EP52: Who Teaches You To Be a Dad at Work?

Interview With Rob Taylor / Corporate Dad Trainer

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Companies are starting to give men paternity leave at work. It's a start. But there's still a macho culture that can make taking that leave difficult. That same culture can also quiet men who want be open about being caring, engaged fathers - while also being workers. As Rob Taylor says, "They don't teach Dad in school." He's doing work to change that. Listen to our discussion on what companies can do better to lead and support the Dad conversation. 

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Transcript

00;00;05;11 - 00;00;25;28
Paul Sullivan
Hi, I'm Paul Sullivan. Your host on the Company of Dads podcast. Today our guest is Rob Taylor, founder of Dad in Business, a UK based consultancy that supports fathers at work. Its focus is on the unique pressures that fathers face in the workplace, namely to keep working and to stomach the stress or conflict they might feel at home.

00;00;26;00 - 00;00;36;13
Paul Sullivan
Rob's background is in digital marketing and he is a father of three. Eight, six and four. Rob. So good to have you on the Company Dads podcast.

00;00;36;15 - 00;00;44;27
Rob Taylor
Good afternoon. Paul, thank you for, thank you for having me. So, this is great to meet you. Really looking forward to our chat. And, thanks for having me along.

00;00;44;29 - 00;00;55;19
Paul Sullivan
So your background is in marketing? You started dad in business in 2019, which seems like prehistoric times right now. What was the impetus for it?

00;00;55;22 - 00;01;16;15
Rob Taylor
So, yeah, I mean, to 2019 is a long, long time ago, doesn't it? It's, a lot's changed, but I think if anything, it makes projects like the dads in business and the work that you do more, more pertinent because I think the the pressures continue to be there. It's not manifest in different new ways. So it's, it's a really interesting time to be a busy working dad.

00;01;16;17 - 00;01;37;08
Rob Taylor
I think my, I guess spark for creating the space and the in the network was to ultimately support myself. I don't know about you and your own journey into becoming a dad, but in hindsight, I found it very difficult, I think, because I was, I had my first kid when I was employed and trying to do my time now.

00;01;37;12 - 00;01;56;22
Rob Taylor
So I was in my last job when I know my second to last job when I first became a dad, and it was the old thing of over in the UK, you get two weeks off maternity leave, back to work. It's as if you're on a holiday, like go back to work, go and do your thing. But I realized the life changing impact that this had.

00;01;56;24 - 00;02;15;14
Rob Taylor
I was 29 at the time, first in my social circle to have kids and after often say, know they don't teach that in school. My dad passed away when I was 20, so I didn't have any sort of point of reference to to what becoming a doctor meant. I just know how to do everything brilliantly and be perfect to everything and be all things grow.

00;02;15;15 - 00;02;20;06
Paul Sullivan
Do you think? Why do you think you have to do everything brilliantly? What was the feeling? Because.

00;02;20;08 - 00;02;36;22
Rob Taylor
Because I think that's. I think that's ingrained in what being a man is and therefore becoming a dad. You have to be very good at things. We revert to the stereotype. Things you know, over here, if you're not very good at DIY, is a bloke you get locked up. I'm not very good at daylight, by the way.

00;02;36;24 - 00;02;57;06
Rob Taylor
Because there's things that, you know, there's a there's still stigmas existing, right? Yeah. So as I became a dad, I thought, well, what do I do with this, this human. I don't know what I'm doing. But I can't speak up. I can't say I don't know what I'm doing because it almost show weakness and play back to stigmas and stereotypes of, oh, you're useless, that sort of thing.

00;02;57;08 - 00;02;58;09
Rob Taylor


00;02;58;11 - 00;03;26;01
Paul Sullivan
So it's when, as you become a dad, once your father for a while, you realize everybody's bluffing and not joking. Everyone is really bluffing. Everybody is figuring it out on their own. I mean, I love your tagline that they don't teach that in school. I don't know where they they teach it, but I think that the key thing is it's sort of like, you know, when you're in university or if you go to university, you're sitting in a giant lecture hall and it's your choice of, you know, kind of coasting along, and getting what we would call over here in the states of gentleman, see, or actually paying attention.

00;03;26;06 - 00;03;43;11
Paul Sullivan
And I think so much of, of fatherhood and being a good partner is, is paying attention. And, you know, my motto at least is, you know, don't make the same mistake twice. You know, I'm certainly going to make a ton of mistakes. But the problem becomes when you're repeating the same mistake over and over again and expecting a different, a different outcome.

