Dr WorkLife

WE'VE MOVED!

2009-08-23T07:41:00.002-05:00

I've had to move my blog (long story...see below). Here is the new URL:

http://www.drworklife.com/blog/

Actually the blog is still in the process of being moved...after 3 years, there is a lot to move!

Why I moved my blog

First and foremost, I would emphasize that my decision to move was not because I was dissatisfied in any way with blogger.com. Nor did I really want to move; it's a lot of work.

The problem is that many companies are now blocking everything on blogger.com as "spam." I've had many of my readers tell me they can no longer access anything on blogger. It's disrupted the way I send out my newsletters, most of which refer to my blog entries for content. There's not much point in having a blog and newsletter if people can't read it.

And I specifically want to be able to communicate with my corporate readers. Why? Because that's where I think I can have the most impact. As you know if you've read my blog, I want to help businesses see the strategic value of work-life. I believe there is real business value in creating a balanced work-life culture at work. In fact, I believe I can prove it, and I can deliver the services to companies that will create a high-performance work-life culture. But I can't very well get this message out to companies of blogger is universally blocked.

So have patience with me as I "move house" here. The new blog location will, of course, have all my new entries, and eventually will have all the old entries as well.

Balance Your Way Through the Downturn

2009-02-10T08:57:00.002-06:00

I am so tempted to gloat. But I won't (OK, maybe just a little). Instead, I will simply quote and let you draw your own conclusions.

As anyone who has seen me talk or read my blog knows, I have been arguing for years that work and life are not opposites; rather, one must have both to achieve more of either. Being too "one sided" is dangerous, and will actually drive down one's productivity. As I preach this mantra, and look into the eyes of my audience, I can see people want to believe this, yet struggle to believe it. "Isn't work supposed to be hard?" they seem to ask. "How can it be possible for me to get more done and be having a good time?"

All of which is why (and I'm really trying not to gloat here) I was jolted awake today when I read an article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today, touting the dangers of being "Addicted to Success" (see link). I don't actually like the title of the article, because it implies that success is somehow a bad thing, and I vehemently oppose that notion. I think success is a good thing, but as with any good thing (like nuclear power) there are both good and bad ways to be successful. But as anyone who tries to write about "work-life balance success" knows, our language and culture make it hard to separate success from obsession. In our culture, success is only achieved through obsession. If you're not obsessed, then you are a wimp or a loser or a quitter or whatever.

So for a completely refreshing view of success, let me offer a couple of choice quotes from today's Wall Street Journal article:

The deepening recession is exacting punishment for a psychological vice that masquerades as virtue for many working people: the unmitigated identification of self with occupation, accomplishment and professional status.

Tanslated that means if you live to work, the recession is going to kick your butt. Note, too, how they call work obsession a vice. Here's another one:

Over-identification with work is one of many culprits in the epidemic of recession-related anxiety and depression that mental-health providers are reporting. But...the identity dilemma is within the individual's power to address, requiring no lender mercy or stroke of job-hunting fortune.

Translated this means even if you are a work-a-holic, the recession doesn't have to kick your butt unless you choose to let it.

So what's the cure? This was where I started to gloat:

To disassociate identity from professional status, therapists recommend taking pride in characteristics that can't be stripped away -- virtue, integrity, honesty, generosity. They also recommend investing more time and pride in relationships with family, friends and community.

And how does all this "reduction in anxiety" psych-speak impact bottom line business success? This was where I whooped out loud:

Of course, obsessive attention to work can breed success. But therapists say that adding some balance tends to help rather than hurt performance, in part by reducing pressure.

So there you go. Direct from psychologists who do this for a living: if you want to be more successful, look to balance.

Maybe I'm not crazy after all, thinking that if I balance my "life" it will actually improve my "work." Or if I am crazy, then it's a more successful kind of crazy. I'll take that any day.

Happiness is Contagious, (and Profitable?)

2009-02-06T13:27:00.003-06:00

After having gone a whole month without a blog entry (the reason for which, in itself, is another blog entry) I now find two items, back to back, that profoundly reinforce each other and the huge value of work-life.

I just finished writing a blog entry on the financial value of kindness (see link). The gist of that entry was content from Dr. William Baker showing how leaders who are kind to their employees obtain much higher results from those employees. The unanswerable question was whether the culture of harshness we have created over the past decade or two may have had a material contribution to the financial meltdown we are all now experiencing. My recommendation was for corporate leaders to leap at the chance to offer work-life skill training to their employees now, as a remedy for getting more productivity from employees who are facing tough times ahead.

On the heels of that entry, I was checking back through my notes and found this reference to a New York Times article on happiness (see link). This study, from the Harvard Medical School, followed people for 20 years and found that happiness is much more contagious than previously thought. Some highlights from the article:

"Your happiness depends not just on your choices and actions, but also on the choices and actions of people you don’t even know who are one, two and three degrees removed from you" (quote from Dr. Nicholas Christakis, author of the study). Translated, that means morale matters.
"If your friend’s friend’s friend becomes happy, that has a bigger impact on you being happy than putting an extra $5,000 in your pocket" (quote from James Fowler, co-author of the study). Translated, keeping employees happy can be more powerful than giving them a raise (though I can't think of too many folks who would turn down a raise these days).
The happiness you get from others has a shelf life. The bounce you get lasts only a limited time. Translated, it's not just about making people happy once, but creating a culture where happiness is reinforced.
A joyful coworker did not lift the spirits of colleagues, unless they were friends. Translated, that means if you have high turnover and nobody gets to be friends with anybody else, the effects of kindness would be nullified.

And of course, as with any good study there were detractors who say the results are suggestive at best, and cannot be taken as conclusive.

So what can we prove from all this, along with the book from Dr. Baker on the positive effects of kind treatment of employees? I don't know for sure. Buy my common sense tells me some things:

Treating your employees like commodities can't be good. Hiding behind "globalization" as a euphemism for throwing people on the garbage heap when you think you can make a few more bucks is going to ultimately backfire.
Finding inexpensive ways to provide meaningful kindness to employees has a large potential to do good.
Whenever you find yourself in a tough spot, you need to fight the tendency to become harsh, as that will only exacerbate your problems. A little kindness will go a long way in such times.
Looking for tangible methods with measurable results will be your best bet. CFOs are not going to be shelling out money these days. If you feel you need a "shot in the arm" for your employees, it better be something you can measure, something that has proven results, and something that can be tested.

At Dr. WorkLife, the only types of jobs we will take are ones which (1) are tied directly to the bottom line (2) which we can test, cheaply, with a pilot, and (3) which will have a positive projected business bottom line of overall cost reductions or new revenues. Of course, I'd love for everyone to buy from Dr. WorkLife, but no matter where you go, make sure you have a way to measure what you are doing.

Because while this new study shows that, apparently, it's good to be a nice guy after all, it's better to be a nice guy who makes a difference -- and can prove it.

Kindness, Balance, and the Financial Melt Down

2009-02-06T12:45:00.003-06:00

It continues to amaze me how many different places I find examples of work-life balance. Now I've said this before, and you all know I tend to see the world through work-life glasses, but when I find statistics that support my view I am convinced I am not simply kidding myself.

Take, for instance, the recent conversation with William Baker (on the Feb 5 Charlie Rose show) about Dr. Baker's new book "Leading with Kindness". Bill Baker, for those who do not know him, is a long time leader in public television in America. It turns out the Dr. Baker also has a Ph.D. in industrial psychology. "So what" you ask? The "so what" is that Dr. Baker's recent book explores the link between leaders who are "kind" and leaders who are "effective". The bottom line is this: you can lead people using fear, but only for a short while. Ultimately, people respond far more to kind treatment. My favorite quote from Dr. Baker was this:

People are willing to put out more than you can imagine if they feel they are being treated fairly

And again, you might say "so what?" We've heard all this before. It sounds like a lot of fluff from someone who pines for the good ol' days when we didn't have global competition. But the world is a harsh place now, right? I recently had someone who is taking a work-life class from me ask "Paul, isn't it foolish to be focusing on work-life now?"

No! It's just the opposite; now is perhaps the most important time to be focused on work-life. Let me give you just two of Dr. Bakers profound statistics (from a large survey he conducted for his book):

In answer to the question "I speak openly and candidly with my boss" (meaning, I tell him or her what he or she really needs to hear), for those who said they had a bully boss, 42% responded positively. But for those who had kind bosses, the 73% responded positively.
In answer to the question "My boss really listens to what I say" (meaning what I tell him or her gets passed up the line), for those with a bully boss, only 23% responded positively. For those with a kind boss, 84% responded positively

Now think back to the financial melt down and the number of CEOs of financial institutions who said they had no idea what was going on. It could be they really didn't know. In fact, as the statistics above prove, if you have a hard line, uncaring environment, you will not know what is going on because your employees simply will not tell you. If you are running a company you must rely on the information of the people around you. If you don't get the straight story from them, you will run your company right over the cliff.

How does all this relate to work-life? Think about our current situation. So many companies have pared down and cut back. So many employees are feeling uncertain about their lives. The air is thick with fear. More importantly, the employees who are left are your best; they are the ones you have to keep, and you are heaping more and more work on them. They must perform at their peak if your company is to survive. And as we have just seen, kindness can drive far more productivity than fear. Kindness is essential to corporate survival.

So how do you show kindness? A simple and cheap way is through work-life. And by this I am not talking about giving up any business goals. I mean just the opposite. Keep your business goals, drive your people as hard as you must, but recognize they are, in fact, people, and do something tangible to teach them specific skills to handle high demands on their time. That is a kindness that will add to the bottom line, not subtract.

Don't believe me? I dare you to try it. After all, only your entire company is at stake. And if you are driving your people with fear, how long do you think they will stay after the recovery kicks in?

This New Year, Stay on Vacation

2009-01-08T15:28:00.005-06:00

Some of you will think I've lost my mind when you read this. But before you commit me to the asylum, do me a favor. Give it a quick read now...and then read it again on the weekend. After that, if you still think I'm nuts you can write me off.

Everyone is, I am assuming, by now officially "back from holiday." And I'm guessing you have been back for a few days. Have you noticed the contrast? How different it feels to be back "in the work groove" versus how you felt when you were on holiday?

Sure, we all do. It's this sort of "dred" feeling. Almost like a heavy pack has been placed back on our shoulders. Vacation seemed so relaxing (a dim memory by now) whereas work doesn't feel that way.

Why? And why do we live that way?

Let me suggest that you don't. Let me suggest that you say "on vacation" every day. Wouldn't it be great? To be relaxed every day? Really enjoying yourself your whole life? Wow,
wouldn't that be amazing? To see how this is possible, let me illustrate with a story.

Before the holidays, I was running one of my work-life classes (group training). I asked the people in the class what their plans were. This happened to be a class of women, and all basically replied that their plans were to (1) clean, then (2) cook, then (3) collapse. The holidays, it seemed, were not a break, just a different kind of work. Sound familiar?

So I asked "well, what do you WANT to do on your vacation?" with the emphasis on "want." The curious thing was they had no answer. They had not really thought about that. I pressed them. I said "OK, let's think about it right now. Who wants to go first?" Silence. I the nominated someone to go first and her reply was, laughingly, "oh, please don't put me on the spot."

Isn't that interesting? I mean, here we are talking about V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N and not only were there no plans for what was "wanted", it was also hard to even think about "want to do" versus "need to do". It's as if we are not even taught how to think about what we want; everyone else always comes first.

The great thing about conversations like this is that they expose the things we all want to talk about, but don't. In this case, it's about expectations. We all have expectations for our holidays, but unless we talk about them the often remain hidden and, unfortunately, unattained. Have you ever have something you have been "meaning to do" for a while but "never get around to doing?" See what I mean?

The good news is if you do talk about your expectations -- the things you want -- it's a kind of wonderful release. Once you state them, it's like the "elephant in the room" that nobody talks about. Once stated, they are out and then can be talked about, planned for, etc.

To continue our story, once I did get everyone talking about what they wanted to do, it was a great conversation. We all came up with a few items we'd like to work in to the holiday. When I got back from holiday myself, one of the women from the class pinged me to tell me it was her best holiday ever.

What does all this have to do with staying on vacation? Well, look at it this way:

Vacations should be about...well...vacation. This past holiday, how many of you planned for, and did, something you really wanted to do? I hope you did. Certainly, you have had vacations in the past where you did just that -- where the whole point was to do what you wanted.
Next, how many of you realize we all get vacation every week? It's called the "week end" and even if you work on the weekends (retail) you still get days off, so don't split hairs with me on this. Every week we all get some time off. Do you use this time to actively think, and plan, for something you want to do?
And if you take the analogy to its logical limit, we all have some time each day for ourselves. It may be only an hour or two, but it is there if we look for it. You can't, or shouldn't, work literally all day every day. You would quickly burn out. Even if you work a 14 hour day, you still have 2 hours of awake time (if you get 8 hours of sleep). Do you plan ahead each day for using those 2 hours for something you want to do?

In short, every day can -- and I think, should -- be a vacation day. Think about what you want to do and plan to spend some time each day pursuing it. It's called pursuing your passions (see blog entry) and as I've written about before, this kind of activity is not only fun, it has an amazingly positive impact on your work-life. Your productivity will skyrocket if you do this.

