Zeynep Ton

Author, Speaker & Adjunct Associate Professor at MIT Sloan School of Management

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Archives for January 2011

Questions About Parenting

January 18, 2011 by Zeynep Ton 3 Comments

I have two children and I teach at Harvard Business School.  If you ask me which of these two things is more challenging—raising children or teaching at HBS, my answer would be pretty clear.  To me, raising children is far more challenging. And teaching definitely did not come easily to me. Ask my first group of students from 2002 and I’m sure they’ll remember all the struggles I had as a first-time teacher.  But what made teaching less stressful was the expectation that it was okay to make a lot of mistakes as a rookie.

In parenting, it is hard to move beyond being a rookie (unless you have many, many children).  I won’t get to experiment with multiple five-year olds before figuring out how to best manage a five-year old.  Plus, each child is so different. This is why I love learning from others’ parenting experiences.  I read with great interest Yale professor Amy Chuo’s parenting experience as outlined in the WSJ article “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior.” Apparently, this article generated the largest number of online responses from WSJ readers, ever.  Chuo writes:

“A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it’s like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I’ve done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

  • attend a sleepover,
  • have a playdate,
  • be in a school play,
  • complain about not being in a school play,
  • watch TV or play computer games,
  • choose their own extracurricular activities,
  • get any grade less than an A,
  • not be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama,
  • play any instrument other than the piano or violin,
  • not play the piano or violin.”

She goes on to describe the cultural differences between Chinese and Western parenting and offers lots of examples from her family.  As I read Chuo’s article and the follow-up articles that appeared in WSJ and NY Times, I kept thinking about my parenting style and realized how many questions with which I struggle all the time. Here are just a couple:

  1. What is my objective as a parent?
    I feel that optimizing my children’s happiness should not be my objective.  My objective should be to help shape their character.  There are certain traits that I would love my children to have such as kindness, generosity, responsibility, hard work, curiosity, and honesty. But shaping their character, or at least trying to shape their character at this age is not always fun; I often find myself trading off my children’s short-term happiness with discomfort and stress.  As a working mom, who doesn’t get to spend all her time with her children, I sometimes wonder what I am giving up as a result of my choice.
  2. How high should my expectations be?
    I would never want to take away the gift of high expectations from my children.  I would love for them to excel at what they do. But how do I make sure that I don’t put too much pressure on them? And when setting expectations, how much weight should I give to the outcome, such as getting all A’s, or on the process, such as working X number of hours a night.
  3. How much should I shape my children’s interests?
    On the one hand, I would love for my children to pursue what is exciting to them.  I know that if they find something about which they are passionate, they will put more work into it and will be more likely to be good at it.  This will improve their confidence and probably make them happy. But on the other hand, I feel that my husband and I might have a better idea of what our children can be really good at.

    Perhaps this is because of my own experience.  I used to love basketball as a kid.  I watched my father play and then coach basketball and I absolutely loved the game.  So at the age of 10, when my father insisted that I play volleyball instead of basketball, I was heartbroken.  According to my father, volleyball would be better for me.  While I didn’t like his choice at first, I started loving volleyball after I became good at it.  Should I follow my father’s parenting style?

  4. How busy should my children be?
    A lot of kids nowadays start participating in extracurricular activities and taking private lessons at young ages, even as toddlers.  And they are always busy going from this activity to that activity. My boys are 3.5 and 5 years old.  The younger one goes to daycare all day long and the older one goes to pre-K. When they are not at school, my boys just hang out.  During the weekdays, the four of us spend a lot of time at the dinner table (frequently with other guests) and reading books. During the weekends we run errands together, talk, play silly games, let them watch some TV and yes my husband and I go crazy watching them fight or call each other names.  I am sure things will change as they get older and activities will have to be added to our calendar.  But am I doing the right thing right now?  Am I taking away opportunities from my kids?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: parenting

What is the purpose of a firm?

January 14, 2011 by Zeynep Ton Leave a Comment

In today’s FT, Sebastian Mallaby wrote about conflicts of interest in the context of investment banking, especially the conflict between investment banks’ own trading and the trading of their clients.  He argues that one way to solve conflicts of interest in this industry is to break banks into functional units.  Many of Mallaby’s insights are probably not surprising to people who pay attention to investment banking.  But as someone whose primary interest is not investment banking, this article made me think about conflicts of interest and potential trade-offs in other industries and more importantly about what the primary objective of a firm should be. 