00;03;43;11 - 00;04;09;21
Paul Sullivan
So. So you're a new dad to 29. Your friends are still out there, having a blast. They don't understand why you're absolutely no fun and exhausted all the time. But you know, what was it about the workplace? Not just the social space or the or the home space, but that the workplace that made you think, okay, I'm not quite they're not getting me or I'm not getting, you know, them and we need to we need to change.

00;04;09;21 - 00;04;29;13
Rob Taylor
So yeah, it's an interesting one is I think a big one in hindsight was the two weeks maternity leave is, is, is if you've got the holiday. But it wasn't until August. Fast forward a couple of years when my second one was due. A lot of my wife was pregnant with our second, so my first born was then two, was a two year old, and a pregnant wife.

00;04;29;15 - 00;04;44;25
Rob Taylor
Yeah. I got made redundant from my final employment. And that was a bit of a kicker. So I thought, right, I'm going to, set up shop on my own. I'm going to do this on my own because I'm better than this, and there's all these sort of macho, manly things played out. And I thought, right, this is me.

00;04;44;25 - 00;04;58;26
Rob Taylor
I'm going to do it on my own. I just got a clue what that meant. At the time, I knew I was. I was sick of being kicked around. It was my second redundancy, so I was a bit tired of that. I thought, I need to take responsibility for my family and look after that. So I'm going to charge off and do it.

00;04;58;29 - 00;05;18;11
Rob Taylor
And again, I guess you defer back to the stereotypes. Yeah. What's the first question you ask when you meet someone in a networking session or a trade counter, or wherever you bump into your professional community, everyone always says, oh, you busy? Just go, oh, you're happy? Are you successful, your content or your balance? Are you busy?

00;05;18;13 - 00;05;33;12
Paul Sullivan
So so that I in the States, that question is what do you do? And it's the same three questions like where are you from? Where do you go to school and and what do you do? And you know, the first to sort of fade away as you get older, but you could be in your 30, 40, 50, what do you do?

00;05;33;12 - 00;05;57;15
Paul Sullivan
And that's a difficult question. You know, sometimes for men to answer, the company of dads, we we call the men who are the go to parents lead dads, you know, whether they work full time, part time or devote all their time to their kids. And one of the things we push for is say you're a lead, that now I'm just as guilty as this for, you know, 25 years as a journalist, you know, the majority of that time of the New York Times, I led with Paul Sullivan, New York Times columnist, I never like with Paul Sullivan, you know, the dad.

00;05;57;15 - 00;06;01;07
Paul Sullivan
So how did you, you know, wrestle with that question of, you know.

00;06;01;09 - 00;06;02;17
Rob Taylor
Are you? Well, this is this is what.

00;06;02;17 - 00;06;03;14
Paul Sullivan
I need it. Yeah.

00;06;03;16 - 00;06;08;03
Rob Taylor
Okay. So. Oh, you. Oh you're busy. Yes. I'm very busy. Right. Yeah. How about it. Of course. And that became.

00;06;08;07 - 00;06;14;28
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. What are you busy doing? Like I'm got two kids my wife is recovering from from giving birth. And it's a, it's a, you know, to.

00;06;15;00 - 00;06;34;01
Rob Taylor
Mention that it's like how busy I'm really busy at work. But now I mention this is the time that you're spending at work. Productive, profitable, a good investment of time. Yeah. So I took that role as me. I self-identified as the breadwinner, the one who's going to go and provide. It's my decision to go to work myself. I'm going to not stop until I do that.

00;06;34;04 - 00;06;44;14
Rob Taylor
Yeah, but I was going to like networking sessions or meetings or eight, nine at night that offered no benefit or return on investment going back. But I was busy. I'm sure that you.

00;06;44;14 - 00;06;46;13
Paul Sullivan
While your wife is home with with yeah.

00;06;46;19 - 00;07;02;01
Rob Taylor
Yeah, with with the young one and pregnant so I was I was charging ahead. So this is what I should be doing. This is what busy looks like. This is what a provider looks like. And I thought, well, hang on, I can't remember where or when I was, but I just remember thinking, If I'm saying yes to this over here.

00;07;02;03 - 00;07;30;11
Rob Taylor
Yeah, I haven't realized it yet, but I'm actually saying no to the things that I set out to look after in the first year. Yeah, no, I'm not going to be home for dinner time. No, I'm not going to be over bedtime. No, I'm looking around about bath time because I'm busy. And I just think we see a lot of dads who fall into this role because like you saying, what do you do that intrinsically suggests back to a professional, what do you do to make money?