"But Paul" you say "this is nuts. Say I want to cook a gourmet meal. Are you suggesting I call in sick, take the day off to cook, and tell my boss I don't care that we are in a recession? Are you suggesting that I ignore reality for some rose-colored-glasses view of the world were everybody does whatever they feel and ignores the pressures of the real world? Who are you kidding?"

No, I am not saying that. I'm not asking you to ignore real life or thumb your nose at your boss.

But I am asking you to accept that getting what you want out of life is your responsibility. And I am also asking you to be creative. So, for example, if you want to cook a gourmet meal, then Monday you could spend an hour looking for a recipe on line, and Tuesday you could build an ingredients list in 20 minutes, and Wednesday and Thursday you could spend 30 minutes on your drive home buying the ingredients, Friday you could spend 15 minutes with your family planning when you'll take time to cook on the weekend, and by Sunday night you can be eating a fantastic meal. And none of that is disruptive. But all of it would be exciting, and would change your entire outlook -- and your productivity -- for the week.

The bottom line, folks, is that you have a choice between two options:

You can spend your life focused on the stuff you hate to do, where what you want to do gets worked into the remaining time, or
You can spend your life focused on what you want to do, and what you have to do gets worked into the remaining time.

It's all a question of focus. Where is yours? Whose life is it anyway?

I challenge you to try this. Before so much time has slipped away that you can't remember what it felt like to be "on vacation." Try staying "on vacation" every day, and see if you don't also see a spike in your productivity.

How To Avoid Getting Your Buttons Pushed Over The Holidays

2008-12-06T12:55:00.004-06:00

Ho, ho, ho! It's that time of year again. The time to gather with family; you know, those people who know you so well they can get under your skin quicker than nails scratching on a chalk board. These are the times, and the people, who can push your buttons, as the saying goes, and make you blow your top.

Wouldn't it be great to be able to look forward to a family gathering and know -- beyond all doubt -- that you could avoid "button pushing" entirely?

It turns out you can. The trick, ironically enough, is to look forward to the button pushing. Let me show you how it works.

It all comes down to judgment. Think about it; when someone "pushes your buttons" it's because you are feeling like you are being judged unfairly. You feel like they "don't love you," or that you're "not good enough," or that they "don't understand you." And when you are "pushing their buttons" it's because you are judging them out of a sense of frustration. They are making "that same dumb mistake they always make" or they are "being as narrow-minded as they always are" or they are "not listening to you." In every case, it comes down to judgment.

And of course, we are taught to avoid judging when at all possible. Don't judge on the basis of race. Don't judge a book by its cover. Judgment is for the Lord in his (her?) own time.

But I think it's a good idea to judge, so long as you learn the right way to judge. I call it the Rule of Judgment, and I use it to my advantage every holiday season.

I've written other blog entries on this idea before (see this one which, in fact, I wrote it last holiday season). It's worth a re-read to bone up on the details. But let me give you a simple image here that might make it easy to remember: think "The Game of Clue."

Remember that game Clue? For those who don't know the game, it is a simple detective game, where the object is to guess the value of three cards hidden in the center of the board (one is a "person", another a "room" and the last a "weapon"). Remember how you get to the end of the game and say something like "I think it was Mr. Green, in the Ballroom, with the Revolver?" If you were wrong, someone might same something like "Ha, ha! You lose! I have the Mr. Green card in my hand you dork!" This would, of course, be exactly the WRONG way to interact. It would amount to "breaking the Rule of Judgment" by putting the person on the defensive, criticizing their solution, and it might get you a tiny metal revolver chucked at you to boot.

But remember what happened if you were correct? The reaction, and the subsequent conversation, were both totally different. The game was over, because you had guessed correctly, and so now everybody was free to share all their deductions which they had been keeping to themselves during the game. People would say things like "I KNEW it was Mr. Green, because I had eliminated everybody else when Bob dropped his cards and I got a peek, but I still had two rooms to go" or they might say "how did you figure out the Revolver? I thought it had to be the Rope." In short, instead of talking about the SOLUTION, everyone talked about the DECISION PROCESS. Do you hear that difference?

That difference is THE KEY to the Rule of Judgment, and to avoiding getting your buttons pushed or, for that matter, pushing anyone else's buttons. If you can stay away from engaging in conversations about conclusions, and instead talk about the decision process, you will find every holiday conversation is much more pleasant.

Let me give you an example. Say you're talking to your 16-year-old niece, and you say "how's it going?" to which she replies "I want to get a tattoo but my parents won't let me". Now, you think tattoos are about the ugliest thing on the planet, and your immediate reaction might be to say something like "oh yeah, that will look really good on you when you are in the nursing home." And we all know how well that would go over; she'd just give you that teenager look and it would end the conversation really fast.

But even if you are adamantly opposed to tattooing in all forms, here's a better way to proceed. Think "Clue" and focus on the decision PROCESS. Say "wow, that's interesting. How did you decide you wanted to do that?" She might say "I think it's cool." And you could then say "you know, I've thought about tattoos but I always figure I might some day want to change my mind, have you ever thought about that?" And she might say "yeah, well, that's no big deal because you can get them removed if you want." And then you could say "I've heard that, but I've never actually seen anyone who had one removed. I'd be scared my skin would look terrible. Have you ever seen anyone with a tattoo removed?" And on, and on it would go, all without any "you are stupid for thinking that" entering in to the conversation.

Notice the essential quality of the conversation is completely different. Instead of judging her conclusion, you are instead engaged in a conversation about her decision process. You can remain completely opposed to tattoos, and still have an open and engaging conversation where you are seeking to understand her thinking, instead of negatively judging her as "stupid" or "immature" because she might draw a different conclusion. And who knows? By getting her to walk through her thinking, you might have far more impact on her than you would imagine. Certainly she'd remember that you respected her enough to actually consider her thought process worthy of discussion.

It also works the other way. When Uncle Bob says to you "dude, when are you going to have kids so your mom can be a grandma? She's counting on you, you know" you can resist the urge to throw your drink at him. Instead of getting defensive, you can invite him into a conversation about your decision process and diffuse all the negative judgment. You can say "well let me share my thinking with you, because I'm not sure I'm ready yet." You can then run your thoughts by him -- just like the tattoo example above -- and see how he thinks. Sure, he's going to give you the hard sell, but you can steer the conversation away from that. Instead you can continue to focus the conversation around the big questions that matter to you, things like "I've only been married for 6 months, don't I need some time to work on my marriage first?" or "everyone I know with kids is getting divorced...how do you stay focused on keeping the marriage strong after the kids come?" or "it seems impossible to be able to save enough money for college these days, how would you do it?" or whatever. Either way, you control the conversation by "playing Clue" and keeping it focused on your decision process instead of his conclusions.

Give that a try. "Play Clue" through the holidays. Have some fun respecting the differences among family members. You don't have to agree about anything to have fun enjoying the differences in how everyone thinks. We are all on the same difficult journey and nobody has all the answers. If we respect each other enough to value different ways of thinking, it smooths out the ride.

Besides, who cares if it was Mr. Green in the Ballroom with the Revolver? It's not the ultimate answer that makes Clue one of the most successful games ever. It's the fun of figuring out the answer that keeps us coming back for more.

How to Dodge the Doom and Gloom

2008-12-03T17:32:00.003-06:00

I've been meaning to write a blog entry about a WSJ article from a month ago, by Sue Shellenbarger. It was entitled "Another Casualty from the Crisis: Family Time."

The gist of the article is, as you might expect, that the coming recession, now "officially here" (why it took a year to make it official is another whole blog entry), will put a strain on workers. That strain will come in the form of more work to go around for fewer workers which, of course, translates into longer hours. Here's a quote from the article, where Sue is quoting Jennifer Mathis:

She (Jennifer) expects instead to work harder and longer as co-workers, hard-pressed by staff cuts, look for "more from me, rather than less.

Sounds reasonable, right? Of course we are all going to have to produce more with less, right? And of course that means we are all going to have to work longer hours, right?

WRONG!

It's that last conclusion, the automatic "working harder means working longer" assumption, that makes me want to scream. It's absolutely false. You do NOT have to work longer to increase your productivity. In fact, the OPPOSITE is true. The key to sustained productivity is working SMARTER. In fact, in times of high stress you must focus MORE on your work-life balancing so you can sustain yourself -- your passion, your energy, and your enthusiasm -- over the long run.

Put it this way. Does anyone think this recession is going to be a short one? Are you already working 50-60 hour weeks now? Is anyone expecting more funding next year? Or more hiring to help with workload? No, of course not. Put those together and we are looking at the equivalent of running a marathon, folks. And would you run a marathon by starting out at a sprint?

To me, the logic is inescapable. The current conditions imply we must master work-life balancing. It's the only way to increase productivity in an environment where you know there is no more time to squeeze out of your calendar.

So how do you do that? Well, now would be a good time to review the basic principles of work-life that I've written about in this blog (see here). If you've been considering it but haven't tried it yet, now mght be a time to consider getting a copy of my book and giving it a go as your New Year's resolution (see here).

But let me emphasize one tip that you can start using right away that will guaranty "family time," whether "family" for you means time with your spouse, your kids, or your friends. It echoes what Sue points out at the end of her article about taking the time to "calendar 'family' time" to relieve stress. It's a simple formula which, if you are consistent, will really work wonders to counteract the feeling of "working all the time". I've written about it before. I call it "date nights" and it works like this:

First, decide whom you want to have a "date" with. Your kids, your spouse, your friends. List the "important people" to you.
Second, decide on having some short but regular sessions with them. Don't pick the dates quite yet, just get it into your head that what you're after here is not a "let's plan a 3-week cruise" but rather a "how can I get say an hour into my calendar a couple of times a week" with the people that matter to me.
Third, pick the first available time on the calendar for a "date". Don't make it a big, has-to-be-a-perfect-date thing either. Keep it easy. Just some time together doing something you like.
Fourth and MOST IMPORTANT -- at the end of the date ALWAYS calendar the "next date". This is critical. Always, always, always make sure that the date ritual has a "closing ceremony" of pulling out the calendar and getting the next date set. You've heard the saying "it's not over 'til the fat lady sings?" Think "it's not over 'til the next date is on the calendar." I can't emphasize this enough -- if you skip this step, it wrecks the whole thing, because you will get busy and 6 weeks will go by before you look up from your blackberry and think "wow...I haven't had a date in 6 weeks. Where did the time go?"

If you follow this simple formula, particularly step 4, and if you are consistent, you will find it has a huge de-stressing effect. Why? Because you, and the people who matter to you, will know they are always "on the calendar" no matter what, and that creates a kind of "comfort" to look forward to. It's like anything else: when you have a hard job ahead of you, like cutting the grass on a hot day where it's 95 in the shade (40 centigrade), knowing that you have a nice cold glass of lemonade to look forward to makes the job a lot easier.

Try it and see. What have you got to lose?

Not Getting A Nap is -- Literally -- Stupid

2008-11-27T09:52:00.005-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all my regular readers. It's great to be able to get up at 9:00 am, take a leisurely run, read the paper, grab a cup of coffee, and head for a blog. Life should be like this every day.

In the interest of work-life (i.e., stop reading a darn blog and start living) I'll keep this brief today. I wanted to share a tip for the holiday season...and again, it comes from the world of sleep research, specifically napping, which I have blogged about several times.

This latest tidbit comes from an AP story (by Lauran Neergaard) on the front page of the Austin American Statesman. The latest news: naps are essential to some of our most sophisticated types of memory building and creativity.

Here are the two key highlights:

Particularly important to building memory and creativity is the "slow wave" sleep, which comes early in the sleep cycle, before the more commonly known REM sleep (dreaming). That means from a creativity & memory perspective you get more from the early phases of sleep, i.e., the parts you would get from napping.
Fragmented sleep disrupts the formation of new brain cells, hindering learning for weeks. That means you can't get the same effects by trying to "make up" for lack of sleep. Trying to run on 5 or 6 hours a night and catch up on the weekends will not help. You'll still be stupider than the folks who get regular sleep and naps.

So, why not use the holiday season to do some serious brain work--all you have to do is take a nap.

Seriously, though, consider this is a larger light. It's the selfirst thing all over again. How many different ways have we said it in this blog? Taking care of yourself is THE KEY to higher performance. Working harder does NOT mean working longer, it means working smarter.

So get your rest. You are quite literally being stupid if you don't.

How Top Performers Deal with "The Rules"

2008-11-17T10:40:00.003-06:00

Here is a WSJ article about top performing women and what they do to maintain their balance. Always good for female audience, but I think it has great lessons for everyone. It touts many of the same themes we've been hearing for a while, but they bear repeating:

Employer support is crucial
Supportive spouse is crucial
Work-life is not just a women's issue

But there was one item in the article that really stuck out for me, and I would emphasize is the core concept of what makes things work for women (and men). The article quotes Bobbi Brown (founder of her own cosmetics company and the opening subject of the story) saying the following:

I'm not someone who follows the rules. I'm someone who makes them.

Now that sounds supremely confident, even borderline arrogant. But don't let the bluster hide the really value in what she is saying. She is essentially saying "I don't sit around and blame THEM for what I can or cannot do. I go after what I want, and if I have to reinvent the rules, then I do so."

This is a big theme of this blog, and a critical element of work-life balance. You MUST see YOURSELF as the BIGGEST obstacle to your work-life balance. Being a woman is irrelevant. Being a mom is irrelevant. Being a C-level exec is irrelevant. Those, and countless other excuses like them, are "blame language" -- and they represent an easy place to hide.

