skills that corporations claim to value in their employees, including time management and a keen sense of fair play. Profiling many of her interview subjects, Crittenden offers a perspective on parenting that defies corporate biases against workers who are focused on child rearing. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
–This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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