00;07;30;14 - 00;07;40;02
Rob Taylor
Yeah. Well, what what do you do in terms of your families? What do you do now? I you said you defer back to, was it Financial Times columnist. Yeah.

00;07;40;05 - 00;07;40;24
Paul Sullivan
New York Times. Yeah.

00;07;41;00 - 00;08;03;11
Rob Taylor
You know, time column. Sorry. Yeah, that's what I do. And no one ever says, like, yeah, I'm a late dad. I'm a stay at home dad. I'm a primary caregiver. I'm not, I mean, I wasn't, and I'm still not, but I do find the balance a lot better now. So, yeah, I found that sort of question played around in my mind, but then I found there was no where to go to raise that.

00;08;03;14 - 00;08;22;25
Rob Taylor
You know, if I'm saying yes to everything at work to get busy at work. So I'm saying no to my family. That pulls and makes me feel guilty. And yeah, has me juggling many plates. Where can I go to sort that out and raise it? Not from like it's a huge the wheels have come off mental health problem, but just to have a chat, just to have a space of similar people.

00;08;22;27 - 00;08;31;29
Paul Sullivan
To find another father in a similar situation is you either in the same or I think you better like a couple years down the road, who has a little bit of experience to sort of share with you.

00;08;32;03 - 00;08;49;22
Rob Taylor
Yeah, exactly. Because if I go to a work event, people say, how's work? Really busy if I go home. Based on my position here as a self-employed, trying to figure out how to pay next month's bills, I didn't want to worry the wife. I'd go home and she'd say, how's work? Really good.

00;08;49;24 - 00;08;51;12
Paul Sullivan
Busy, physically.

00;08;51;17 - 00;09;13;12
Rob Taylor
Like, even if internally, I'd had a really bad week. The kid at home was crying, I was knackered, work had to be good. Yeah, home had to be good. Yeah. You go to the pub with your friends. You talk about football, sports, a lot of stuff. They don't want to hear that. You've been up four times at night or you're not slept or at work.

00;09;13;12 - 00;09;36;15
Rob Taylor
You lost that one deal at work. That's going to make you struggle next month, so there's nowhere to go. So I think that we internalizing. So I don't know what your experiences are of this in the company of dads work that you do. But we seem to internalize that. And we keep sweeping things under the carpet and we don't really understand our own definition of what good looks like.

00;09;36;17 - 00;09;55;22
Rob Taylor
What's a good enough dad? Yeah. In the roles that I play. And how do we define that when they don't teach it in school, we barely speak to our partners at home about it. We just defer back to stigmas and stereotypes which play into us feeling more guilt. Yeah. So it's a bit of a vicious circle. It just does not play out in what you've seen as well.

00;09;55;28 - 00;09;56;12
Rob Taylor
Well.

00;09;56;14 - 00;10;15;22
Paul Sullivan
I found the bit. The biggest thing with the company dads is when we get together is the dads, either you know, small groups or online, whatever our background is that we come together as lead. I've done the work in the US for about 20, 25 million men who would qualify as the dad out of 125 million men in America.

00;10;15;22 - 00;10;40;25
Paul Sullivan
And suddenly and there are 75 million dads. It's a, you know, a little less than a third of the dads. And there's this sense of, of relief. And I tell this story where, this guy did a podcast with named grappling. He's a comedy writer. He's very successful, and easily dad. And we play golf, on a Tuesday, over the summer, which is a perfect day because, you know, we're not playing on a weekend because we're we're trying to be good fathers and and partners.

00;10;40;25 - 00;10;59;27
Paul Sullivan
We're not taking off for five hours on a Saturday. And it was probably the first time where I was playing with somebody, and I didn't have to worry that something might come up, family wise, because if something came up for him, family was totally understand. Something came up for me, family wise, he would totally understand. And we talked about it when we finally got out there.

00;11;00;02 - 00;11;18;25
Paul Sullivan
And it was wildly enjoyable because why we were we were honest. We weren't, you know, former New York Times columnist or Emmy Award winning comedy writer. We were two men who were Lee dads, who were embracing this role of not just being, you know, the go to parent, but also trying to support our spouses in, in their endeavors.

00;11;18;25 - 00;11;40;27
Paul Sullivan
And it was a relief. And that was, you know, as I've seen across the network, it doesn't matter what your background is, if you're stepping forward as a dad, you suddenly have a point of contact, whether you, work in it, or you're, an NFL, football player who won a Super Bowl. And I have, you know, both those guys or you a journalist down in Baltimore, you suddenly come together.