For too long companies and business academics have focused on narrowly defined objectives. In my field of operations, for example, we often use profit maximization as the objective for operational decisions.  My colleagues in other fields use shareholder value maximization as the sole objective.  But should these always come before the interests of customers, employees, the society, and the environment?  Should companies invest in their customers, employees, environment, or society only when doing so increases profits or shareholder value?  Where has that thinking taken us during the last few decades?

Some of the companies I admire, like Costco and Mercadona of Spain, do not have profit or shareholder maximization as their objective.  They put customers, employees, suppliers, and society ahead of profits and believe that by doing so they will create more value in the long term. A retailer I am working with right now states that its purpose is “to provide employees opportunities for growth and success.”  This purpose is way more important than maximizing profits (ironically, this retailer makes A LOT more money than their competitors).

I have always believed that well-run companies that emphasize the interests of customers, employees, suppliers, and society are exactly the types of companies the world needs more of.  But I am just a boring operations gal who is trained to solve small operational problems, not to provide answers to big questions like “what should be the purpose of a firm?”  But in the last issue of Harvard Business Review, Michael Porter and Mark Kramer have a wonderful piece on what they believe the purpose of a firm should be.  They argue that the purpose of a firm should be to “create economic value in a way that also creates value for society by addressing its needs and challenges.”  They urge companies to reconnect company success with social progress and start creating shared value.  What a breath of fresh air!  

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: beyond profit maximization

Kids and iPhones

January 4, 2011 by Zeynep Ton 1 Comment

Here we are on a flight from Miami to Boston and the only thing that keeps my children quiet is the iPhone. My five-year old has my husband’s phone and is playing ASTRONUT, an obscure game his dad downloaded for him.  My three and a half-year old has my phone and is watching a movie.  And I am wondering, where did we go wrong?  Why do our children love this device so much?

My husband and I are pretty strict when it comes to TV or computer game usage. We have only one TV at home and have a rule about not turning it on on weekdays.  We don’t give our children our iPhones at home and I’m pretty sure we won’t get them a computer until it’s necessary for school.  We play with our children all the time and try to stimulate them as much as possible.  Yet, that little phone is by far their favorite source of entertainment.  They would rather sit with an iPhone for two hours than play a game with us.

My little one, in particular, is obsessed with the iPhone.  He literally stops random people and asks them if they have an iPhone.  Yesterday, we were having lunch at a café.  A woman at a near table was talking on the phone.  After she finished her conversation he asked her “Is that your iPhone?”  When she said yes, he asked if he could play with it.  He gave such a cute smile that she couldn’t say “No, you can’t.”  Two minutes later, he was sitting on her lap and they were going through her photos and her movies until he discovered that she had Angry Birds.  When my older one heard Angry Birds, he joined them and all three started playing together.  They were talking and laughing and the older one was having a great time explaining what the birds were doing to his new friend.  She said she was having a great time and that she was fascinated that a 33-year old and a three-year old liked playing the same game.

I confess that my husband and I enjoyed the fifteen minutes of quiet time to finish our food.  I also like the fact that my children can interact with others so easily.  But I wish that the interaction was not around an iPhone. 

When we were kids our grandparents lived away from us and our dad coached basketball.  So we would regularly take long bus trips.  During those trips, my brother and I would talk to strangers for hours.  We would tell them about our family, what we liked, and why we were taking that particular trip.  We would talk about sports (especially basketball) and other random things. My brother was great at telling jokes, so he would often tell them his favorite jokes.  I liked singing so I would sing even though I did not have a great voice (at the time I thought I did).  People in the bus would clap and I would be happy.  

Our parents never worried about what they would do to entertain us during those long trips. As long as there were other people around, they knew we would be fine.  But now, before a long trip, I pack books, coloring books, games and of course still end up with the iPhone!

Is this the symptom of a bigger problem?  Are today’s kids (and adults) less able to connect with others? 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: children and technology, parenting

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