Now I know what I'm writing can sound like a tongue lashing, like a coach saying "don't give me your wimpy excuses, just get out there and get it done!" That is not the point either.

The point is to try to help you understand the power YOU really DO have. It's all about attitude. In our un-balanced world, you have to choose: are you going to let "them" tell you what kind of life you can have? Or are you going to decide that YOU can determine what kind of life you can have.

Here is a simple method you can use to help you put this into practice. I call it a "blame inventory". It's simple, and involves four steps:

First, set aside an hour to have a "pity party." Write down all the things that bug you and all the reasons why "they" (whoever they are) are keeping you from doing what you want. Let it all out -- go ahead and blame absolutely everyone and everything. Make sure you write it down (or record it so you can play it back).
Put it down. Leave it for a day or two. Then come back and just listen to what you have said (or written). Listen not for the "who is to blame" part, but rather for what the blame is hiding. Is there a common theme? When you take away the anger and the blame, is there something that comes up again and again as something you really want to do that keeps getting put off? Is it time for yourself? Is it a vacation for just you? Regardless of who is to blame, what is it that is being blocked? That thing that is being blocked, whatever it is, is something you need to get into your life.
Now that you have identified at least one thing you want to do, your next step is to take another hour and have a "glass half full" session. With this one thing you want to do in mind, write down every creative way you can think of to make it happen. Go ahead and be as outrageous as you like -- think unlimited funds, unlimited help, unlimited understanding from those around you. The idea is to give yourself permission to do as much "out of the box" thinking as possible. Again, write it down or record it.
Finally, approach those closest to you who are in a position to help, and ask for their help. You would be amazed at how positively people respond to an approach that (1) is positive,as in "here's what I'd like to do", versus a negative, whiny approach, and (2) asks for help. People LIKE to help -- but they don't like to help whiners.

Try this out and see what happens. You'll be amazed at how people will step up to help when you approach them in a positive fashion.

Stats Linking Mobile Devices and Work-Life

2008-11-12T10:57:00.000-06:00

The UK continues to churn out studies on work-life (and, frankly, I wish the US would keep up). This time it's a story from the Commerce Times on a study conducted by the Aberdeen group showing more business stats linked to mobile devices. Here is a sampling of some of the more interesting (to me) stats:

The ones we "expect" (which favor the business):

35% increase in employee productivity (for workers on the road)
23% increase in customer satisfaction
10% increase in employee collaboration

But more interestingly, here are some stats we might not have expected:

25% increase in employee retention
23% increase in ability to respond quickly to employee needs

It's interesting to see the use of mobile devices tied to employee retention -- I had not seen that before. And an increase in the ability to respond to employee needs makes sense, but again it is interesting to see the stat as something that can be quantified.

The article does leave one thing out, however. It notes that mobile technology can be a "double edged sword" which provides benefits but also acts like an "electronic leash". The article spends its time touting the benefits but gives no solution to the "dark side" of mobile devices.

To me, this is where a company's approach to work-life comes in. It's crucial for a company to treat work-life as not simply an offering, but as a culture. I've written about this before (see this blog entry, this blog entry, and this blog entry). A set of programs are not enough. It's like giving someone running shoes and expecting them to know how to run a marathon.

Career and Work-Life: Ditch the Ladder

2008-11-10T09:49:00.003-06:00

Ever spend any time thinking about how you are going to "climb the ladder" at work? Ever worry about it? Ever find yourself having a sleepless night second guessing yourself about whether or not you are doing the "right thing" with your career?

Then perhaps this article in the NY Times is for you, or at least it may give you a different way to think about your career. It was written by by Cathy Benko (who I gather works for Deloitte) talking about the "lattice" work place instead of the "ladder" work place.

The idea, as Cathy claims, is that the world is changing from a climb the ladder place to a navigate the lattice place. She points out how many careers develop in a way that could never have been "planned" in a straight-line sort of sense. Instead, they sort of "zig zag" between different things, sometimes landing in totally unexpected places. I totally agree, and it's a perfect example of what I preach about "process versus outcome" (see my process blog entry here, and see tips on staying "process focused" here).

The whole point, from a work-life perspective, is to switch your thinking from an obsessive, "constantly worrying about the outcome" point of view, to a confident, "I know the right thing will work out because I am taking the right actions" point of view.

Think of it this way: how much do you really gain from worrying? Nothing. And how much can you really control what other people will do? You cannot. What you can control is you, your actions, your integrity, and the value you add when you bring your skills and commitment to the table. And what is the best way to "get ahead" anyway? By trying to second guess the system and brown-nose your way up? Hardly. It's been my experience, both in my own career and in the careers of those whom I coach, that the people who get the promotions are the ones who create a reputation for providing value. They are not focused on what they will get, but on what they can provide.

Or if you prefer Cathy's lattice argument, then the value comes from providing as much value in as many places as you can. Serve the organization in whatever ways you can, and you gain a reputation -- across the organization -- of being a valued employee. And that reputation is your biggest ally in your career aspirations.

Talk to the Shabti

2008-11-03T07:51:00.000-06:00

It's pronounced in two syllables, accent on the first one, where the first is pronounced "shob" (rhymes with "blob") and the second is pronounced "tee" (like the "T" in T-shirt). Shabti. And among other things, I think it's a huge, missed marketing opportunity for King Tut fans.

This past weekend I was in Dallas, lured by the dual attractions of the visiting Boy King exhibit and an American Girl store (we have neither famous dead pharohs nor two-story doll stores in Austin...yet). And as I stood in line, amazed by the fact that there would still BE a long line (hadn't everyone already seen this the last time it came around?) and trying to remember the words to the Steve Martin song, the furthest thing from my mind was work-life balance.

Imagine my astonishment, then, when I encountered a five-thousand-year-old nod to the value of work-life balance. There it was, in room four, number 17 on the audio tour: the Shabti (which I capitalize here out of reverence), about 7 inches tall, displayed in a glass case along with several other key items buried with a mummy considered essential for the afterlife. It was shaped like a sarcophagus and intricately carved with hieroglyphics, the Egyptian artistic equivalent to a Russian black lacquer box. Its purpose: to perform labor for the individual in the afterlife. Not a slave, mind you, but a substitute, so that whenever you would be called upon to contribute some kind of work, your shabti would stand in for you and perform the task.

Now, most of us, when we think of the afterlife, I would guess imagine it as a place of total relaxation and enjoyment, a sort of endless lying on the ground being fed grapes kind of place. Work? Who said anything about work in the afterlife? But I think the Egyptians are the wiser in this respect. They must have known that wherever there is a group of humans, there is going to be the equivalent of behind-the-scenes-of-the-Disney-magic that has to done. And when their number came up to perform this celestial maintenance, they were going to be prepared. They would have a shabti.

You might think that I have a tendency to see work-life everywhere, and probably I do. But this humbled me. We think of work-life balance as a "new" topic, something we are struggling with in our modern blackberry-crazy world that no ancient could have possibly foreseen. And yet, here we have an example of wisdom from five thousand years in the past that recognizes the need to prepare for a future filled with work. It put me in my place, and more than anything else in the exhibit, it connected me with those people from the distant past with whom I seemingly had so little in common. They, too, must have struggled with getting everything done -- even the royalty -- otherwise there would be no need for a shabti. Certainly not one so intricately carved and carefully prepared.

So when the end of the exhibit channeled us into the inevitable museum store full of Tut tchotchkes, I was disappointed to find no shabtis. I wanted one for my library, or maybe something small I could carry around in my pocket. Even a key chain that would hang from my rear-view-mirror would have sufficed.

That way, the next time someone made an outrageous request of me, instead of saying "talk to the hand" I could simply say "talk to the shabti".

Why Do They Get Rid of Recess?

2008-10-30T09:08:00.005-05:00

My daughter (the one going into middle school next year) asked me a really interesting question the other day:

"Dad...why do they get rid of recess in Middle School?" she asked.

"Why do you ask, honey?" I volleyed back.

"Well," she said, "I like recess. It's a great break in the middle of the day. Sometimes I stay by myself. Sometimes I talk with my friends (because we're not allowed to talk in class). Sometimes I do some homework. But I just don't know what I'll do without it because I really need that break in the middle of my day. I hope I don't have math at the end of the day."

And I have to admit, she had me there. I hoped she didn't have math at the end of the day too. Can you imagine having to start at 7:30 am, go straight through until 2:00 pm, with only a 25 minute break for hurried lunch, be expected to pay close attention that entire 7-hour period, and THEN top off that whole experience with having to learn something advanced and difficult at the end of the day?

Who among us would even be able to do it?

Which got me thinking about why I believe so strongly in a group approach to work-life balance. We live in a culture that is completely warped about what it means to "work hard." We think working hard means toiling. We completely miss the point that working hard means working smart. Our culture doesn't permit us to believe that it is possible to take a strategic break in the middle of the day. Even if we can show that such breaks are guaranteed to make you more productive. We just can't conceive of it. Our belief structure, as reinforced by our culture, simply does not permit such a thought (see my other blog entry).

And if you need any evidence of how deeply ingrained this kind of cultural bias is, you need look no further than Middle School. Obviously, recess is for "little kids." Grown ups don't take breaks.

And this kind of thinking is only going to get stressed more as the recession looms before us.

Which is why a group is really your only hope. Work life is like any other problem where you are faced with forming a new habit that flies in the face of conventional wisdom. One can read any number of books, fill one's head with principles, and construct completely unassailable logic that proves a new habit is needed. I would argue, in fact, that my book does exactly that. And yet, even with all of that, one would still be faced with the peer pressure of everyone around you doing things the old way. In such a setting, going it alone is virtually impossible.

But a group of like-minded people, who can create what I think of as "positive peer pressure" can act as a counter-balance. It is, I believe, the only realistic way to fight back against a "cultural-wide bad habit."

And that is what I am all about at Dr. WorkLife. That's what I do. I don't want to turn this blog entry into a sales pitch, but if you're interested contact me. Or search the web for other group work-life approaches. You'll be happy you did.

All of this flashed through my mind (and created the idea for this blog entry) but left me with no good answer for my daughter. After a few moments thought, I finally said the following to her:

"Well, honey, I don't have a good answer. I'm afraid Middle School is making a big mistake. Don't ever forget what you've learned about recess; it's a great idea. When you are done with school, you can start taking recess again and you'll be way better off than everyone else."

"Rolling Out" a Work-Life Balance Plan

2008-10-28T09:48:00.001-05:00

Here is a delightful article about a woman who does a special exercise class for brand new moms (see "Mom helps her peers roll to fitness").

A couple of things struck me about it. First was just the mental image it inspired. I have a quirky sense of humor anyway, but this got me. Imagine a class full of moms. They all have relatively small children, still in strollers. The moms meet at the park. And then the class begins with exercises in front of the kids, followed by "power walks" using the strollers.

I had this great image of myself as a baby in the class. There I was, in my stroller, strapped in (I hope!). The moms begin by "circling the wagons," kinda like those old-time "Cowboy and Indian" movies. I imagine myself really enjoying it when, while we are singing "the wheels on the bus," mom seems to really be getting into the song, swinging her hands around and doing all kinds of physical motions. I have no idea she is exercising, I just thing "wow! this must be one heck of a song, 'cause it's making Mom go nuts!"

After a few versus of that, the strollers line up, kinda like the start of an Indy race, and then we are off. We zoom through the park, which I absolutely love. It makes the wind whistle through my hair. And it has all the makings of a great race, all of us rumbling along in a pack, temporarily taking over the park trail, a noisy, boisterous, sometimes-somebody-falls-off-the-track kind of mobile herd just this side of out of control. I'm a guy--granted, a little guy--but a guy none the less so I love it. The only thing that's frustrating is that I don't have a steering wheel, I wish Mom would stop talking so much go faster, and -- arrgh! -- one of these days we are definitely going to come in ahead of Suzie, who always beats me out to the finish line (I'm trying to figure out how I can give Suzie a flat tire next time).

But best of all, I'm left with this wonderful experience. I see moms coming together in a group, chatting, excited to be together, a little nervous to be doing something that other folks might think is a bit whacky (I mean...exercising with a stroller?). But then, they work together, they keep each other going, there is a definite energy that is created because they work AS A GROUP. When someone is not there, they notice, and they use their phones to call her. Sometimes the group will wait for someone who is running late. It all reminds me of the Lilo and Stich movie, of that phrase "ohana means family, and family means no one gets left behind."

Of course, this is pretty heady stuff for a 1 year old. I don't really know I'm thinking all of this. What I do know is that Mom seems excited. When she's down, this lifts her up. And the group is the key. It is like a family. Without it, she probably would never exercise, would never be as happy, and that would be way worse for me. I'm a lucky guy because my Mom has the guts to do something a little different, to think "out of the box" to get her work-life balance. And she has the wisdom to know that finding a group to help her is the way to make it work.

Why I Hope The Recession Makes a Monkey Out of Me

2008-10-20T09:36:00.004-05:00

My daughter gave me the greatest compliment of my life over this past weekend when she told me one night as we were tucking in for bed, "you know, Dad, I really like myself. Not that everything always goes right, and I know I have some things I can do better. But I am really happy. Even when I'm sad, I never stop liking who I am."

Wow.