00;11;40;27 - 00;12;04;11
Paul Sullivan
And that was the goal of the company dads. And, you know, fortunate it's working. But I want to ask you, like, when you get together, you go into company that had gone into a bunch of companies where you get together, you know, guys see your network. Do they have that same sense of of relief when they come to a dads and business event, or their same ability to be, open about, you know, what their what they're trying to balance, what they're trying to do.

00;12;04;13 - 00;12;28;12
Rob Taylor
That's a good question. I think the they come into it almost with a sense of curiosity or intrigue. I think, and they leave with some of the words you mentioned. They leave with a sense of relief. Yeah. We've had feedback before saying it's quite cathartic. Because don't I don't know about yourself or your listeners if I have, let's broadly call this a well-being brand.

00;12;28;14 - 00;12;54;16
Rob Taylor
You know, we're there to support, a bunch of dads to help make themselves a bit, a bit better at homework. If that was a generic workplace well-being session that was open to all. Yeah. Personally, I wouldn't engage it. Because it's not for me. Yeah. An example. We went to, antenatal classes before your parents, you know, to the hospital.

00;12;54;18 - 00;13;12;17
Rob Taylor
And they talk about all sorts of things, but those all sorts of things are all geared towards the moment and the birth and the immediate after birth and what the mom's going to be doing. I remember I went to our local hospital in Portland over there because it's about half a mile away. And they tried to show me how to breastfeed.

00;13;12;17 - 00;13;18;12
Rob Taylor
And I was thinking, well, this is just completely impractical. What can I do? What can I actually did.

00;13;18;12 - 00;13;20;21
Paul Sullivan
Give me a not ask that I can accomplish and say.

00;13;20;23 - 00;13;52;13
Rob Taylor
Yeah, yeah, give me something that's got a beginning and an end and I'll go and own that space. But I didn't exist. So again, it played back into that thing of there's no way for a new dad to turn. So when we go into organization and we start talking about how to have better conversations with the kids, how to manage guilt, how to check in with overwhelm or anxiety, how to stay focused and balanced across the four areas that that we think make that, you know, you've got your work life, you've got your money life, you know, family life and yourself.

00;13;52;15 - 00;14;03;18
Rob Taylor
Because nine times out of ten, it's the self that goes first and then we get distracted from our family, but then we start just focusing on work because it's our goal to get money so.

00;14;03;20 - 00;14;21;23
Paul Sullivan
Well, but also work. Is it not that it's easier, but it's, it's, more tangible, like, okay, I'm going to put more hours in or I'm going to try to do this deal or I'm going to try to, you know, write more stories in, in my case versus self-care. And I guess, you know, to be fair to listeners, I mean, obviously working moms had the same, same problem around self-care.

00;14;21;23 - 00;14;38;24
Paul Sullivan
I like to take time off and to say, I'm going to go out and, and, and do this. And it's been last night, you know, the holiday we're talking before the holidays. I went out and met my good friend, for two hours, and we had, you know, two drinks and I had a bowl of soup, and it was great.

00;14;38;29 - 00;14;49;24
Paul Sullivan
And then I went home and my daughter, I put my daughter to bed, but but I had to sort of schedule that time, because if you don't do that, it just steamrolls on, you know.

00;14;49;24 - 00;15;03;09
Rob Taylor
Absolutely. Just because, you know, you might hear it yourself where you speak to your network in the company that's, that they say things like, I used to enjoy that. Yeah, I remember when. Yeah. It wasn't it good when we did this. But I don't.

00;15;03;12 - 00;15;15;26
Paul Sullivan
To becomes like, if somebody is doing something, that you wish you were doing, I find it can become spiteful, like, oh, that must be nice. It must be nice that you were able to do that. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess you're not working very hard or are you? You know. Are you ready? Yeah.

00;15;16;02 - 00;15;33;18
Rob Taylor
I don't have time for that. How do you have time for that when I'm so busy at work and then back with my kids. But you don't realize the damage that you're doing to yourself by neglecting yourself. Yeah. You can't bring the best of you to your family if you've neglected your social side or your hobby or something that's just for you.

00;15;33;18 - 00;15;43;16
Rob Taylor
That's not work related or that's drive revenue. Yeah. And I think it's something that's really important but gets forgotten because we are busy.

