5 Lessons to Make a Partnership Work

For me, it’s pretty simple: achieving gender equality means understanding the importance of partnership. You can’t achieve one without the other. I have been blessed with a wonderful partner, my wife Eileen, and with a wonderful partnership over the past 30 years. We were lucky to find each other in college; and from the start, we saw ourselves as equal partners and set about building our lives together based on the guiding principle of partnership. Along the way we have tried to ‘lean-in’ to our family and careers. Together, we’ve raised four children, supported each other in building demanding dual careers, and navigated the everyday ups and downs of life.

It wasn’t always easy. But we have learned a few things along the way. These lessons have helped me be a better leader at work and a better husband and father at home.

So, in the spirit of men and women leaning in together to achieve gender equality, I’d like to share again a few of the lessons Eileen and I have learned together. Here are 5 things that have helped make our partnership work.

Keep a ‘Positive Sum’ Mindset
We never framed things in ‘zero-sum’ terms, such as career versus family or her career versus mine. We knew we wanted to integrate marriage, kids and both of our careers from the beginning. There have been lots of tradeoffs, sacrifices and compromises along the way – these are unavoidable. But operating from a ‘positive sum’ mindset has served us well and opened up the possibility for creative solutions.

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask … Creative Solutions Often Emerge
Several times we faced situations with our respective careers that on the surface seemed to conflict with our family life. In almost every case a creative solution emerged – that came about by asking for ideas or help from others. Here are a few examples:

• When our firstborn son was 9-months-old, we were both in school at Stanford – Eileen was starting her first year of law school and I was in my second year of business school. As new parents, we were concerned about how best to take care of our son, so I approached the student dean at Stanford to ask to take a year off. The Dean immediately asked “Why don’t you try a reduced load during the fall and you can go part time if you need to?” We never would have imagined that the business school would allow a part-time MBA student – but by asking we found a path that allowed us to find the right balance.

• A few years later, when I was a young consultant at Bain, Eileen began a legal clerkship that required her to be at work early morning every day. That meant I had to take the kids to school. I was travelling constantly. We thought the only solution was for me to quit my job. So I approached my boss at the time, Tom Tierney. Tom’s response was memorable: “John, you don’t need to quit, we will find a way to make it work.” Tom proceeded to find a local client that I could support while taking care of the kids. It ended up working out in a manner that we never could have imagined.

• More recently, we faced another potential conflict when Eileen was offered an appointment by President Obama to become US Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Given that I was CEO at eBay, and that our two youngest children were still in high school, this prospect at first seemed impossible. But our children’s first reaction to the news was, “That’s great Mom. You should do it! We’ll make it work.” And we did. I tried to minimize travel when Eileen was gone, and when she was in Geneva we talked every day. It wasn’t always easy, but it worked more smoothly than we imagined.

Build Your Community
We have been blessed to find friends who also had complex family and career goals and were similarly working to balance the multiple pieces of their lives. Being able to share our struggles and listen to theirs helped broaden our perspective, led to creative solutions, and gave us the courage to believe that what we were trying to balance was possible. We found that sharing our struggles, uncertainties and challenges with those in similar circumstances resulted in some deeply supportive friendships. In moments of need they would provide encouragement and practical support to us, and we in turn felt privileged to do the same for them. Having a sense of shared community made us feel less lonely and uncertain about our choices.

Real Life Will Help Your Career
There is no doubt that our experience as parents of four children has made us better at our jobs. On some level, there is no better way to build capacity for teamwork and creative problem solving than by working with a trusted partner to face the complexities and demands of a family. Parenting tends to cultivate new capacities for multitasking and negotiating between different perspectives. It also tends to make you more flexible and innovative at finding solutions. There is no doubt that our family life has made me a better leader and Eileen a better diplomat. Facing the needs of our family and making trade off decisions together has brought out capacities for team work and problem solving that have served us both exceptionally well in our professional lives.

It is Really Hard … But Worth It
Our shared journey has taken a lot of hard work. We had plenty of challenges along the way and we certainly have never been sure that we were “doing it right”. But we started with a vision of life full of family, friends and meaningful work, and have tried to stay with it. This starting place, and the very process of committing to ‘lean in’ to family, marriage and career has given our lives a sense of purpose and meaning. We know there will be challenging moments ahead and times when the right answer does not immediately emerge. But we have developed confidence that by leaning in together, by relying on each other, seeking the support of our community and asking for what we need of others, the answers will emerge.

Let’s #LeanInTogether for equality. Visit leanintogether.org to learn more.

More posts on this topic:

• Why I Failed to Advocate for Women: Confessions of an Ignorant Man by Adam Grant
• White men: Four things you can do to advance diversity by Robert E. Moritz
• We Are All Responsible for Countering Damaging Gender Biases by Mohamed El-Erian
• Valentine (Why There Would be No Quiet Revolution Without My Husband) by Susan Cain
• What I Wish I Could Tell My Old-Equity-Analyst-Self by Sallie Krawcheck
• Men For Equality In The Workplace by Richard Branson
• Leaning In Together: Our Story by Hunter Walk
• The Important Topic of Women in Business: What Men Can Do by Josh Bersin
• Why I Can't Lean In Without My Husband by Claire Diaz-Ortiz
• Business Lessons My Wife Has Taught Me by A.J. Jacobs
• I Love My Lean In Man, and You Should, Too by Rachel Schall Thomas
• A surprising solution to sexism? PINEAPPLES! by Nancy Lublin
• A Few Words of Gratitude for HuffPost's Co-founder, Kenny Lerer by Arianna Huffington
• #LeanInTogether: 6 Tips for Men at Work by Lean In
• #LeanInTogether: 8 Tips for Managers by Lean In
• #LeanInTogether: 6 Tips for Men at Home by Lean In