Talk about work-life balance. That kid is miles ahead of where I am (I'm still working on feeling like that). It made me think that I might just be doing something right. I was a very cool moment (and when she's a teenager and can't stand me, I will grit my teeth and cling to it to get me through!)

In any event, it made me think of a great joke I heard that applies to all this financial turmoil, whether we will all keep our jobs, and how in the world we will survive what appears to be a long and difficult recession with even the shreds of a work-life balance left intact. Here you go. Enjoy.

The Gazelle Lion and the Monkey

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.

Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must out run the slowest gazelle or it will starve.

It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes, you better start running.

Every morning, the monkey wakes up, sits in his tree, and watches the crazy gazelles and lions run themselves silly until they collapse in exhaustion. He then climbs down from his tree, walks over, pokes them both in the eye and -- laughing -- walks away eating a banana.

The Work-Life Tower of Babel

2008-10-15T15:54:00.000-05:00

I saw yet another article on the strong connection between young workers (call them Gen Y, Millenials, next geners) and work-life balance attitudes (see this article on "Young Canadian Workers")

I've seen so many of these kinds of articles now, and they all say the same basic things:

Younger workers have a "different view" than "older" workers
Younger workers don't want to "give up their life" for their work
The two generations "don't understand" each other

I like these articles, and I agree that they are continuing evidence of the need for companies to embrace work-life, but I wonder if they all don't miss a more important point.

To me, there is a very big difference between a company that has work-life programs and a company that has a work-life culture. One can easily have the former without the latter. And there is a danger, I think, in creating a corporate culture that simply offers programs because those programs can become a way of creating barriers among your employees.

How? Because if a company takes the view that work-life is a personal issue only, then the result can be that you create a series of what I call "work-life islands." Specifically, all the "Gen Y-ers" related only to themselves and their way of thinking, all the "boomers" relate only to themselves and their way of thinking, etc. One can imagine all the young parents using maternity leave programs and feeling like they are completely misunderstood by the older employees who are past all of that and also by the younger employees who don't have children. And the younger employees can easily end up with a feeling of resentment towards programs which all seem to "favor people with kids." I see this kind of thing all the time.

The result is a "work-life tower of babel" where every individual group speaks only its own language, and either can't understand the other groups, or worse, harbors resentment towards them.

But this, to me, misses the great opportunity of work-life: the opportunity to create a common work-life vocabulary. Let me explain how I see that working.

The wonderful thing about work-life is that everybody needs it. Absolutely everybody. I don't care whether you are the CEO or the janitor, whether you are old or young, new or experienced. Everybody has a life. And everybody who wants to work wants to contribute. We all have the same basic needs. Please don't tell me that your job is "too important" for you to have a life. Do you really believe you can be miserable and still be productive?

One can use this universal work-life need to create programs that teach universal work-life principles as a basic skill. For instance, no matter what my work-life situation, I will need time to myself. I will need to know what my passions are and feel like I can pursue them. I will get stuck in "blame language" and I will need ways to escape it. These sort of basic principles can be taught. And they are applicable to all individuals seeking work-life, no matter what their individual specific needs are.

If you take this approach you can then create groups of diverse individuals who can reinforce each other, despite having drastically different goals, because they have all had the same "work-life basic training." It's exactly the same thing we did when diversity was first coming in to the work place. I do it all the time in group courses that I run and it works great. In fact, I've had many individuals tell me they appreciate the diversity, because it "proves" to them that (1) they are not "alone" or "weird" in their work-life needs and (2) that their work-life needs will still be relevant to their career, even as their career changes and (3) that the company can address a wide range of work-life situations, not simply "people who have kids"

For individuals who are seeking work-life, I cannot over emphasize this need to understand the basic principles. And for companies seeking to create a work-life culture, I cannot over emphasize the need to teach these basic principles to all your employees...particularly your management team. Managers will set the tone, and they will be faced with a wide range of different employees in different circumstances. They have to be able to relate to everyone to do their job.

Your alternative is a Work-Life Tower of Babel. And we all know how well that turned out.

Small Firms Have The Work-Life Advantange

2008-10-13T17:41:00.000-05:00

When it comes to implementing work-life, small firms have a definite advantage. Why? Because it is easier to build a company-wide work-life culture in a smaller company, and an overall culture is the key to work-life (see my previous blog entries on the topic).

Since this is a view I have supported for a long time now, naturally I was interested to see the Wall Street Journal carry an article on this topic. Check it out here.

In particular, check out these two quotes from the article:

Employees under 40 years old are nearly twice as likely as employees over 40 to rate their work-life balance as most important when choosing a job, according to a study by Next Generation Consulting Inc.

Gen Y employees made up about 25% of the work force, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. As baby boomers head to retirement, those numbers will grow, and "companies don't have a choice" but to embrace the next generation of workers

When you see them side-by-side like that, it's fairly compelling that firms who can "win at work-life" will win in the marketplace.

Look out big firms, the small ones may have the advantage.

Presidential Candidates Weigh In on Work-Life

2008-10-10T14:18:00.005-05:00

Well, THIS was cool. For the first time, both Presidential candidates weighed in on the issue of work-life (see this WSJ entry, and this Families And Work summary)

Now...being a work-life guy myself and knowing that most of you who read this will probably not have the time to dig into the details, I thought the most useful thing I could do was pull out the specific recommendations that each candidate made. If you read the Families and Work article above, you get the full text of the interviews. But I read through them for anything that was specific (not just fluff) that each candidate was suggesting. Here's what I found:

Obama

Establish a Presidential Commission on Work-Life
New law requiring 7 paid sick days a year
New law allowing employees to petition their employers for a flexible work arrangement, which would require a reply (note: the business would not be required to grant the arrangement)
On paid leave, several changes:
- Expand the "Family And Medical Leave Act (FMLA)" to cover businesses with 25 or more employees (current is 50 or more)
- Allow workers to take leave for elder care needs
- Allow parents up to 24 hours of leave eahc year to participate in their children's activities
- Employees could not be fired for dealing with these essential needs
On pre-K plans for children:
- Quadruple the number of children eligible for "Early Head Start"
- Increase "Child Care Development Block Grant" money
- Reform the "Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit" and allow low-income families to receive up to 50% credit on child care expenses
On after school care: double funding for "21st Century Community Learning Centers"

McCain

Establish a Presidential Commission on Work-Life
Would not expand FMLA
Does not want any mandates on what businesses should or should not be required to provide to their employees
Wants to start "Centers of Excellence" in "Head Start" to reform Head Start to make it more efficient (particularly with measurable standards for the program)
Specifically does not advocate any after-school programs
Wants to look more at "PACE (Program fo All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly)." He sees "institutional bias" in our system in general (note: not in PACE...see comments below) that he wants to eliminate so that seniors have a choice to stay in their home versus an institution.

So there you go. A head-to-head comparison of specific recommendations. I was surprised to see how very different the candidates were on this topic. If you have the time, I recommend you look through the Families and Work summary.

Does the Financial Crisis Mean the End of Work-Life Gains?

2008-10-09T08:46:00.003-05:00

I have to make a confession. There are a lot of times that I fall behind on the news. You know how it goes...there is just so much going on in life these days that it's easy to simply miss a few days of news and not hear about something that everyone seems to be talking about.

But I can't imagine anyone not knowing about the current financial crisis, which has hit the US particularly hard. And people are scared. You can see that look on their face; that "wow...I sure hope I can keep my job" look. Not many are saying it out loud, but a lot of folks are feeling it.

So from a work-life perspective it begs a question: what will happen to all our gains in work-life? Will they just disappear along with stock values?

It's easy to think "yes" as the answer. After all, if the economy takes a plunge, if we enter another depression like the great depression, people will be scared for their jobs. In that kind of an environment, nobody would squawk about working a 60-hour week if it meant keeping food on the table.

But I am bullish on work-life. I think it will not only stick around, but strengthen. My reason? There are some long term trends that are forcing both individuals and businesses towards work-life that even the current financial crisis will not change.

Let's take these trends in turn:

Increased use of mobile technology. Over the past few decades, we have seen a tremendous adoption of mobile technology (cell phones, BlackBerries, iPhones, etc). This trend is not going to reverse.
Increased globalization of jobs. More and more companies are operating in a global nature. It is increasingly obvious that the world economy is much more integrated and interdependent than it ever was. Look at yesterday's news about multiple world banks coordinating an interest rate reduction. The world is not going to suddenly become less connected.
Decreasing overall workforce. This one surprised me. I have been under the impression that some parts of the world (e.g. Japan) have a shrinking workforce, but I thought other parts of the world (China, India) had more growth. Overall, however (and this data come from Accenture, not a shabby firm by any stretch) the global workforce is shrinking.

"So what?" you might ask. "What does this have to do with work-life?" I think it means that no matter what, we will see a continued need for work-life skills. Take the first trend: the increase in mobile technology. Essentially this means I "wear my work on my hip" (or carry it in my purse). The more we can communicate, the more we take work (and life) with us everywhere. The boundary between "work time" and "living time" if not completely erased, is nearly erased. That is a fundamental change in the nature of work that will not go away, and it implies we all are being forced to learn a new set of skills -- how to draw boundaries between work and life -- to cope with this trend.

Take the second trend: globalization of work. Combined with the first trend, this only exacerbates the blur between work-time and living-time. In fact, a financial crisis would probably only deepen this trend, as more and more companies will be forced to do business everywhere they can to survive. So once again, learning the skill of how to draw appropriate boundaries when work-time can be any time will be crucial to individuals and firms who want to avoid burnout.

Finally, consider the fact that the global workforce is shrinking. In the short term, if jobs get scarce, and "survival" instead of "growth" is the corporate focus, then employers won't have to worry about this. But ultimately things will return to "normal" and the competition for talent will heat up. Companies that abandon work-life policies now will find themselves hard-pressed to regain the trust of workers, particularly next-gen workers, when the market recovers.

So don't abandon you search for work-life skills. You are going to need them more than ever.

The Curse of the "Puritan Ethic"

2008-07-02T15:24:00.005-05:00

In the US the phrase "Puritan Work Ethic" refers to the general idea that if you want to get ahead in life, you need to be willing to put in the effort. "No pain, no gain" as they say. Those who sacrifice get ahead. We seem to revel in sacrifice.

And yet, if you want to really get ahead, drive your company forward, I would claim that working harder is one of the stupidest things you can do.

This is an outrageous claim, and not only because it goes against deeply embedded cultural norms. One also must be able to back it up, and logic would seem to dictate that there is no alternative to hard work. And after all, we don't want to encourage a bunch of "slacker" who don't work at all. So how can this make sense?

The key is to work smarter, not longer. There is a big difference between being busy and being effective. The mistake is to allow yourself to be fooled that just because you are putting in more hours means you are getting more done. That is just not so.

A great article in the Times Online gives some stats that are particularly revealing:

Nearly two-thirds of managers and supervisors work overtime;more that four-fifths of senior managers work overtime
Of these, one quarter put in between 10 and 20 extra hours per week; 6.5% do more than 20 extra hours per week; and almost 2% put in an extra 30 hours a week (yikes!)
23% of small business owners say they spend in excess of 50 hours per week at the office (see this article for this stat)
68% of all business leaders say they spend more time working then they did five years ago (see this article for this stat)

And what does all this extra "productivity" buy you? Here are the costs:

More than one-third of those working just 10 hours overtime report stress-related health symptoms
For those working 30 hours overtime, it rises to 42%

According to a study from Harvard Medical School (cited in the Chicago Tribune, Jan '07) the US spends $150B a year (that's "B" as in "Billion") on costs due to absenteeism.

Now I know, I know. We have global competition. There are something like 100M people in China who earn less than $500 per year. The sense that we have to do something to address the added pressure from competition is compelling, and the easiest response for us is to fall back on our old "Puritan Work Ethic" and just work longer. But clearly that doesn't work. Just do the math: at the current US minimum wage, a worker in the US would have to work 23.4 hours a day to equal the output of someone making $500 per year. Can you get by on only 40 minutes of sleep a day?

There is a better way. One can use work-life to train employees how to get more done in less time while taking the time to "recharge their batteries" so they can maintain high performance over the long haul. I've run multiple pilots at IBM showing the positive effects of work-life training. After work-life training, work place attitudes tied to retention consistently show dramatic increases (first illustration below) and productivity and innovation simultaneously increase (second illustration below).

So don't give in to the "curse of the Puritan Work Ethic" because nobody can work 23.4 hours a day to bring home minimum wage. That's just ridiculous.

Implementing Work-Life

2008-07-02T15:06:00.002-05:00

I have now read this same fact enough times that I've decided to add a new label to my blog posts. I'm calling it "Implementation" and it refers to the key factors you need to take into consideration as you plan to implement work-life in your company or organization.

Just this past week, I've found two references to the same fact: that work-life cannot be successfully implemented without a corresponding change in workplace culture

Said another way, successful work-life depends upon management not just being supportive, but being role models.

Here's a pointer to a reference from Austraila, and my recent blog entry has a pointer to a report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development that supports the same finding.

I'm sure I'm only scratching the surface on the data that is available, but the message (and the findings from my own work) all suggest the same thing: investing in work-life programs without investing in work-life culture change is likely to produce far lower results than you want. You need to consider how you are going to roll out formal work-life education across your entire organization so that your work-life programs actually work.