00;15;43;19 - 00;15;59;23
Paul Sullivan
One of the things I advocate and I'd like to know what you doing on your end is, is almost a sort of rigid, you know, calendaring type process, like scheduling things up and being super transparent, like, you know, my calendar will show my wife what I'm doing. My calendar will show people at work, what I'm doing.

00;15;59;23 - 00;16;19;00
Paul Sullivan
And it's it's very open. There's very few things. Unless it's like a surprise for one of my daughters that, you know, I don't want them to see it on their phone and to sort of. It takes a lot. It takes a bit of work to to block things out, well, in advance. But in doing that, it guarantees that you have you no time for your family, time for work, but also time.

00;16;19;06 - 00;16;24;19
Paul Sullivan
And you got time for yourself. Time to to to go out. And, what do you advocate on, on your end?

00;16;24;22 - 00;16;45;20
Rob Taylor
I think something, something quite similar. However, when we speak to business owners, for example, they find it incredibly hard. We'll say to them, yeah, we work with a bunch of tradespeople on a, on another project that I work on, and that is the classic how busy are you? How busy can you get? And I'll say, what does your calendar look like next week or next month?

00;16;45;23 - 00;17;04;24
Rob Taylor
And I'll basically just say, well, it's blank. So. So what if a customer phoned up, 8:00 on a Tuesday night? Right. I've got nothin on. So I'll go and see them, but. Well, think about what you're saying no to. So my colleague on that project, he's got he's got such discipline around this, he'll say, well, take one, call it pen.

00;17;04;27 - 00;17;24;25
Rob Taylor
And we broke the week down into a grid. So you've got like a Monday, Tuesdays down the columns and down the rows. We have early and medium lunch time, so on and so on through to the evening. So it's about six rows, seven columns. It says take one call a pen. So it's blue. It says in blue. Scribble out some boxes.

00;17;24;27 - 00;17;42;13
Rob Taylor
This is your family time. Does this is your school pick up on a Wednesday afternoon. This is your football practice with the kids. This is your swimming lessons. Put those in first and look a bit shocked because they don't like doing it. Let me says right, pick up another pen. This is for you. This is your hobby time.

00;17;42;13 - 00;18;03;01
Rob Taylor
Your gym time. This might be early in the morning, whatever it is. And suddenly the blank boxes in this calendar are getting less and less. Yeah. Now circle the empty ones. That's your work. Now you can work there. There's enough there for you to get done. What it is you need to get done. And if a customer found you in a blue box time, for example.

00;18;03;02 - 00;18;29;13
Rob Taylor
Yeah. I'm so sorry I can't get to you right now. My next available slot is Tuesday, Thursday mid afternoon. Which one works for you? Yeah. And they've never lost work from it because a customer goes, oh thanks, I'll take the Tuesday. We're still giving. Yeah we're still, we're still given the sense of choice there. And I just think if we can be more disciplined around that and box off certain elements for each time, we'll realize that, hang on, there's enough to do everything.

00;18;29;13 - 00;18;54;13
Rob Taylor
And I'm not been naive enough to say this works 52 weeks of the year. The seasonal peaks. There's trends. We have to be grown up about that and say, well, if I give this time in the summer, appreciate family and get agreement and expectations from the whole, in winter, I'm going to have to be at work more. But it's an agreement and it's not a a, a resentment or a butting heads.

00;18;54;16 - 00;18;54;20
Rob Taylor
It's.

00;18;54;20 - 00;19;16;22
Paul Sullivan
It's it's I love this because it is what I advocate as well. And, and one of the things I always round out by saying is that, look, if you were in a meeting with somebody else, if you were in a meeting with a client and another client called, would you put that phone down and say, oh, hang on, here's the other client, because by implication, you're saying that other person calling is more important because you're taking his or her call and putting it.

00;19;16;25 - 00;19;34;05
Paul Sullivan
You would never do that because you would not be long for your job if you did that. And I think of the same way, if you are doing something you know for yourself, if you're doing something for your your children, if you're doing something for your wife, why not block that off and treat it the same way?

00;19;34;05 - 00;19;57;01
Paul Sullivan
And obviously there's balance here. You can't, you know, have a seven hour chunk of time blocked off every single day. But, you know, every so often you can have that that chunk of time. And just to manage your calendar that way. And I find like the people I work with in myself, it helps reduce the stress and it helps to sort of, you know, give definition because the joke is like, if you think you're working all the time, you're not really working all the time.

00;19;57;01 - 00;20;16;05
Paul Sullivan
You're just being inefficient and you're being distracted by stuff. I mean, you're watching like, you know, cat wrestling on, on, on TikTok or, you know, you know, puppies, you know, sleeping on, on YouTube and which is fine. There's a place for that, but not not wildly productive.

