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About 10 years ago, I had a internship at Newell Rubbermaid. As part of the experience, the entire group of interns across all the brands got to have lunch with
by beckler 4y ago
About 10 years ago, I had a internship at Newell Rubbermaid. As part of the experience, the entire group of interns across all the brands got to have lunch with the CEO and basically ask him anything we wanted.
At some point, someone asked about his biggest regret. We all expected some business blunder, but he said that he was offered an executive position by Kraft to lead their Asian segment, and that his wife really did not want him to take the job because it would require them to move to that region. He regretted not listening to her, because it ended up being the catalyst that dissolved their marriage.
We were all stunned silent, and you could tell that he was genuinely remorseful and so vulnerable in that moment. There are only a handful of moments in that internship that I vividly remember, but that was by far the most impactful one.
- watwut 4y agoI mean, moving whole family without consent of partner indeed tend to break relationships. Not being able to take major promotion do cause resentment too, but damm, if my partner moved me to region I don't want to, I would be pissed.
- Johnny555 4y agoBut still, I can't imagine not being willing to move to any first world country that my senior executive spouse got transferred to -- as a senior corporate executive they've have a ton of resources at their disposal to make the move as easy as possible. I have a good job that I like, but if my wife told me her company was moving her to Japan for a while, I'd jump at the opportunity.
- bcrosby95 4y agoIt's impossible to answer in a vacuum. We live where we live because we're 10 minutes from my wife's two sisters, my wife's parents, and 3 cousins our kids love to play with. Generally, I think the only way we're moving is if they move first. Because my wife's whole family is here. And she spends multiple days per week with them. As do our kids. The idea that she should be supportive of me tearing her away from this support structure is questionable. Obviously if something came up we would discuss things. But I don't expect her to like it. Even if it involved a pay raise. Even if it involved moving somewhere she would love to live. Because these people aren't there.
- op00to 4y agoThe idea that a well compensated, educated adult can't survive without an extensive support structure for a few years is questionable. Hell, I haven't had a support system at all - my family was actively abusive and antagonsitic to me, and yet I was able to successfully build a career, family, and so on. It's just as likely codependancy as it would be support.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- AussieWog93 4y ago>The idea that a well compensated, educated adult can't survive without an extensive support structure for a few years is questionable. Financially, sure. In terms of mental health and feelings of isolation (especially for the wife, who won't have a high-flying career to distract her/build new contacts in), it's absolutely a problem.
- dwaltrip 4y agoIt's not that they "can't survive". Their life just might be substantially worse.
- watwut 4y ago> I can't imagine not being willing to move to any first world country that my senior executive spouse got transferred to -- as a senior corporate executive they've have a ton of resources at their disposal to make the move as easy as possible. I can see it easily. After move, all your friends and all your life are far away. You have to change habits, language, adjust to different culture. You are very likely to be super lonely most of time. And you loose actual support network where you live. You can get some paid one, but that is something different. If she worked or had other ambitions (entirely possible she did not), those are likely gone after the move. Many people like and have build their lives. And many if not most don't want to uproot and change everything.
- AussieWog93 4y ago>I have a good job that I like, but if my wife told me her company was moving her to Japan for a while, I'd jump at the opportunity. Do you have kids? What's your relationship with your family like? How good/irreplaceable are your friendships? For a lot of people, dropping all of these things are inconceivable. I know my aunty was reduced to tears when her son (who is expecting a baby) moved from Woodend to Canberra. To her, it meant seeing her grandkids a couple of times a year rather than spending time with them every week.
- nraf 4y agoAs another Aussie wog, I can relate with this.
- matheusmoreira 4y agoReminded me of The Office. "It's not real until your wife is on board."
- Hayvok 4y agoThey don’t teach you stuff like this in business school, but they should.
- technotony 4y agoDepends on the business school. At INSEAD we had a whole elective class devoted to personal psycological decisions like this to get people thinking about what kind of trade offs they wanted to make.
- vorpalhex 4y agoI wish that had been an option for me as a CS student.. it was hard for me to learn it in the real world where you get lots of "work hard, play hard" speeches.
- gompertz 4y agoI keep this in mind too when cancelling plans or trips in order to do 'important' corporate work. The business will never remember you did a day from now; but your partner sure as hell will.
- a_brawling_boo 4y agoThanks for saying this. I spent years worried if I took an hour or two or a day during 'busy' times, and it turned me into a liar, because I said I do things or be somewhere and often times I did not because of work. It is always a 'busy' time. It took years, several jobs, and therapy before my eyes were open. Nobody cares, you are a human and have a life, if your employer does not understand that you need a new one.
- 4y ago
- JoblessWonder 4y agoValuable lesson for all of those interns that there is more to life than business.