All of this reminds me of the early days of diversity training at corporations, where the only way to achieve change was to drive education across the entire company, and to insist on management compliance. Work-life, it seems, is going to follow the same trajectory.

Yay! Business Week Shows "Work-Life Balance" is Outdated!

2008-07-02T14:54:00.003-05:00

Good grief...a "yay" from "Dr. WorkLife" for an article that says "work-life balance" is outdated?

You betcha. And the reason why is not because of the catchy Title of the BusinessWeek article that caught my eye, but rather because of the content embedded in the article. Finally we are seeing the change in expectations that will put work-life balance (or whatever new term you want to invent) on the map.

Give the article a read. It's quick. Basically it says that "work-life balance" as a term is dead because nobody really wants it. Nobody wants a life where you have to steal from one to get the other. What they want is a life where you can have both work and life at the same time.

If you've read my book, you know that it opens up with the sentence "There is not such thing as work-life balance."

Maybe what I should have said was "There is no such thing as a living well that doesn't include both work and life."

Whatever phrase you use one thing is clear. The only way forward is to have both.

Even Lawyers Benefit from Work-Life

2008-07-02T14:33:00.003-05:00

OK, so my wife is going to kill me for the title of this blog (she is an attorney) but I couldn't resist.

But it's more than just my attempt at humor; industries like the Law (and consulting) are particularly hard-pressed to derive benefits from work-life because of their business model which ties increased profits to increased hours worked (a so called "hourly based" business model).

So I was particularly keen to see a report form the UK on law firms showing that Law firms there which had introduced work-life practices were seeing positive impacts in things like retention (lower costs) and increased ability to attract top talent.

A couple of points stood out (quotes from the article):

The attitude of employees' line management is often the most important factor influencing their perception of their employers. Employees are likely to be influenced both by the HR practices they experience and by their managers' leadership behavior. Such responses can be positive or negative. Poorly-designed or inadequate policies can be rescued by good management behavior in much the same way as good HR practices can be negated by poor front-line manager behavior or weak leadership.

Work-life balance is at the top of younger lawyers' criteria when choosing a law firm

All of which supports a presentation I just prepared yesterday (which I will give in a webinar on July 15) showing the two key factors in building a business case for work-life:

Work-Life is a critical factor for attracting top talent. In the specifics of this article, Law firms that don't practice work-life will not get the best talent. Period.
Work-Life can be implemented well, or poorly -- it all depends upon management.

In other words, you need work-life to run a profitable, competitive business, but you have to be careful to deploy it well. If you don't you'll just spend money foolishly because your work-life policies won't "take" with your employees.

Distractions: Whose Fault Are They?

2008-06-24T06:36:00.005-05:00

A colleague recently sent me an interesting blog post from the NY Times (by Marci Alboher). The title is "Fighting a War Against Distraction" (click here for the post). It's another great example of how Blame comes in to play when we look for balance. Let me show you what I mean.

Marci's blog centers around Maggie Jackson's new book "Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age". Maggie points out the statistics we've all heard:

How we get distracted on average every 3 minutes, and how it takes nearly 30 minutes to recover from a distraction (hmm...there's a recipe for quality work. Makes you hope your doctor doesn't get distracted while prescribing your medicine).
How distractions now consume 28% of a worker's day, according to research firm Basex.
How routine interruptions lead to higher stress (research done by the Families and Work Institute).
How workers are more creative when they are focused (according to Harvard Business Review...I've seen multiple references to studies on this phenomenon)

Maggie's main point -- and if we haven't heard it before we have all certainly experienced it -- is that the world around us seems to be manufacturing distractions at an alarming rate; so alarming, in fact, that if we don't learn as a society some effective mechanism for dealing with it we may just lose our ability to focus altogether. Those are my words, not hers, but the point is that we are all literally being driven to distraction, and that means nothing is getting done well.

Maggie poses the obvious question: should we blame the devices (the email, the blackberry, the cell phone, etc) and answers with a clear "no." I totally agree. To blame the technology is, well, blame, and as I point out in my work, blame gets you nowhere. In fact, blame is just a waste of your energy. It can never solve your problems. Try it some time on purpose. Try taking an hour to just blast away at all the things you want to blame for your problem. You will find that all you have accomplished is to have lost a precious hour of your time. You will be no closer to a solution.

What is the solution? Quite simply, you need to stop complaining about what you can't do and start asking yourself what you want to do. Of course, that is easy to say and hard to do. But I found solace in what Maggie suggests in her book; that one can literally learn to avoid distractions through practice. Here is one exercise that I routinely suggest to the folks I coach, and it works great:

Set aside an hour to vent your frustrations, just as before. The goal will be the same: to give voice to what is bugging you.
But this time, divide your hour in half. For the first 30 minutes, just blast away. Don't hold back -- think of everything that you want to blame for why you can't have what you want.
As you blame, literally write it down. Pencil and paper, journal, electronic recording device, whatever.
Then, take a 5 minute break and go back an read (or listend) to what you have just spent 30 minutes complaining about.

What's the point? You will be amazed at the patterns you will see in your own complaining. One of the most interesting things to me about distraction -- and blame -- is how impossible it can feel when we are in it, and how transparent it can seem when we take the time to listen to it. If you try the exercise above you will notice something very interesting. Listening to yourself complain is a very different experience. What feels so insurmountable when you are into the blame will sound completely different when you re-read it.

This is a simple way to get some practice listening to how you are blaming and, in turn, how that is creating your patterns of distraction. And once you know that, you will have a powerful tool for doing what you want with your life. Because in the end, that's all distraction (and blame) are; they are simply convenient hiding places for us to keep ourselves from doing what we are afraid to do.

What You're SUPPOSED to Know

2008-02-16T11:38:00.011-06:00

There are just a few things that a guy is supposed to know if he's a "guy." Things like tools. When a "guy" walks in to home depot, he's supposed to know a plane from a pipe wrench. That's just the way God intended it to be. So there.

Of course, if you're familiar with my "Rule of Judgment" you'll know where this post is going. It's all about how the "supposed-to's" can lead us right down the path to imbalance. But let's have some fun getting there.

This story all starts with a slow drain. You know, the deal when you get up one morning and notice that although you've been taking a shower, it's become a bath by the time you step out.
Being a "guy" I decide "I can fix this" and off I go to rent the proper roto rooter drain snake pipe thingy that will do the trick. And here is my first clue that I should recall the old saying "discretion is the better part of valor" though I'm guyishly blind to it: I don't even know the vocabulary. I think because I took shop class for 2 weeks in middle school back in 1975 that I somehow know all the correct names for all the tools known to man. More likely, what shop class taught me is some "guy rule" that I'm supposed to know tools. Forget that I really have no idea what I'm doing; I simply cannot walk in to Home Depot and have Mr. Tool walk up to me in his little orange apron (I ask you -- guys wearing aprons?) and ask "may I help you?" and blurt out "I need some kind of roto rooter snake pipe thingy." Guys just don't do that (but hey, at least I'm not wearing an apron!).

So I rent something that looks right to me, and it's kinda like a power drill on steroids. And, dude, is it heavy; no way I can operate it one handed (aren't all drills operated one handed?). Once home, I start taking apart the tub, randomly unscrewing anything I know how to take apart. I feed mister power-drill-snake-thing into the pipe and start drilling away. I get it to feed about 1 foot before I hit a snag. "Aha!" I say "Holmes, you ol' dog, you've found the problem!" and I drill away. I think mister power-drill-snake-thing must sense my inexperience, because it bucks like a wild pig in my hands, but I manly teach it who's boss (after putting only a few gouges into the tub). After rattling the pipes for a solid 30 seconds (just so everyone in the house knows there's a guy working around here) I pull the snake back expecting to see most of the hair I've lost since last August, if not a full toupee. What do I actually get? Nothing.

What's the proper guy response? Do the same thing, only this time use more force (you know, kinda like government foreign policy). But this backfires on me when I realize mister power-drill-snake-thing isn't going down the drain at all but is instead trying to come out at the top of the tub, near the spout, by forcing out the round plate just under the spout. Oops. Guess force isn't always the best plan. At this point, Reason has finally begun to triumph over testosterone and I decide that since I don't even know the proper name for mister power-drill-snake-thing I should punt and play field position by hiring a professional. So I put away my pride and the tools and wash out the tub with a few gallons of water. Not too much water, of course, because it is still draining very slowly which turns out to be my only piece of good luck for the day. Because guess where the water is draining now: downstairs through the ceiling in the dining room and out at the bottom of the door jam between the dining room and the kitchen, on to our nice new hardwood floors.

Ouch.

A week and two holes in the downstairs ceiling later (and with my pocketbook considerably lighter) the plumbing is fixed and we can again take showers in the morning. Now, of course, I have a ceiling repair problem (because, alas, plumbers are not ceiling repair men) so my clogged drain has really just morphed into two holes in the ceiling, kinda like the pok-e-mon in my daughters' Nintendo games that "evolve" as they get more experience. I've certainly gained more experience, I just wish this really was a game and I could push the off button.

And, of course, if you've read my "Rule of Judgment" posting you'll know that's where you can find the "off button." Because what my real issue has been all along is how I have been judging myself. I've been thinking about what "they" will think, what a "real man" should know, and judging myself by that. Instead, I could have chosen to simply ask myself "am I doing what I truly want to do be doing with my time" and used that as my guide. That simple rule -- am I doing what I truly want to be doing with my time -- is all I really needed to keep me on track. Why? Because it keeps me focused, and more importantly, it helps me avoid distractions which are completely pointless. Think of how ludicrous it was for me to be sitting, alone, trying to use a power tool I didn't understand to do a job I'd never before done and feeling pressured to know what to do. Nobody else was even present! And yet, I was putting pressure on myself as if being watched by a live audience of scowling men, keeping score in some great guy log book in the sky.

So now I have two holes in my ceiling and, of course, I'm tempted to fix them myself. Hmm...I wonder if I will be smart enough to follow my Rule of Judgment this time.

Work-Life and Ethics?...Huh?

2008-01-30T08:35:00.000-06:00

OK, this one caught even me by surprise. And you know, if you have read any of my blog entries, that I am about as pro work-life as they come. But even I had never made the link between work-life and ethics. Though once you think about it, it sorta becomes obvious. Let me explain.

A good friend passed along a link to a study done by Harris Interactive for Deloitte & Touche (Deloitte, by the way, has an awesome reputation in work-life and is clearly one of the leaders in this field). The gist of the study, at least in the report (which you can read for yourself here) was the link between a good work-life and good ethical behavior at work. What caught my eye were a couple of key stats from the survey:

91 percent of respondents said they would be more likely to behave ethically at work when they have work-life balance
60 percent said that job dissatisfaction is one of the main reasons to behave unethically
Only 10 percent said criminal penalties would be a top deterrent to unethical behavior
And only 16 percent said ethics training would have a positive effect on encouraging ethical behavior.

So let me see if I get this straight. If we are cranky, pissed-off, tired, and feel put upon, we will stiff the boss, screw the customer, and happily trot off to jail when we're all done. Make us angry enough, push us to the limit once too often, and we just don't care. We'll go postal with a smile on our faces. And don't give me any lip service or some schmaltzy training on ethics with some over-paid actor who really knows nothing about ethics but looks good on camera and has a nice voice trying to shame me into behaving, because I'll just assume you are doing it because you were forced to so you can check off a box that says "yup...trained all employees on ethics" and that covers your butt in case you are sued. If you REALLY want me to be a good boy, treat me with a little dignity and recognize that the job has to be part of my life, not a substitute for it, and I'll go to the ends of the earth for you.

Does that just about cover it?

Humor aside, I think it does. The quote from Sharon Allen of Deloitte puts it well. She says:

When you think about it, if someone invests all of their time and energy into their jobs, it may have the unintended consequence of making them dependent on their jobs for everything, including their sense of personal worth. This makes it even harder to make a good choice when faced with an ethical dilemma if they believe it will impact their professional success.

In other words, if your whole identity is in your job, you have probably lost your perspective which means you won't be good at your work or your life. Another reason not to get obsessive about results (see my previous blog entry).

I also think there is a positive spin to all of this. Work-life, as we all know, is not really rocket science. What it boils down to is courage. You need courage to make the right choices to keep yourself healthy, and many times those choices are hard to make (thus the courage). Ethics strikes me as similar; it's all about making the right choice when faced with an uncomfortable situation. In this fundamental way, work-life and ethics are the same.

When you think of it that way, it's obvious that work-life and ethics overlap. They both take courage.

Pointing the Finger Won't Lead to Balance

2008-01-19T08:09:00.000-06:00

I just ran across an article on work-life written by Lisa Belkin of the NY Times (see link). It's a great example of exactly what to do if you want to ensure you NEVER achieve work-life balance.

First, let's talk about the good news. I agree with Ms. Belkin's basic premise that work-life can be torpedoed by a bad attitude at the top of the company. She's exactly right about that; if the boss sets a poor example and makes it hard on the employees to actually achieve work-life balance, there's little hope for the employees. Their only chance is to find an outside-the-company mechanism to support their work-life needs. I even have data to support this finding from multiple studies I've run (anybody who is interested in a presentation let me know).

So Lisa is essentially right in saying that companies would do well to address work-life from the top down. Those companies that take this approach end up reaping the greatest rewards from their work-life strategies (example: Kitchell Corp., see WSJ article, May '06, reduced turnover from 19% to 4%. By the way, voluntary turnover in the US edged up last year to an average of 23.4%).

