The multi-faceted role of a Chief Home Officer

By Charu Khurana Bhadrish
May 10, 2021

What I love about this – it is gender neutral. And that means it is about may the best “man/woman” take the role!

Imagine a business / organization hub. To run this, an army of CXO’s work almost round the clock to ensure that there are incoming finances, talent nurture and development, social awareness and ecosystem, infrastructure & maintenance, value creation and ROI, entertainment and engagement along with constant improvisation that make the organization tick and survive. 

Now simply replace the image of the business / organization with a home. Would the roles required to run this still hold? You need someone to ensure money keeps coming in, kids are the focus of nurture and development, social management of family and friends can lead to a much-needed extended eco system, home improvement and maintenance is a constant technical task, managing support staff is equal to managing human resources, and kitchen management forms the happiness & nourishment of every family member. And these are just a few of the many more! 

So, when it takes an army of specialized CXO’s to run an organization – big or small, based on the individual’s experience and potential, then why should tasks associated with running a home be any different? 

It’s the partnership that counts

Go ahead, while you run office from home, school from home and home from home, in this lock down, borrow from Six Sigma principles and conduct a fact-finding mission, evaluating where every family member is already successful, what’s working well, and what type of environment drives those ideal results. 

1. 1. Understand and list out the strengths that every member brings in. 
2. 2. Identify areas of interest that everyone can pursue independently in a quest to value add. 
3. 3. Put the hats where they belong – Identify the doer, the thinker, the planner, the communication expert, the aesthetic visualizer, the active listener, etc. 
4. 4. Who in the family prefers two-week sprint schedules and who prefers a more free-form process?
5. 5. Decide on the key members that make the most sense to handle day-to-day vs. unique situations
6. 6. Remember, kids are a part of the team. Once they are 9 years old, they can start to judge the right from the wrong and learn new things with sheer experience. So, encourage them to share the load.

So, imagine a home where every member has a chance to contribute in a positive way, doing the things that he/she does best? 

Everyone brings a different skill set to the table

Conditioning and belief system that is so ingrained in our culture and family and society traditionally defines very gender specific roles for us to follow right? So, needless to say, when my husband decided to change career course so he could pitch in as a primary parent – let’s just say it was not universally supported. 

Having said that, in a few months of the change over, I realized that there is some truth in traditional thinking. Small kids still need their mother more! What ensued for the next few months was utter confusion, frustrations, and a lot of stress while we tried to figure out a way through this unprecedented decision path.

We embarked on a little journey with a new science of fingerprint analysis – introduced to me by a good friend and mentor (@ShivaniSharma, Founder – Lives Beyond Boundaries).   

Fingerprint Analysis or Dermatoglyphics or DMITis a genetic science that is the closest thing you can get to a virtual map of your brain. The nerve growth factor together with the epidermal growth factor that goes into forming your fingerprints are pretty much formed at the same time as your brain development. So, by studying the fingerprints, you can study what functions your brain is designed to be most proficient at and what you may struggle with. 

By understanding the best and the strongest brain function that each member is capable of, we were able to design a roles and responsibility chart that not only brought out the best from each, but also gave the right exposure and opportunity to grow in it. 

Cooking, socializing, keeping spirits high, and overall entertainment became my husband’s forte while planning, management and communication was mine. My 4-year-old excels in innovative, experimentative thinking while the 6-year-old is excellent when it comes to forming or following processes. 

Hence, the answer came from understanding that it is not so much about GENDER roles or reversal thereof. Rather, it’s about identifying from the very details – what roles and responsibilities can one perform the best of. 

For eg: Kitchen management gets broken down to – raw material inventory management (me) + food on the table (my husband) + delightful bakes as snacks (my 6-year-old) + freak-out weekend food ideas (my 4-year-old)

After all, when you know better, you do better!

In the last one year, all of us have experienced our homes in a very different way than ever before. Spending more time in it is just one trigger. Making the place run for different things at the same time – be it office or school etc is another. And yet another has been the challenge of containing it as a safe & happy abode in the midst of most stressful times. Everyone has a different way of dealing with stress. Some choose to clean, others cook, or learn a new hobby and some just left direction or aimless. 

The right allocation of roles and responsibilities can make all the difference in maintaining a positive, progressive and motivated environment – which I feel is far more important in a home than a corporate. 

What better time than now to know what your mojo is and how your home can be your growth casket for it! And who knows – as in our case, that may even open up the right professional avenues that come from our very own cores. I would urge you to reach out to @Lives Beyond Boundariesfor courses and consultations on fingerprint analysis and find out what you’re really good at and can build for yourself. What’s best, you can see my feedback and live video @Lives Beyond Boundaries FB page.