00;20;16;08 - 00;20;35;07
Rob Taylor
I think is a, there's a whole discipline piece around it. And I think the first step is almost an awareness to say you can choose you. It is possible to manage your time. Now, I've got three young kids as they're grown up, eight, six, four, as you said at the time of recording, their needs are getting more demanding.

00;20;35;09 - 00;20;51;13
Rob Taylor
You know, we're doing swimming now with two of them or two in football with one of them, they're with gymnastics. With another one of them. There's a third one that's going to come up needing that as well. That all takes time. Yeah. If I just left my diary open and blank and didn't do any sense of planning around that.

00;20;51;15 - 00;21;11;02
Rob Taylor
Yeah, it would just be like the Wild West, just being completely unmanageable. And I know critics of that sort of approach might say it's your family. It's not work. You can't book your family in like you do work, but. Well, no, I agree that what you have to you do have to allocate time. What? I'm not working.

00;21;11;07 - 00;21;18;12
Rob Taylor
It's not work time. It's not family time where I'm boxing in an hour, sit down with my kid or whatever. So non-work time, but work then?

00;21;18;14 - 00;21;38;06
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, I find it, you know, before I did that, you know, before I'd figure this out, I, I it would be very stressful because one of the things I now try to do when I'm with my family is to leave my phone, somewhere else, because the idea is, if I've committed this block of time to take my inner daughter to lacrosse, and I want to watch her play lacrosse, well, I need to watch her.

00;21;38;09 - 00;22;01;10
Paul Sullivan
And if I sit there and I sort of looked down on my phone, well, the entire time disappears. And again, like, same for pretty much everybody. Somewhere around 80%, 90% of the, the urgent emails we get a really not urgent and they can all be tended to right after and my daughter's gotten used to. We'll get in the car after lacrosse practice, and I'll sit there for a second and I'll scan the emails.

00;22;01;10 - 00;22;21;29
Paul Sullivan
And if there's one that is, vitally important, I will, respond, which takes me about 30s. And then we go on with our day. We go home. But but I had that moment to be present. And I also think it's important. It's important for us, as is meant for our mental space. But I think it's really important, for our kids, because, you know, my kids are five, ten and 13.

00;22;21;29 - 00;22;45;02
Paul Sullivan
And there's one thing I know 100% for sure. It's that they they may or may not be listening to what I'm saying, but they 100% are watching what I'm doing. And if there's any inconsistency between what I say and what I do, that's a red flag. But for the most part, they're modeling their behavior after what my wife and I are doing.

00;22;45;02 - 00;22;57;17
Paul Sullivan
So if we're, you know, constantly on our phone, distracted, be like, you know, and then we tell them, hey, you've had too much screen time. They're gonna like, well, what about you? You've had too much screen time. And my 13 year old says it's all the time is it was like, I think the beauty of of modeling it.

00;22;57;24 - 00;23;16;28
Paul Sullivan
It's all I ask you when you're, you know, going into companies and I'm not sure what, what level your sweet spot is. We try to aim for sort of the employee resource groups and the middle managers, emerging leaders. But but when you're talking to those people who are more in a, a management level, what what how do you get buy in from them?

00;23;16;28 - 00;23;21;19
Paul Sullivan
Or are they do they realize the importance of of modeling their own behavior for their.

00;23;21;21 - 00;23;42;02
Rob Taylor
Yeah, I think they to me, always I think they want I, I think they want the help. So it's not about getting the buy in. They realize that there's, things could be better. And I'll never speak to. I don't want to say I'm perfect. I think that's what helps get a bit of trust with organizations and certainly those that are attending.

00;23;42;02 - 00;24;01;16
Rob Taylor
You know, I'm not. I'm just sharing my experiences and my stories. Do I ever go home and not check my emails? No. It's horrible. I know what I'm doing it. I shouldn't be doing this. My kids want to see me do something. And you're right. I love your quote about that. They might not tell them I don't listen, but they'll definitely see.

00;24;01;18 - 00;24;19;03
Rob Taylor
Yeah, I think, and yeah, I'm on an eight, six, four. They might not be able to articulate. Well you're doing that. So why can't I just do it. Yeah. And I can hear myself barking out and just say, get off your screens. Get off your screen. And the second I do, I'm on my screen. So it's horrible. So we know what we've got our own weaknesses.

