R ecessionistas: Norma and Carla Itzkowich
International Contact
When Carla Itzkowich started International Contact, Inc., a multilanguage communications agency in Oakland, California, she needed help…she needed a business partner. She needed someone with doctorates in English and Spanish, someone who had a background in communications, someone hard working like her. Someone like her mother.
Then the lightbulb went off, and she thought, “Why don’t I just hire my mother?”
It’s not a typical mother/daughter duo, having the daughter in charge. But now they run a $2 million per year business with language services to corporations, ad agencies, and governments.
In the office: like mother, like daughter
What’s it really like to work with your daughter calling the shots?
Mother: It depends on the day; sometimes it is inspiring and supportive and wonderful, at times it is humdrum and routine and just like any other job and sometimes it is frustrating and exasperating and a drag.
Carla, what’s it like to be your mom’s boss?
Daughter: It is great because she knows what I am thinking and we agree more often than not. She is very capable and we are very lucky to have her.
Okay, but seriously…what’s it like?
Daughter: It can be difficult when she is demanding and not understanding of the challenges I face, which reminds me of when I was growing up. While it made/makes me driven and a perfectionist (both traits that have helped us succeed in business) it is also annoying and makes me lash out when my cup is too full. Still, knowing I can trust her 100% is very reassuring and her advantages cannot be matched by other employees.
Woah, that’s a lot more believable. Mom, do you want to change your answer about what it’s really like working with your daughter?
Mother: After 29 years of working together, the bad times are very few and don’t last more than a few hours. We realize that we are different people and don’t necessarily share the same point of view in all matters, but after assiduously searching for solutions to our differences, we’ve learned to value them and use those differences to the advantage of business growth. And my admiration for Carla grows with each passing year.
It's important for Carla and Norma — and their language services company — that nothing is lost in translation
Working in close proximity for such a long time must have led to some epic fights. What’s the biggest fight you’ve gotten into?
Mother: About 15 years ago I was so fed up with the way we were getting along that I decided to retire, rather than lose the relationship with my beloved daughter. After a few months of high tension between us, Carla pointed out that I really didn’t want to retire; I just wanted to change our working situation – which was the truth. So I stopped going in to the office and have continued to work remotely from my home office, which is connected electronically to the physical office. We meet every night to discuss whatever needs face to face contact between us. This seems to have been the perfect solution which removed much of the source of friction.
Carla, what’s your side of the story?
Daughter:I think we were both frustrated because I gave Norma too many projects and not enough appreciation; we had a real rough period. At the end of which Norma was ready to retire and we had to restructure her job to work at home and not in the office. This gave us the space we needed to once again appreciate each other’s strengths and because delegations needed to be more thorough and specific it meant that some of the informalities that had lead to misunderstandings were corrected.
You guys have more than a decade of experience — and you haven’t killed each other yet…that’s something to be proud of. Carla, I can’t help but notice that you don’t call your mom, “mom.” What’s up with that?
Daughter: We treat each other with a lot of respect and define roles and responsibilities. We always called each other by our first name — not “mom.” Make sure it is not a 50-50 thing so there is a definitive boss.
Okay, so I’ll call you “mom,” Norma. What’s some real advice that you’d give another mother/daughter duo, other than the name thing, who’s looking to go into business together?
Mother: I think one of the main reasons the arrangement has worked as well as it does, is because we established the parameters from the beginning when I chose to be the minority partner, trying to obviate the natural expectation that, as mother, I have the final word when there is a disagreement on a given course of action. Because Carla is the majority partner in the corporate structure, she has the final say, which allowed her to make her own mistakes and learn from them and permitted me to take some unexpected risks that, once again, allowed the business to grow in a way that I would have never taken it. So, my advice to another mother-daughter duo looking to get into business would be to clearly ascertain from the beginning who the boss is and would suggest that the job fall to the daughter, making the mother, in effect, the grandmother to the business baby.
It's takes a village to raise a business baby
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Great article! I have always admired Norma and Carla’s relationship. Pretty sound advice for a business or a parent/child relationship to excel one needs respect, a desire to make things work, the ability to set clear boundaries and the be able to readjust those boundaries.
You Go Girls!!
Now I’m like, well duh! Truly tnhakful for your help.
If you want to get read, this is how you suhold write.
Cool! That’s a clever way of liokong at it!