How to Apply a Consulting Mindset to Family Decisions

Alongside my consulting career, I teach at an academy for high school students.

One of my courses is called Thinking Like a Consultant, where I introduce students to the frameworks and tools businesses use to analyse problems and make decisions.

Now, business cases aren't always the most relatable thing for teenagers.

So I started illustrating some of the frameworks using everyday life decisions.

And I realised something.

These tools actually work surprisingly well when applied to personal life.

We can use them to understand complicated situations, identify constraints, explore options and make decisions with greater confidence.

I found the idea interesting.

But at that point, it was still just an idea.

Then we went on holiday.

We were in the trenches of having two children under two.

We were sleep-deprived, exhausted and trying our best to manage two tiny humans while maintaining some semblance of our previous lives.

We went on holiday with some of our closest friends, who didn't have children.

And it was awful.

Not because travelling with two small children is particularly relaxing.

We weren't expecting that.

But because we felt judged by people we had known and trusted for years.

These were people who knew us. Who knew what we were going through. People with whom we felt comfortable enough to be vulnerable.

And instead of feeling supported, I came away feeling inadequate.

That experience stayed with me.

I kept thinking about how hard we were trying. How much planning, organising and effort went into keeping our little family running.

And how easily someone looking in from the outside could form an opinion without understanding any of it.

Parents who haven't slept properly in months.

Parents trying to manage two careers, childcare, relationships and household responsibilities.

Parents who occasionally lose their patience, forget something important or have a spectacularly bad day.

Parents who are doing their absolute best and still feel that someone, somewhere, thinks they're not doing enough.

I wanted to give them something.

Not another piece of advice about how to become a better parent.

Not another impossible standard to live up to.

I wanted to give them confidence.

The confidence to understand their own circumstances, make deliberate decisions and stand behind those decisions.

And when someone who hasn't walked in their shoes offers an unfounded opinion?

To be able to think:

Fuck off. I've got this.

Not because everything is perfect.

Not because they've figured out every problem.

But because they understand their own family, their priorities and the reasons behind their choices.

And they don't need to justify every difficult day to someone watching from the sidelines.

I already knew how much clarity structured thinking could bring to complicated business decisions.

Why not adapt those same tools to family life?

To help parents understand their time, align their careers, manage their households and explore the options available to them?

Not to tell them what the correct decision is.

But to help them make their own.

And that's how Working Parenthood was born.