- jl2718 4y agoOr that life affects your business much more than the other way around. Mess it up and you’ll start failing at everything for a million tiny reasons.
- munk-a 4y agoIt's also important to remember that business is far less important than other aspects of life.
- InCityDreams 4y agoValuable lesson for all of those interns that....there may be a million other things going on between two people. Unless you get both sides of the story, you only have one side of the story. Applies to CEO's as much to janitors.
- outside1234 4y agoAlmost all of us that get to 50 have a life lesson like that that boils down to "Optimize for the people involved, not the machines and systems."
- MrFantastic 4y agoIt's ironic to me when women choose successful ambitious men to marry and then complain these same keep striving to climb up the corporate ranks.
- jeffrallen 4y ago
- dijonman2 4y agoThis is a negative comment and does not contribute to the conversation.
- cheschire 4y agoWhy not also examine the decision of the ambitious spouse to marry someone who may at some point add friction to the progress? Marriage requires compromise on both ends. I don't see the irony.
- xyzzyz 4y agoMarrying a successful and ambitious 20-something in no way commits one to be fine with the same ambitious person uprooting family’s life a decade or two later and moving to the other side of the world. Family is about shared sacrifice for its well being, and sometimes (in fact, usually) one needs to sacrifice their career for the family. That’s life.
- gamesbrainiac 4y agoI can share the converse example. My uncle had a once in a lifetime opportunity to get training in the US and get a promotion at his company. His wife did not want him to leave for 6 months. He did not get the training or the promotion. He fell way behind his colleagues that did. Fast forward 20 years, and he was unable to give his children a good education, whereas his colleagues who got promoted, did. He gets really sad and jaded when he talks about that decision. I put this real-life story in contrast, just to prove that it's not just about "Always listen to your wife, she is always reasonable". For the trivial stuff like putting away your shoes or your socks, fine. But some decisions make a career and determine the future success of your offspring.
- jimkleiber 4y agoI appreciate you sharing this. Reminds me of a class I took at the University of Illinois, it was a seminar in entrepreneurship for engineers, if I remember correctly. I believe a CEO of a $100M+ company came in and gave a speech. His first slide had a PowerPoint, on which he put something like, "3...2...1." Then he said, "3 wives, 2 divorces, and 1 heart attack. That's the real cost of entrepreneurship." I've remembered it ever since.
- pmoriarty 4y agoa CEO of a $100M+ company came in and gave a speech. His first slide had a PowerPoint, on which he put something like, "3...2...1." Then he said, "3 wives, 2 divorces, and 1 heart attack. That's the real cost of entrepreneurship." Plenty of people who were never entrepreneurs suffer the same or worse.. and do so while earning a tiny pittance of what CEOs make. Lack of money causes all sorts of additional stress on families as well... including health issues from not being able to afford health care, or only getting poor quality healthcare, or not being able to afford preventative care, eating poorly, living in dangerous/polluted areas, not being able to afford to send your kids to college, not being able to afford vacations, etc.. Not to mention the stress of being treated like shit or replaceable cogs by the people above you in work environments that are unhealthy or unsafe. CEOs have it easy.
- dosethree 4y agoIsn’t being a good parent not making your family choose between being poor and having a workaholic parent?
- joyeuse6701 4y agoYeah but the (insert suffering in group) had it tougher than (out group). We can always compare and find someone or something that has it worse. What’s the point in bringing it up, that we can’t feel sorry for someone who has suffered because someone else has perhaps suffered more in our estimation? No one has nor should have a monopoly on sympathy.
- solveit 4y ago
- imchillyb 4y ago--silent room-- Dumb, snarky, about to be fired, me: "So. What you're saying is... She's single?"
- blunte 4y agoMaybe this is my pessimistic view, but most relationships don't last. Some of the ones that do last only because of complacency or discipline (but they arguably should dissolve). Conscious memory seems to favor the positives. Unconscious memory favors the negatives. If you quickly raise your hand near a person who has been physically abused a child, even as an adult they may instinctively recoil. But if you ask someone about their lost relationship, they will often speak of the great things of their partner, ignoring the (perhaps incomprehensible or inarticulable) negatives. Life is hopefully quite long. Relationships involve 2 (+?) people. During one's life, one hopefully changes a lot. Picture vectors in two dimensions. People who pair up are vectors that cross at one moment (brief) or run somewhat parallel for a period. Try as we might, adjusting our trajectories, it's practically impossible to maintain a parallel path without giving up some or all of our own development. So realistically in our modern times, relationships are based on a period of relatively parallel trajectories. And when the distance between those vectors becomes to great, it's time to stop trying to maintain a connection. That involves some feelings of sadness, but it also offers new possibilities.
- hackerfromthefu 4y agoThis is quite realistic, yet the marriage laws haven't caught up.