Watch Mojo Mom on the CBS Early Show, Saturday May 10

Mother's Day is a great time to be Mojo Mom. Last year I appeared on The Today Show, and tomorrow I am scheduled to be on the CBS Early Show.

The segment was inspired by the Moms as Executive SWAT Team members project I participated in. UNC's Kenan-Flagler business school hired local moms to come in as "Managerial role players" to give MBA students a taste of real-world work challenges. Thus the acronym SWAT, for "Smart Women with Available Time" who could jump in on a short-term, highly skilled project.

I had the chance to be one of the role players, AND this project was a total validation of the reinvention strategies I write about in Mojo Mom, so it was a wonderful experience for me.

A question has come up in a few discussion groups, namely, why is it okay that the business school only payed us $21 an hour when we were clearly filling an important, valuable role?

I am glad that the question was asked, because we should be thinking about money. But it is not the only consideration, as this case illustrates very well.

The Kenan-Flagler project was a win-win-win situation for the MBA Students, the business school, and the managerial assessor SWAT team. We were paid for the hours we spent in training, which was a valuable experience in itself. We had the chance to step in to an executive role that reminded us that we still have our business chops, even if we have stepped off the path of traditional full-time employment. And we had a chance to work with our friends, which was really fun, especially since we were displaying a totally different side of our personalities than we usually do.

I would definitely list this experience on my resume, and could possibly get a recommendation out of it. I could sign up to do it again in the future if I needed a job, and I felt that $21 an hour was a worthwhile rate for a periodic project that developed important skills.

Want to learn more? Watch the SWAT team segment on CBS Early Show tomorrow.

Mojo Mom on the Executive SWAT team

I'd be blogging about Sue Shellenbarger's Wall Street Journal article "How Stay-at-Home Moms Are Filling an Executive Niche" even if I wasn't personally involved. But I am proud to say that I am the "Stanford University Ph.D. in neuroscience" in Shellenbarger's piece.

Last year worked for an experimental project at UNC's Kenan-Flagler business school. I was one member of a team of about a dozen management role-players and assessors. We were trained to play two roles, a manager and a subordinate, and we'd run scenarios with the MBA students. The scenarios were quite realistic, as if the students were prepping for a meeting and trying to reach a specific goal while interacting with a difficult co-worker. These scenarios gave the students a realistic experience that went beyond book learning.

This project was valuable on several levels. Kenan-Flagler was able to assemble an incredibly talented for a low cost. One of my co-trainers, Donnabeth Leffler, named us the SWAT team, for "smart women with available time." The simulations only take place a few weeks a year, so Kenan-Flagler needed executive-level talent that could assemble at a moment's notice to work on an intense but brief project.

MBA program associate director Meghan Kelley-Gosk (whom you may remember from her profile in Mojo Mom) recruited the team of assessors from her local contacts, which included several women from our neighborhood.

Stepping into the executive role was a revelation for each of us. When we practiced role-playing with each other, I saw a whole new side to my friends. In real life I knew them as patient, kind mothers, yet they convincingly adopted the persona of an assertive and deliberately difficult executive.

This project was not going to provide a steady job for anyone, but it was the kind of opportunity I dreamed of women having when I wrote Mojo Mom. I got such a confidence boost by getting trained for this new job and then doing it well. When you think of "stay-at-home Mom" versus "MBA student," a stereotypical image might be minnows swimming with sharks. It was good to confront that image because when it came right down to it, I actually felt more like the shark. Because the MBA students are very smart, we might forget that most of them have not been in the working world for more than a few years. Compared to a twentysomething, I have come to appreciate the life experience I have accumulated through every work and family challenge I have faced.

So whatever you are doing in life, I hope your path includes opportunities that teach you new skills, and remind you how smart and talented you really are. With all the work-life challenges we face, I really feel that the tide is beginning to turn, and that employers are starting to see parents for as the workplace asset that we really can be.

The project I participated in was so successful that Kenan-Flagler expanded it this year and made it mandatory for their leadership training.

Need help in your office? Think about calling in the SWAT team.

(For more information, check out Balancing Professionals, CultureRx and MomCorps.)