But Ms. Balkin's advice is dead wrong when she suggests "turning the idea of resolutions on its head, and making them for other people". Nothing you could do as an individual could be worse for you.

That would be like blaming your boss because you don't like your job. Or blaming your children because you don't get enough time with your spouse. Or blaming the auto industry because you don't get enough exercise. Or blaming the political system because you don't like our leaders.

Blame is a trap. It becomes a hiding place for us to stick with our convenient prejudices that we have built up over the years to hold ourselves back. True, the world is not a fair place. People who coach football players should not get paid more money than Nobel-prize winning professors who teach class. But we don't get to make the world, we only get to try to change it. Sitting around whining about it accomplishes nothing. It merely wastes your time.

And nobody really likes a whiner.

Your best resolution this year is to decide what you want to do to change your work-life balance. No, I'm not suggesting blaming yourself either out of some misguided sense of guilt that you have not yet achieved this thing. I'm suggesting more of a quiet sort of resolution, one which recognizes a simple commitment that the time has come for you to go about getting what you truly want. I'm suggesting you take the world as it is, and put on your big-boy or big-girl pants, stop whining and get out there and make it happen.

The wonderful news is that you can do it. I've coached hundreds of folks on how to make it happen. It's not rocket science, but you must take responsibility to commit. The key is to be consistent.

Here are two simple things you can do right now, without any fuss, to make a dramatic change in your life. I promise if you commit to doing these two things for 4 months, it will make a huge difference:

Every day, take an hour at the very beginning of the day, for quiet time. No distractions allowed; just time for you to think about what you want in your life and what you are going to do that day to move you closer to that goal.
Every day, after you've had your quiet time, decide on one action you will take for YOU that day. Make sure it gets in your calendar for that day and make sure it gets done.

And don't tell me this is impossible. That's just another way of pointing the finger again. After all, you brush your teeth each day, don't you? You wouldn't let the fact that you have 100 emails sitting in your in-box stop you from brushing your teeth. This is no different.

Here's the simple truth whether you want to hear it or not: if you always do what you've always done, you will always get what you've always got. Blaming others simply won't help.

Obsession is NOT Commitment

2008-01-14T07:39:00.000-06:00

I was stunned yesterday -- absolutely stunned -- by what was not said by the announcers during the NFL football game between the NY Giants and the Dallas Cowboys.

Now before you turn away because (a) you hate football or (b) you are tired of talking about sports, hear me out. This is not about either. It's about an ingrained way of thinking in our culture that has us all absolutely miserable. And it's going almost completely unnoticed.

I'm talking, for those who have not kept up (which is most of us, including until last night), about all the fuss over the Dallas Quarterback Tony Romo. Here's the back story: a couple of weeks ago, Romo and the Cowboys qualified for a playoff spot. They had a couple of weeks off. Their Quarterback, Tony Romo, decided to spend some that time relaxing on a short vacation. For that decision, he has been vilified in the press as "lacking commitment." The implication, of course, is that if he was REALLY committed to the team, and to winning, he would have stayed in Dallas and kept himself completely immersed in preparation for the playoff game. The more immersed the better; any deviation from total immersion would be tantamount to treason.

The message: if you're not obsessed, you're not committed.

What stunned me was to hear the announcers talking about this and agreeing, almost casually, that Tony Romo would "indeed be opening himself up to criticism" if the Cowboys lost. At one point, one of the announcers said something like "it's like Tony put a big bulls eye on his back," meaning by going on vacation he was inviting the press and everyone else to slam him as lacking commitment.

Is it only me, or can anyone else hear how screwed up this is?

It's as though we are all so obsessed about obsession that we can't even recognize obsession when it pokes us in the eye. Are we really that far gone that we think the only way to be committed is to be obsessed? Do we really believe that true commitment means total consumption? Have we become so enslaved by our Protestant work ethic that we equate commitment with a life of unbroken toil that ultimately results in misery? Surely not.

But it does beg a question: how can you be truly committed if you are not obsessed? Doesn't dedication mean total immersion? And if you aren't willing to sacrifice everything, including your happiness and even your sanity and health, how can you claim to be truly committed?

In short, how can you argue you are totally committed if you aren't totally obsessed?

This is a key question these days, even for the humble among us, who may not be facing an NFL playoff game, but who face an endless stream of emails and an ever growing workload, and a world which seems to be telling us that if our blackberries are not on, and if we are not chatting with someone 24x7, then we are not truly committed and perhaps we deserve a pink slip. Forget having a "life".

So the question stands, and it is one we all have to come to grips with. How can you be committed without being obsessed? Is it possible?

You bet. In fact, I would argue that it is your duty not to be obsessed. The truly committed are those few who find a way to avoid obsession.

It all comes down to a topic I teach all the time and that I've discussed many times in this blog: the idea of "process focus." Simply put, no matter how much you may want to reach a goal, the only way to get there is by taking actions. The journey really is everything, and not because of some granola-loving, mystic, it's-time-for-my-yoga-lesson reason (though yoga is fine by me), but rather because of the pure, simple, logic that you can't actually get anywhere unless you do something. It is dedication to actions that matters, not obsessive focus on goals.

Let me give you a concrete example. As anyone reading this today knows, stocks are taking a hit. People get squirrely when this happens, so it's a good, easy example. Say you work for company X. Say your job is to make sure the stock price for company X goes up. Say you want to be committed to doing everything you can to make sure the stock price goes up.

Now, ask yourself a simple question: how should you feel if the stock price is high? Should that matter to what you do? How should you feel if the stock price is low? Should you feel depressed, deflated, listless, and drag yourself around the office in hopeless despair? Does that really help anything? OF COURSE NOT!

The truly dedicated person takes the following attitude. He or she says, quite simply, "it doesn't matter what the stock price is because I always do the same thing: I do everything I can to make the stock go up." So if the stock is low what do I do? Work hard to make it go up, of course. And if the stock is high what do I do? I STILL work hard to make it go up. There isn't a CEO alive that would be upset by this attitude; on the contrary, they'd love you for it.

You see the irony here, I hope. The actual performance of the stock doesn't matter; the goal is still the same. True, if the stock plummets we may rethink what actions we should be taking, but the goal, the focus, the efforts all are on process. The outcome itself is only worth thinking about for the short period of time it takes you to pick your next set of actions. After that, you can (and should) ignore outcomes altogether.

Obsessing on the outcome is more than a waste of time. It makes you tense, it saps your energy, and it kills your performance. The energy you spend worrying is totally wasted. You see it in sports all the time; the team that is the "favorite" starts putting pressure on themselves and then "chokes." It's the players that can relax yet stay focused that perform best. They do that by focusing on what they can do -- taking actions -- and ignoring all the jabbering about outcomes.

So here are a couple of things you can do the next time you feel yourself under the gun to prove you are committed.

Ask yourself: what is my goal? why am I doing this thing?
Ask yourself: what ACTIONS would maximize my chances of hitting this goal? Am I pursuing those actions?
Most important: am I giving myself praise and credit for taking those actions? If I work on a team, am I giving others thanks/credit for taking the actions?

Folks, sitting around worrying never got anyone anywhere. As Teddy Roosevelt once said "do what you can, with what you have, where you are." And the next time someone suggests you aren't committed because you aren't up at 3:00 a.m. answering emails, tell them that if they can show you how being worn out and worried will actually help, you'll be glad to do it.

Balance or Die (Literally!)

2007-04-20T06:16:00.000-05:00

A new form of medicine may be coming our way that will reinforce the value of work-life balancing. Here's a quote from today's NY Times article on the subject:

Two years ago, a group of doctors founded an organization with the goal of making lifestyle medicine a credentialed clinical specialty and a part of basic medical training. Symptomatically treating disease without assessing patients’ lifestyles or offering them guidance on how to change is "irresponsible and bordering on neglect," said Dr. John H. Kelly Jr., president of the fledgling organization, the American College of Lifestyle Medicine.

Our very lives may be at stake: a study of The New England Journal of Medicine predicted that average life expectancy in the United States would decline in the next 20 years as a result of unhealthy lifestyles. That reverses a trend dating to the 1850s.

Here's another amazing stat: a year ago, BusinessWeek Online reported that for the first time in history, we are seeing the reversal of trends in productivity. Oh it's not that productivity is dropping -- that is still going up. We are more productive. But for the first time ever, increases in productivity are not resulting in a corresponding increase in leisure time. So we are getting more productive but we are using it to work longer an longer hours.

Do you see what I see? Can anyone possibly believe the reversal of these two historical trends is a coincidence?

We are literally working ourselves to death. Soon we may have the science to prove it.

My take on all this is simple: "lifestyle medicine" won't work if it is only LIFEstyle medicine. It has to be WORK-LIFEstyle medicine. Work is part of people's lives. You can't tell someone to "get more sleep" without helping them see how they can do that and still feel like they are keeping up with their email.

And of course there is another wrinkle here; our doctors suffer from the same bad out-of-balance work-life habits as the rest of us. I loved the quote from Dr. Willett in the NY times article:

Sleep-deprived doctors who scarf candy bars for lunch "tend to feel inhibited in counseling others when they aren’t exactly setting an example," said Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health and a member of the lifestyle medicine college’s board of advisers.

But rather than just bitch about it, I'm going to try to do somethingabout it. I'm going to contact these folks and see if I can build a bridge. I'm not a physician, and they may not accept me into their fold -- my father was a heart surgeon and they tend to be a pretty tightly knit group. But perhaps I can at least influence them to consider the work dimension in what they do.

After all, our very lives may depend on it.

Working Hard is Great But Hard Work is Stupid

2007-04-07T14:54:00.000-05:00

I'm a constantly amazed at how often I confuse working hard with straining. I think a lot of us do and I think it's one of the main reasons why we all have such a hard time "getting it" when it comes to understanding work-life balancing.

The key here is one seemingly contradictory thought: working harder is the stupidest thing you can do if you want to get more done.

Take my own background, for example. I grew up a good mid-western boy. Middle class neighborhood where everyone worked hard and every kid was expected to learn how to work hard too. It was just the way things were: you didn't quit when things got difficult, you stuck it out. If you signed up for something (like a baseball team) then you stayed with it until the season ended. You did your homework first, before you went out to play. You ate our vegetables because they were good for you, even if they tasted awful. And generally speaking, it was understood that the only things in life worth having were acquired through toil. If you weren't straining, you were slacking.

And of course, all of this is right. You DO have work hard to get what you want. Vegetables ARE good for you (though you can learn how to cook them so they taste a lot better). And when you are 8 years old, it's important to learn that you have to do your homework before you go out to play; otherwise, nothing would ever get done. So yes, hard work is important.

But let me ask this: do you have to go LOOKING for hard work? And where does it say that what is hard always has to stay hard? Shouldn't things get easier once you get used to them?

The problem, folks is that our culture has taught us to confuse hard work and strain. We don't know the difference any more between working hard to get what you want, versus driving ourselves into the ground. And what happens over time is that the "life's a bitch then you die" mantra gets ground in. Before you know it, it has become so internalized that you feel strange if you are NOT straining.

Think I'm exaggerating? Think again. The messages are all around us, and they are drilled in every day. This will date me, but do you remember those Dunkin' Donut commercials? Where the guy was getting up at some un-Godly hour and he has to make the donuts for the day? He crawls out of bed, eyes barely open, chanting "time to make the donuts". He staggers in a haze through his morning routine, brushing his teeth, chanting his mantra "time to make the donuts". He trudges into his bakery, still chanting "time to make the donuts". It's meant to be humorous and it is. And it's meant to send you a message that Dunkin' Donuts is doing all the hard work of getting up early to make these great donuts so you can just breeze in on your way to work and reap the benefits of all this hard work.

Remember the Maytag commercials? Different guy, same theme. He's a want-to-be hard-working repairman who is upset -- upset! -- because the Maytag appliances are so reliable that he doesn't have anything to do. He is sad because all he has to do is sit back and take in his paycheck for being ready to fix appliances that never need fixing. Is that insane or what? Hell, who wouldn't want a job that would pay you for doing nothing? It might get boring, sure, but don't you have other ways you could occupy your time? Isn't that the whole goal of something like retirement -- to have enough income set aside that you don't have to work? So why does this guy have a problem? Because he's supposed to be working hard, overly hard, and he's idle.

And consider all those times you've been on the elevator at work on a Friday. What's the conversation almost always about? It's always some variation of "happy Friday" or "gee, isn't it great it's Friday!", and there is always the implied message of "now we all get to go home for the weekend and stop killing ourselves at work." And what about those times you ride the elevator on a Monday and somebody jokingly makes the comment "well, back to the salt mines!" Either way, the message is clear: when you are at work, it is about toiling, toiling, toiling.

So what do you do?

