Mason Donovan
Mason Donovan and Mark Kaplan are the authors of the new book The Parenthood Advantage: Building Corporate Cultures That Value Working Parents. Their other books include The Inclusion Dividend. They are managing partners of The Dagoba Group, a global consulting firm.
Q: What inspired you to write The Parenthood Advantage?
A: The idea grew out of personal experience. After the premature birth of our first child and four weeks in the NICU, our world changed overnight. Balancing long days at the hospital with work demands made it clear how unprepared most workplaces are for what new parents go through. We also heard story after story from others struggling to be both great parents and great employees.
Those experiences opened our eyes to a larger truth: the system wasn’t broken just for us—it was broken for millions of working parents. We wanted to write a book that reframes parenthood not as a career setback but as a source of strength. Because, in the end, becoming parents made us better at leading, collaborating, and prioritizing — the very skills organizations say they want most.
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| Mark Kaplan |
Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?
A: We conducted more than 200 interviews with parents, managers, and executives across industries.
What surprised us most was how universal the experience was — the same emotional and professional transformations showed up everywhere. Parenthood seemed to fast-track emotional intelligence, resilience, and problem-solving in ways that formal leadership programs rarely do.
We also saw how fathers increasingly described the same identity shifts that mothers have voiced for years — realizing that caregiving changed their leadership style. That gave us hope that the language of empathy and balance at work is becoming gender-neutral.
Q: How did the two of you collaborate on the book? What was your writing process like?
A: We’ve worked together for decades, so collaboration was second nature. We divided interviews, swapped drafts, and built ideas through long early-morning calls—often before our toddlers woke up.
We were living the subject while writing about it, so moments from our own parenting journeys naturally seeped into the work. It wasn’t just research—it was real life, playing out in real time.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?
A: That parenthood isn’t a pause in one’s professional development — it’s an accelerator. The same skills parents use to survive sleepless nights and constant change — empathy, triage, adaptability — are the ones that make great leaders.
We also hope working parents see themselves differently: as assets, not liabilities. When organizations start to recognize that, they don’t just support parents — they strengthen the entire culture.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: We’re expanding The Parenthood Advantage into coaching and leadership programs for organizations — including a Parental Leave Coaching Program that guides both employees and managers through the phases we call Nesting, Fourth Trimester, and Returnship.
We’re also helping companies build cultures of ownership and belonging, where supporting working parents is seen as smart business, not just good policy. There also might be another book in the near future.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: This project started as a professional study but quickly became personal. Writing it while raising young children gave us firsthand empathy for what working parents face. Hearing from readers who say the book made them feel seen has been the most rewarding part.
Ultimately, we hope The Parenthood Advantage sparks a new conversation — in boardrooms and at kitchen tables — about how parenthood can make us all better leaders, coworkers, and humans.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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