Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité (Unless You're a Working Mom)

There's the Rub


There's nothing new about comparing global policies pertaining to working parents, particularly when it comes to working mothers. But Claire Lundberg, a 30-something mother of an 18-month-old who moved from the U.S. to France two years ago, found that the glorious-sounding parental leave laws in the European nation are just that — the reality is much more complicated. True, France "has both the highest birth rate in Europe and one of the highest percentages of women in the workforce," offering generous four-month-long maternity leaves. But upon further research — and an interview that involved her being grilled about her child-care arrangements and plans to have more kids — it turned out there was a lot Lundberg didn't know about France as an alleged beacon of employment equality. In a 2010 survey, for example, only 25% of French employers said they were "strongly interested in hiring mothers," and 41% feared there would be "less flexibility in the schedules of mothers who worked" (they didn't have this fear when it came to men). There are a whole bunch of other statistics that echo this, and anecdotes about what's called "mise au placard" — when working mothers are frozen out of jobs by being stripped of responsibilities until they inevitably quit. So is there a balance that can be reached for working moms? And would Lundberg have had better opportunities if she had stayed in the U.S.? "I don't want to live (or pay taxes) in a country with a busted safety net," she writes, "but I also don't want that safety net to make the workplace so calcified that there's little mobility."

Forget Instinct

Know the Game, Change the Game London Business School

Does this sound like you? "I had better be incredibly busy; proving to all and sundry how truly indispensable I am. I need to ensure I get the credit for everything good that happens round here, and that my boss can see that I’m too good for the position I’m in now." If so, your mind might have been poisoned by a false belief that organizations are ordered meritocracies in which there's one alpha, a handful of betas, a few dozen gammas, a few hundred deltas, a couple thousand epsilons, and thousands and thousands of zetas. We think this way because we're primates, and primates are innately hierarchical, says Nigel Nicholson, a professor of organizational behavior at London Business School. A better way would be to acknowledge that we all have multiple abilities and motivations, that we all can learn and improve in most of the roles we take on, and that people's talents and interests change with time. In fact, we should be constantly reviewing how well our current positions suit us. There's nothing wrong with competition, he says, but people should compete for a chance to exercise their talents, not to climb on top of one another. —Andy O'Connell

Not That It's Actually Up to You

What's a Fair Price for Medical Services? Washington Monthly

Three times a year, 31 eminent medical specialists gather in the most private of back rooms to agree on what a “fair price” should be for their own services. They are the members of the AMA’s Specialty Society Relative Value Scale Update Committee, “one of the most powerful committees in America that you’ve never heard of,” says Washington Monthly editor Haley Sweetland Edwards. The RUC (pronounced “ruck”) sends its recommendations to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which for 22 years has transferred about 90% of them directly into law. “In a free market society, there’s a name for this kind of thing — for when a roomful of professionals from the same trade meet behind closed doors to agree on how much their services should be worth,” Edwards comments sardonically. “It’s called price-fixing.” The RUC basically has de facto control over how about $85 billion in U.S. taxpayer money is divvied up. And that’s just the start of the trouble, as this article, well worth reading in full, makes harrowingly clear. —Andrea Ovans

Staying in the Sweet Spot

Would You Refuse a Promotion to Stay in a Job You Love? Wall Street Journal

It might be hard to imagine wanting to do exactly what you're doing now for the rest of your life. But according to a survey by staffing service OfficeTeam, three in four workers don't actually want to move up, their reasons ranging from being comfortable with their work/family arrangements to not having any interest in becoming a manager. The rub, of course, is that most people in this situation fear being seen as slackers — some companies refer to such employees as "blockers" — and keep their positive feelings about their jobs to themselves. This, however, can lead to communication problems between you, your manager, and your coworkers. And you can have a successful career even after you decline a promotion or other type of advancement. Just highlight what it is about your current job that you love — and how you can continue to develop your skills to make yourself valuable to your company. And always revisit the intrinsic rewards that make work meaningful. Moving up may pay you more, but will you still find your job satisfying? And on the flip side, keep this in mind, from executive coach Debra Benton: "People are more afraid of trying for success and not getting it, than of settling for what they have."

Your Vacation Photos Aren't that Important

Facebook's Surprising Dependency on Premium Content Creators AdAge

Facebook denies that it's a media company. "We actually define ourselves as a technology company," VP Carolyn Everson once said, a bit sniffily. But in the long run, Facebook will inevitably become dependent on providing premium content, says AdAge's Ben Elowitz. Baby pictures and status updates will go only so far to engage the FB's huge audience. The way to build true connection, he says, is through conversation spurred by compelling content. Look at LinkedIn, which launched a content program last year, providing business news and opinion pieces. Traffic and engagement soared. Thought-provoking, emotion-inducing content is the currency of conversation. Without it, Facebook risks fading into irrelevance. —Andy O'Connell

BONUS BITS:

What's in the Piggy Bank

Rich People Who Make $1 a Year (New Republic)
The Case for Paying People More (HBR)
Billions in Debt, Detroit Tumbles Into Insolvency (New York Times)