I think it boils down to being conscious of strain. Hard work is great -- even invigorating -- but strain is just strain. Read any health magazine and it will tell you the same thing: "stress bad". So I like to recommend that folks learn to be conscious of strain. You can learn this skill just like any other and it works like the following:

First, take some time (great way to use your quiet time ritual, by the way) and do a "strain inventory." Just think back over that last few days and ask yourself what seemed to be too hard. Unnecessarily hard.
For those situations, play a "compressed time" game with yourself. Ask yourself how you would get the task done if you only had a very limited time to do it. Making the kids lunches in the morning a total pain in the butt? How would you get it done if you only had 10 minutes to do it. Email getting you down? How would you get it answered if you could only dedicate 45 minutes a day total for all your email. This is a great way to break out of break out of the box. I also think this works because I believe much of our strain come from us dwelling on the task, instead of just doing it. Remember how we have been taught to toil? We're addicted folks; gotta be aware that straining can be a habit like anything else. Limiting your time forces you to break out of your habit.
For the things that are not a strain, and are pure fun for you, put those at the top of your day. Why? Two reasons. First, you will ensure yourself that every day you'll get to do at least something fun. How bad would your life be if you could guaranty that every day you got to do something fun. Second, it saves your best energy for what you love the most. Given the power of following your passions (see passion entry) this gives you a double whammy in terms of overall performance. Everyone is more efficient doing what they love to do, and you'll be spending your best energy doing it. You'll get way more done than you would if you put off the fun things until you're tired, grumpy, and worn out.
For those things that are strain, focus on having fun doing them. Ask yourself "how would I do this and have fun?" Remember Mary Poppins? "In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. Find the fun and -- snap -- the job's a game." Yeah, I know it's the movies. But there is a huge nugget of truth there. I often will save my emails for the very end of the day, leave the office, and head over to a local cafe where I can get a great cup of coffee, and sit outside in a wonderful garden with a fountain. Now that's a fun way to answer email.

So next time you find yourself thinking "geeze...this sucks" try some of these suggestions. Don't waste your life straining just because it's gotten to be a habit. There's really no reason for it and it won't help you get more done.

Thoughts, Words, Deeds - Which is Most Important?

2007-03-20T08:03:00.000-05:00

If you know anything about me, you will know that I am a big fan of coaching. So big a fan, in fact, that I recommend coaching as a regular practice to all my coach-ees. Specifically, I tell them that one of the best ways to maintain their own balance is to coach others. Nothing clarifies an issue like trying to explain something to someone else.

And then there is the added benefit that after you've struggled for 20 minutes to explain something, invariably someone who is listening sums it up in a pithy 15 second statement (so much for my teaching skills!). Such moments are great, and I had one yesterday via an email from someone at IBM currently taking my work-life balancing class.

Let me just quote it to you:

In my opinion, life is 'thoughts, words, and deeds'. If you have control over thoughts, the rest is easy

If that isn't work-life balance in a nutshell, I don't know what is.

Of course, it can be a trick to get control over your thoughts, though you might not think so. After all, they are your thoughts; nobody can get into your head and rewrite the program. So what's the big deal? Why would it be hard to control the way you think?

The answer to that is probably buried somewhere in multiple years of therapy. But you can do a simple thing to find your own answers, and the trick lies in making a simple admission. You need to first admit that you can have blind spots in your thinking, and I mean totally blind. There are things that you believe are "true" which are merely assumptions, arbitrary thoughts that you absorbed from your environment. Arbitrary, but not harmless, because they can act like a ball-and-chain holding you back.

But how can you find them? How can you use your own thinking, with it's blind spots, to spot where you are blind? Isn't that like asking a blind man to see?

Yep, it is. Which is why you need to make a second important admission: you won't be able to detect your blind spots on your own. You will need others to help you do that.

I recommend a "walk through technique" as one great method for doing this (for a complete run down with examples, see my book). The technique is simple, you simply ask someone to do the following: you explain your thinking and ask them to listen and see if they can spot any inconsistencies. Notice that you are NOT asking them for a solution. You are NOT expecting them to wave a magic wand. You are NOT placing any burden on them. Furthermore, they are NOT to try to solve any of your problems. You will do that (the "word" and "deed" part). Instead, their job is to simply listen, look for inconsistencies between what you say you want, and what you say are your obstacles to getting there. If they simply concentrate on asking "why?" they will be doing you the best service they can.

It's no coincidence that I use the term "walk through". I stole it from my previous life as a propeller head software guy. It turns out that most software bugs (up to 70%) can be detected if the programmer simply prints out his program and explains his thinking to some other programmers. Note the analogy here: using a "walk through" on your own internal "program" you are asking others to help you spot the "bugs" in your thinking, which turn up as inconsistencies.

So next time you are stuck in a rut, try using the walk through technique to debug your thinking so you can take control back and start doing what you want, not what you were programmed to do.

What to Do When You Are Feeling Like The Underdog

2007-03-16T06:04:00.000-05:00

The Underdog. We've all felt like it. When the job seems like too much. When it feels like everybody else "has it all together" and we don't. When it seems like you are simply not up to the task in front of you, that "the system" you have to fight against has too many ways to knock you down. When you feel like you have no real control over your life.

That's why I love sports so much. Sports creates underdog scenarios for us, and we get to watch and learn how others face the struggle. And nothing does it quite so well as the NCAA "March Madness" college basketball tournament.

And we got just such a less again last night, when Virginia Commonwealth University won a major upset victory last night over Duke University. As always in such cases, the most interesting part of the game -- the real story story -- comes in the comments made right afterward, in the glow of victory (or defeat) when the "gut reactions" come out, when we get past all the rhetoric and we get to see the real stuff. Here's what Anthony Grant (coach of VCU) had to say:

We try to take it, as we have all year, one game at a time

Now, you hear that kind of statement out of athletes and coaches all the time. It has almost become cliche. But from a work-life balance perspective, particularly when you think about work-life from a performance point of view (which to me, is the only way to think about it), I find it incredibly profound that this is what pops up as the most important lesson. It embodies two principles that are absolutely critical to keeping yourself performing at a high level:

You must focus on process, not results. You must not let yourself worry about the future or where things might go later because that takes you away from the now.
Worrying about anything except the now is just a ball-and-chain, a weight that will sap your energy. I call it "blame language" but it amounts to the same thing. Looking at the past and telling yourself what you can't do, or looking at the future and worrying about what you must do will only hold you back.
You must have this kind of thinking as a ritual, something that you do because that's just what you do. Rituals are not just nice, they are necessary, and you must trust yourself enough to practice them, even when it may seem quaint or silly or "going against the crowd" to do so.

Listen to more of what coach Grant had to say about what he specifically meant by focus which was, in his words, the most important thing he told his team. He told them to

Focus on the present, and not get caught in the big picture, not get caught in the past history...that's the biggest thing [meaning, the biggest reason why they won] ... we've talked about that all year

Notice the focus on "now" (process, not result). Notice in particular how he points out that the big picture is a trap (process again). Notice how important it is to ignore history (stay away from blame). Notice how this is something they have been talking about all year (ritual).

Perhaps this is why VCU has the most road wins of any NCAA team this year. Perhaps this is why coach Grant was voted "Coach of the Year."

I have no doubt this is why VCU was able to win.

How to Avoid Procrastinating

2007-03-05T05:48:00.000-06:00

Barbara Rose of the Chicago Tribune (see www.chicagotribune.com, March 5) wrote an interesting article about procrastination. It wasn't interesting to me because it talked about putting things off (we all do that), and it wasn't interesting because it ran through a litany of weird cases showing stupid things people do when they put things off (who among us hasn't done some bone-headed thing to miss a deadline?).

It was most interesting to me because Barbara is a business columnist.

And it was really interesting because of what she didn't say.

Her basic advice in the article is embedded in the title: "Be aware of why you put things off." The point, naturally, is that if you know why you are putting something off, then presumably you can break through somehow and get it done. Sounds like good advice, right? Many of us can relate to that I'm sure? We know when we are putting something off (it's not like a secret because whatever it is usually is staring us right in the face) and often there's this vague feeling of confusion as in "I know I'm avoiding such-and-such, but I'm just not sure why."

The problem is this: I don't think that just knowing why we procrastinate is enough.

As Barbara points out in her article, fear is the reason why we put stuff off. She even quotes a psychologist from DePaul University on the topic, giving a taxonomy of sorts of the kinds of fears that hold us back. We might be afraid of failure, afraid of success, afraid of making decisions, etc.

But knowing you are afraid doesn't always make things easier. It might give a name to what you are doing, but things may not change. "I know I need to get my finances in order" you might say "and I know I don't do it because I'm afraid of failing at it." But does that really get you anywhere?

How do you break out of the fear?

I have a little ritual that I recommend to people when the get to this state. It comes from a combination of work-life principles that, when combined, can give you a lot of power to overcome this kind of thing. The basic idea is simple: put your fears first.

Here's how it works in practice. As you start your day, set aside a little quiet time for yourself. The morning is typically a great time, but any time you like to slow down and think about planning out your day will work. During this time, think about the things you need to get done and also the things you want to get done. The latter is particularly important because that's often the place where we stick the things we fear most. As you make your list, something will pop out as the thing you need/want to do that you dread doing the most. When that happens, write it down -- that's the thing you want to do first in your day.

Try this for a month. Pick the one thing you want to do the least, and do it first in your day. I promise you that if you do this, two things will happen (1) you'll notice that what you were so afraid of is "not that big a deal" once you start addressing it and (2) you'll notice a huge jump in how productive you feel.

Why? Because there is a hidden cost to procrastinating. It may sound counter intuitive, but it takes an incredible amount of energy to put things off. And whatever it is that is bothering you will continue to nag at you, chewing up your time and attention at a low level. It's like someone riding in your car putting gentle pressure on the brakes. It doesn't bring you to a grinding halt, but whenever you take your foot off the gas, it really slows down the car. All fears work this way, they are a drag on the system because we know they are there, and we know we are letting them get the best of us.

So try putting your fears first. Don't worry about anything else. Don't worry about results, don't worry about perfection, don't worry about consequences. Just be mechanical -- for a month -- and simply make sure that every day you take some action towards the thing you fear most, and that you make sure you do it first. And see what happens.

Napping Makes the Front Page

2007-01-20T11:04:00.000-06:00

I feel vindicated. I've been a napper for years now. But every time I talk about it during one of my work-life balancing talks, it invariably brings a laugh. So I was particularly pleased to see the Chicago Tribune carry a front page story (Tuesday, Jan 16, 2007) about how napping can increase productivity.

Yep, that's right. Take a nap -- get more done. Makes no sense, right?

Give it some thought, though, and it does. I've seen all kinds of evidence that speaks to how sleep deprived we are as a nation, how much it affects our attention span (by as much as 50%), and how negatively lack of sleep impacts our creativity (Harvard Medical school study).

This article is no different, and again has some heavy-weight researchers behind the claims (Harvard Medical School, National Sleep Foundation, Institute of Medicine). Here are some of the more interesting stats:

Sleep-related fatigue costs US businesses $150B annually in absenteeism (2006 report by the Institute of Medicine).
Pulling one all-nigher, or getting five hours of sleep daily for a week produces the same level of cognitive impairment as being legally drunk (0.10 blood alcohol level).
Americans sleep an average of 6.9 hours daily, compared to 10 hours a century ago (getting pretty close to that legally drunk level, I see)

Yes, I know. Sounds too idealistic, right? So we're losing a little money. So a few people come to work "drunk". It's still a hard sell, right? After all, napping is for losers--people who are lazy.

Well here are a few losers who were/are famous for napping:

Albert Einstein
President Kennedy
President Clinton
President Reagan

Hmmm...I'm thinking I'd be happy to be as successful as those four "losers".

The key thing to remember is that napping does not have to disrupt your day. We are talking at most 30 minutes. Are you seriously telling me you can't find 30 minutes in your day, especially if that 30 minutes makes you more productive? Or would you rather continue to work drunk?

Your choice. But let me invite you to give it a try. Just try it, for 2 weeks. Take a 30-min nap somewhere in the middle of your day. If you don't find it makes much of a difference you can always give it up.

The Link Between Depression and Balance

2006-12-14T15:56:00.000-06:00

We've all heard about depression, probably all know someone affected by it. I have close friends who wrestle with it. I was curious, therefore, when the Wall Street Journal came out with an article on the latest trends in treatment for depression (see WSJ, December 14 issue, front page of the Marketplace section).

What I didn't expect to find was such a big link between work-life balance and depression (though after I thought about it, it now seems like a big "duh").

Depression is a $12B industry. It affects 1 in 10 American adults. Drug treatments work in only half the patients.

Most interestingly for this discussion, according to the Journal article, the latest research shows that at the molecular level, stress causes increased production of so called CRF proteins, which trigger the release of a hormone called cortisol. And it is cortisol, researchers now believe, that can predispose people to depression by damaging nerve cell connections and suppressing nerve growth.

In other words, stress can cause depression.

Now think about it. What are some of the best ways to reduce stress? Certainly there are myriad ways to do so, but I can think of a couple right off the bat. Do you think that taking quiet time every day would help to reduce stress? Do you think that knowing you are working towards those things you are most passionate about (versus doing some job you hate) would reduce stress? Would you imagine that developing a habit that ensured you always took at least some time every day to focus on doing something for yourself, versus feeling like your whole day was spent doing everything for everyone else but never getting a break for you...do you think that might reduce stress?

Duh?

Take a look again at my 5 work-life balancing principles. Take a look at the rituals of quiet time. Take a look at the suggestion for being "selfirst." Sure seems like work-life balance had a lot to say about reducing stress. And if stress = depression...well, you do the math.

Hmm. And to think that only half of the patients who take depression medicine get any benefits. Perhaps if they focused on work-life balance as well, we might see a higher success rate.

