There are signs of modest progress in the workplace. Perry Christensen, a senior consultant at Boston-based WFD, notes that a division of American Express Co. focuses on building personal goals -- including marriage, family, and community -- into its performance-management system. Some work groups at other companies have also incorporated employees' family priorities into project-planning calendars. General Electric Co. has experimented with programs that support husbands and wives who are both employed by the company.
Some academics, too, see incipient social phenomena that they believe will help drive change in the corporate sector. "I'm optimistic," says Joyce K. Fletcher, 54, a professor at the Center for Gender in Organizations at the Simmons College Graduate School of Management in Boston. "What Jessica is doing was unimaginable 25 years ago. Now society is ready. If there really is a chance to have both career and family without killing yourself, people want to try it."
DeGroot thinks that there are enough people out there who want to make a change to spark a shift not just in the workplace but in community organizations and in public policy. She thinks that there is the will to alter gender roles and to improve our methods of caring for kids and for the elderly. She believes that there is some big idea out there that will eventually transform society.
She also knows that such a transformation will take a while, which is why she has a more modest aspiration for now. "I just have to get enough people to live this model that people don't look at me like I'm crazy." As for tonight, she simply aspires to get dinner on the table. It's her turn to cook.
Keith H. Hammonds (khammonds@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company senior editor. Contact Jessica DeGroot by email (jdegroot@thirdpath.org).
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