00;24;19;03 - 00;24;40;19
Rob Taylor
And I think those are organizations that run their own business. Also know they've got their own weaknesses. It's not about saying you need to do better. It's about are we happy with where we're at? Are we happy with this balance? You know, without doubt, when 2020 came through, and the pandemic came work and home for a lot of people.

00;24;40;21 - 00;25;01;08
Rob Taylor
Okay. In the same space. Yeah. So there was no physical distance. And a lot of people didn't have home offices. They didn't have separate home offices, to in the house I was living at the time, I had to set up a desk in our bedroom to try and continue to make work happen, or at least manage what could happen at work.

00;25;01;10 - 00;25;23;15
Rob Taylor
Whilst my kids were downstairs, I could hear them screaming or fighting with each other or watching a bit of YouTube. So guilt started to play and play out. That's a very common thing that happened as well. We saw guilt rise. We saw anxiety rise. We've seen overall rise because we're not addressing it. We're not speaking about it. We're just saying, I've got to get on with it.

00;25;23;17 - 00;25;27;02
Rob Taylor
I've just got to get on with it. But we don't know what getting on with it is.

00;25;27;04 - 00;25;44;04
Paul Sullivan
So to get it up because yeah, I, you know, you've done a lot of research on this and you have some interesting statistics around, you know, depression around all this. Talk a bit about, you know, what prompted that, that research, what you found. And, and then, of course, you know, how do we act on it?

00;25;44;07 - 00;25;47;11
Rob Taylor
Well, I think ultimately it was because I wanted to find out if it was just me.

00;25;47;14 - 00;25;49;06
Paul Sullivan
Right? Oh, yeah.

00;25;49;08 - 00;26;06;20
Rob Taylor
Yeah, that was the, that was the driver behind it. I get this, I, it was like, it can't just be me. Or is it just me? I need to find something out. So I just very simple straw poll stuff that we do for our organizations. And do you feel more guilty now or less guilty now? Do you feel pulled apart?

00;26;06;20 - 00;26;20;11
Rob Taylor
Do you feel you got too many tasks? Are you waking up with guilt, with overwhelm and the amount of times people say, yes, this is me? Yeah, it's it's heartening, but it's also worrying. But it's quite heartening to see that it's not just.

00;26;20;13 - 00;26;24;26
Paul Sullivan
It's heartening that they'll admit it and they'll talk about it, but it's worrying because we have so many people.

00;26;24;28 - 00;26;46;05
Rob Taylor
Exactly, exactly. And I think there's the the creation of the space helps that to happen. Yeah. You're given permission for people to be open and remove the mask, as we say, talk about or even just listen to stories from others in their space. Yeah. Which say, oh, hang on, I didn't realize this, but that's what I do.

00;26;46;07 - 00;26;52;19
Rob Taylor
I'm glad we can share now. And we start to open that up, and then we can start to share tools for managing it moving forward.

00;26;52;21 - 00;27;11;18
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, yeah. I mean, sharing is obviously the first part and I don't want to put you on the spot here. But I will, you know, after the, after the sharing, you know, do you have sort of, you know, concrete bits that you tell people like, okay, you guys are in the same boat here. This is how you continue the metaphor.

00;27;11;21 - 00;27;18;24
Paul Sullivan
Row that boat forward or get out of that boat. I mean, do you have sort of concrete, you know, sort of one, two threes that you help people, you know, work.

00;27;18;26 - 00;27;48;21
Rob Taylor
Yeah. Sorry. The, the first, sort of steps to delivery for, like, is for a larger organization, for example, we'll go in with, we call it the discovery session, which basically talk about the framing of why we're here, why I talk about does mental health is important, why mental loneliness is right, white male suicides up and all that sort of stuff to really help, not only men and dads, but the partners as well enough as in the organizations that we then that's that's usually open to, to the whole company men, women, whatever.

00;27;48;21 - 00;28;11;29
Rob Taylor
And and after that, we then open up a series of spaces just for that where we'll talk about the common themes. So we'll talk about anxiety. What is it? I might show up how you can start to manage it. Overwhelm. What is it? I'm not sure how exactly it, guilt. Another one. And then focus around the four areas that we highlighted earlier business, life, money.

00;28;11;29 - 00;28;41;04
Rob Taylor
And so because it's not until you have that awareness and I think it's a huge thing like we've talked about with the time management thing, once you're aware of it, you can do something practical about it. Like we mentioned in the antenatal classes, there was nothing practical for me to do. So I didn't engage it. Yeah, but as soon as I, for example, would become aware of my calendar and there's a practical way of managing that, I can then decide to take ownership of it or not, because then the responsibility comes to me.

00;28;41;07 - 00;29;03;26
Rob Taylor
So it's not about preaching to people, or it's about saying, here's what happened, here's how it or here's the the headline theory around anxiety, what it is definitions. Here's how it plays out for me as a working dad. Do you recognize this? Get some insight. Share some polls. Great. Now here's some resources that you can take away. You can either read, you can watch, you can engage.

00;29;03;26 - 00;29;10;09
Rob Taylor
Yeah, you can do your own thing because I'm not a practitioner of that or I'm not a qualified practitioner.

00;29;10;09 - 00;29;11;11
Paul Sullivan
Therapist. You're more yeah, yeah.

00;29;11;11 - 00;29;30;28
Rob Taylor
I'm not a therapist. Exactly. But there's enough there. Party resources around that have helped me that I think can help others. And then my colleague on the project is more of an exit coach who is well studied, well versed, well qualified in this. And we bounce off each other with here's my experiences of it and here's what you can practically do to make it better.

00;29;31;00 - 00;29;46;21
Rob Taylor
You know, because they're never a silver bullet. I think accountability is key. And that's something we need to start building out more and more. Which I think you have probably kind of captured that in your company. That's right. Is the accountability thing. Yeah. Imperative.

00;29;46;23 - 00;30;03;08
Paul Sullivan
This has been, excellent. Rob, thank you for having me. My guest today in the company dad's podcast. I always like to give the guests the last word and talk to me about this. You know, you're sort of three distinct periods, you know, 2019, pre-pandemic in a dad's in business. The UK, you know, goes through the pandemic.

00;30;03;08 - 00;30;28;19
Paul Sullivan
And now here we are in at least what we call in the United States, the next normal. You know, how do you look at, the way businesses and workers are going to work this, this dance out going forward? Are you optimistic, pessimistic, or are you pragmatic? How do you see you know, this this this new period working for, you know, fathers being bringing their whole self to to work?

00;30;28;22 - 00;30;50;06
Rob Taylor
It's I think a lot of it needs to come from leadership. And I think there needs to be an awareness again, because back to the awareness side of things. If companies got to where they are by doing what they've always done and expect that to deliver the results, I think that needs to change. As dads get younger and Gen Z millennials, Gen Z, I'm a millennial.

00;30;50;07 - 00;31;18;08
Rob Taylor
So yeah, just for those listening, if they need that reference, millennials and Gen Z will expect different things of their employer. So I think as organizations see that hitting their recruitment where they can't get the best recruits because they want a better balance, whether it's in the revenue, because the stock churn has gone through the roof. I think that will start to drive change because there's a there's a real push for as there should be, equality across the whole workplace.

00;31;18;08 - 00;31;40;14
Rob Taylor
Absolutely. But that does have to include dads in that conversation. If we just say we need to get women more on the career ladder, you can pay all valid points. Not disputing that. But if you're then telling dads, you can't do this, you can't do this, you can't do this. As a dad, I'd imagine we might lock up, we might shut the doors and we might not be open to equality.

00;31;40;14 - 00;32;01;19
Rob Taylor
Oh, yeah, because I'm going to entrench my views and entrench what I'm doing. So we have to open it up on both sides, I think, to have a better about a discussion. If some of our research suggests that 44% of working dads in a management level and above all, see the perception of having young kids as a weakness to their career.

00;32;01;23 - 00;32;20;13
Rob Taylor
Yeah. So I'm not going to open up if I'm at risk. But we need to create that space to to not have that, that risk. So I think it has to come from leadership, but they need to create that space. But likewise the new workforce, they're going to be choosing where they want to work with, who they want to work with and how they want to work.

00;32;20;16 - 00;32;31;11
Rob Taylor
That satisfies that balance. So it's going to be interesting. And if we can start to play a part in that to help create that awareness, then happy days. I don't have all the answers, Paul.

00;32;31;14 - 00;32;33;08
Paul Sullivan
But we're asking the right questions.

00;32;33;10 - 00;32;39;10
Rob Taylor
And, well, that's the thing, isn't it? We've got to open it. Open up conversations like this. Yeah.

00;32;39;12 - 00;32;45;06
Paul Sullivan
Rob Taylor, founder of that in business. Thank you again for being my guest on the Company Dads podcast.

00;32;45;08 - 00;32;46;15
Rob Taylor
Thanks so much, Paul. Take care.