Best of all, we might see less depression in the first place.

Makes me wish my Dad had known about this, because I'm convinced he struggled with depression. Makes me wish, too, that I had figured all this work-life balance stuff out 20 years earlier. Perhaps it could have made a difference for him.

Are You Tired? Many say "YES"

2006-12-13T16:14:00.000-06:00

Tired? Apparently a lot of us are. And we have a lot to say about it, even to perfect strangers.

Vauhini Vara wrote an interesting column in the Wall Street Journal (see WSJ, December 13 issue, front page of the Marketplace section) on a web site about being tired.

Turns out that a researcher named Mike Kuniavsky has hosted a simple web site since 1997 on this topic (tired.com). It's an incredibly simple site (check it out)...just two sentences inviting you to "tell us why you are tired." He's had 42,000 responses (yikes!).

What I found interesting was the very end of Vara's column with the statistics on the most prevalent words that occur in people's descriptions of why they are tired:

"work" (no. 39), "school" (77), "house" (190), "money" (191), "family" (217), "kids" (250)

Sheesh...reads like a "my life is completely out of whack and I'm totally unbalanced" laundry list.

The truly scary thing about this column was the examples from children who post to the site. Children? Tired already...at age 11? Geeze, kid, you're just getting started!

But then, I guess it makes sense. If they are going to grow up to be as out of balance as the rest of the world they need to learn it from somewhere. Sounds like they are watching our unbalanced ways closer than we might like to admit.

Casts a different like on the whole concept of being "selfirst". Perhaps taking care of yourself isn't such a selfish seeming thing after all. Maybe we might be passing along a good habit to those who are watching.

Work Life Balance Leads to Higher Profits

2006-12-12T16:52:00.000-06:00

I'm going to pick out a tidbit from another wonderful column by Jared Sandberg (see the Wall Street Journal, December 12 issue, front page of the Marketplace section).

I've enjoyed several of Mr. Sandberg's articles in the past. In this one, he indicates that work and life have only recently been seen as separate and competing entities. That is was only for a brief period, the 1950s, where we created this weird separation between the two, and forced people into a way of thinking that pits the one against the other. The problem, as Mr. Sandberg quotes from Stephanie Coontz, author of "Marriage: a History", is that our corporate policies have gotten stuck in the 1950s.

I couldn't agree more. For many of us, corporate policies are trying to force us into an unnatural 1950s leave-it-to-beaver box that just doesn't work any more.

But the more interesting tidbit from Mr. Sandberg's article, to me, is the effect one gets when one bucks the system and goes for balance. He sites a Mr. Steven Crawley, an HR executive who decided to get "off the grid" and stop answering email all the time, get rid of the instant connection, etc. In other words, get more balance in his life (and by extension, that of the people he works with). The result: "The more off the grid I get, the better our sales margins, while staff and -- most important -- domestic morale improve."

Yep...that's right. More work-life balance = happier people at home = happier people at work = higher profits.

I love it.

Good News for Men!

2006-12-11T16:30:00.000-06:00

Good grief! Check out these stats (I am not making this work-life balance stuff up!):

Ernst & Young displays a 9-foot poster in downtown NY, visible from the sidewalks of Times Square, highlighting the promotion of Rob McLeod after taking paternity leave.
In the summer of 2005, Ernst & Young started a campaign to promote massaging work schedules to suit personal needs of all employees. When the asked for feedback, 2,000 employees responded within 20 minutes. Eventually 10,000 responded (then half of their total workforce)!
In a survey of 2,443 women college graduates (released by the Harvard Business Review and the Center for Work-Life Policy in NY) showed that 35% of respondents thought they would be penalized if they took advantage of their employers work-life policies. Two thirds said they would scale back if they felt it was "recognized and respectable". Um....gee...think that might have motivated Ernst & Young to push work-life balance for men? Think that might help legitimize the whole effort?
Heather Galler, founder of the employment web site JobKite.com indicates that companies that promote flexibility to both men and women tend to do better with job seekers.
Deloitte & Touche is experimenting with "mass career customization" with 383 employees, 74% of whom are men. Why? Because they estimate that it costs an average of $150,000 to replace a lost worker.

So hang in there, guys! Work-life balance is not just for the ladies. And this is good news for everyone, not just the men. Making this a "human" issue can only help.

(data for this post was from the Wall Street Journal article in the December 11 issue, front page of the Marketplace section)

What Happened When Mom 'Went Away'

2006-12-11T12:00:00.001-06:00

Several entries ago, I posted an idea about how to give the Mom in your life some extended time to herself (see "What Mom Can't Do For Herself"). Well...we actually did it and the results were surprising. I thought you might like to hear a bit about how it went.

First, it was a no brainer from my perspective. Recall that the idea was to give Mom a real vacation from everything -- work, the house, the kids, the husband -- everything. Why? Because Mom's typically never get this, often because of a "Mommy guilt factor" that many Mom's face that boils down to the fact that they always feel like there is more work to do and that they have to do it. Home is not a haven; it's like another job. So the whole idea was to give my wife an extended period by herself, and we did it by her checking in to a hotel on a Friday night, and not showing up again until the following Saturday at the kids' bed time.

It was a no brainer because of the way our Saturday's happen to work. By picking a Saturday we picked a day when I didn't have to get the kids ready for school, when they tend to either sleep in or just goof off in the morning. And Friday night was equally easy because we didn't have to necessarily get to bed on time (and we didn't...Dad let them stay up and goof off). So the first half of the period took almost no effort on my part, which made it simple to implement. I realize that may not be the case for everyone, Saturday's may be the worst day because of activities, parental taxi service duty, etc, to cart people where they need to go. But there is going to be some part of your week or your schedule that is easier than other times, and the trick was to set things up so one spouse being away had minimal impact.

Second, there was no negative impact on the family. In fact, the effects were just the opposite. The outing was fun for those of us "left behind" because we had a special set of circumstances to enjoy. How often to the kids get to just goof around with Dad? It was exciting for them and though it may sound bad when I put it this way they didn't miss Mom. I even recall my one daughter struggling to express it to me. "It's not that I don't miss Mom" she said "but it's good for her because she knows we can be OK without her." So yes, we certainly need Mom, but no, we aren't going to crash and burn if she isn't watching over us every minute of every day.

Third, Mom came back and the first words out of her mouth were "I can't wait to do this again!" And that was huge for me, because it shows how much of a paper tiger this whole thing can be. We had to work up to this, and I know my wife had a lot of misgivings about the whole scheme. My take was that the closer we got to actually doing it, the heavier the "Mommy guilt ball-and-chain" was dragging her down. So to hear her come back from the experience actively wanting to do it again was music to my ears. It is like so many things in work-life balance; they seem so hard before you try them and so obvious once you have. We're already talking about planning the next installment 6 weeks from now.

Fourth, Mom came back more relaxed. No that's not accurate; everyone was more relaxed. The number of picky fights has dropped. Everyone seems to be sleeping better. In short, Mom was happier, and that spilled over on to everyone else. And Dad was happier too; I felt like I'd done something really special and it didn't take a lot of effort.

Fifth and finally, I thought it was interesting that Mom experienced an exceptionally good work week right after her weekend off. The week following her "trip" she said she felt like her boss was praising her work, in fact, that it was the first time she could remember her boss telling her she'd done something "perfect." Coincidence? Maybe, but I think not. I don't think it is accidental that other aspects of our lives get a boost when we take the time out to do what we know will get us "recharged." And I've seen this exact pattern play itself out dozens of times. It's the whole concept of being "Selfirst" (see my blog posting) and it proves to me, once again, the work value of life balance. Improving one part of your life really can have positive side effects on other parts of your life. You literally can enhance your career by taking time out for yourself.

Someone Else's Balance is Affecting Your Driving

2006-12-10T13:38:00.000-06:00

I read a truly scary work-life balance article in the Chicago Tribune about, of all things, truck drivers. Apparently, what was a hard job has become hellacious for the drivers, who now find themselves routinely working incredibly long hours (as in 120 hour weeks), and going days between baths, all to just barely get by.

Who cares, you ask? And what in the world does this have to do with work-life balance? Well, when someone driving a many-ton vehicle crosses the median heading directly for a head-on collision with you, that'd be when you care.

And apparently this is not just hyperbole. Traffic deaths are up due to over-worked truckers falling asleep at the wheel, and the consequences for such collisions are typically much worse for the non-trucker. And don't think your SUV is going to save you either; try telling that to the van full of college students who collided with a truck, five of whom died.

When I finished reading this article, I was left a bit flat footed. Typically I see some kind of work-life balance solution when I see a work-life balance problem, but this one stumped me. I'm not sure how one could modify the trucking business model to even out the supply and demand. There are far more truckers today, and the vast majority belong to tiny companies with very few trucks (and thus very few resources to optimize routes, substitute drivers, etc.) We like ordering our stuff from the Internet, and that stuff needs to be shipped. We get mad if it doesn't come lickety split, so we have thousands of over-tired men and women dashing around in huge vehicles to rush our packages to us at prices barely high enough to cover higher fuel prices. Given the increase in road accidents, apparently the shipping price is higher than we realize.

One thing seems certain. The model we have is not sustainable. We can't continue to see drivers working 120 hours a week. Nor will the public stand for increasing rise in death rates on the road. I may not be able to see the solution, but work-life balance will assert itself somehow in the end. Here's hoping the solution comes sooner rather than later.

Balance in Retirement

2006-12-09T13:27:00.000-06:00

Bob Lutz, was rehired by GM 5 years ago to revive sales. They've upped his retirement by $3M to account for his previous service with GM (see the Chicago Tribune article).

I guess I'd consider coming out of retirement if it meant an extra $3M in my retirement benefits.

Course that's not exactly what happened here, but it got me thinking about working well past the "normal" retirmenet age. I think that may be in the cards for a lot of us who are still a ways off from retirement.

It made me think of balance, too, because it got me to thinking about what I will do in retirement. I know that retirement caught my father completely off guard when he was forced to retire because of a stroke (something about not really wanting surgeons to operate on people when they've lost part of their vision). The simple truth of it is that he had no plans to retire. He'd never thought about it, from the perspective of what he would do with his time. Sure, we'd all "goof off" for a while, travel, play the slot machines, whatever suits your fancy. And while many of us might claim we could party forever, eventually that wears off and one is left asking the question, "so what do I want to do with the rest of my life?"

Which, of course, is a question of passion. And being able to tap into that passion without working a 60-hour week will be a new experience for most of us. And that's only if we are fortunate enough to take the time to slow down enough now to even be aware of what our passions are. Which, of course, is a matter of taking the "quiet time" to listen to your own inner muse.

All the more reason to get into the habits now...the good work-life balance habits.

Media Event in Washing DC on Dec 6

2006-12-04T13:11:00.000-06:00

This will have limited appeal, but I wanted to do my bit to get the word out. This is for anyone who will be around the Washington D.C. area on December 6:

On Wednesday, December 6, 2006, National Fatherhood Initiative will release "Pop's Culture: A National Survey on Dads' Attitudes on Fathering" in an event at the National Press Club at 1:30 p.m. You are invited to attend this panel discussion, where members of the media will discuss the new survey and the question, "Does the Media Get it Right on Fatherhood"?

THE PANEL
- Leon Harris, News Anchor, WJLA-TV (moderator)
- Kevin Kay, General Manager, SPIKE TV
- Stephen Perrine, Editor-in-Chief, Best Life Magazine
- Dion Haynes, Education Reporter, The Washington Post
- Roland C. Warren, President, National Fatherhood Initiative

This panel of prominent members of the media will discuss NFI's new "Pop's Culture" survey and debate questions such as:

Does the media consider the "father factor" in the stories it covers on crime, poverty, school failure?

Is work/family balance still considered a women's issue?

Do stories on public policy consider the implications of policy on the institution of fatherhood?

Is entertainment media for men constructive or destructive towards fatherhood?

We welcome your attendance at this important event. The National Press Club is located at 529 14th St., NW, Washington, D.C. The event will take place from 1:30 to 3:00 p.m. in the Zenger Room on the 13th floor. Refreshments will be provided.

If you are able to attend, RSVP to Vincent DiCaro at vdicaro@fatherhood.org.

A Tax Break for Work-Life Balance?

2006-12-04T12:20:00.000-06:00

What do you think...should we give people credit for being parents?

Last week's Wall Street Journal (Thursday's paper, the "Personal Journal" section) had another great article by Sue Shellenbarger related to work-life balance. This one made me think of tax breaks of all things.

Sue's article talked about the increasing numbers of women who are dropping out of the workforce to stay at home with young children. Interestingly, the article pointed out that this was done despite the financial pain (women's contribution to family income has jumped to 34.8%). In one case, extreme pain: she talked about a couple that took a two-thirds drop in income -- to $30K -- so that there would be a parent at home with young children.

All of this got me thinking about tax breaks. We seem to be able to give all kinds of exotic tax breaks for special interests. Why not something for parents? It doesn't have to be complex, simply give parents of new borns the equivalent of a "get of of jail free" card -- for the first year of that child's life they don't pay taxes. For someone on a $30,000 salary, it would make a huge difference.

Of course, I can foresee all kinds of possible complications and complaints. It would favor those who want to have big families. It would favor those who could have children (vs. those who spend thousands of dollars trying and can't). It would favor parents over those who choose not to have children. It favors married couples over singles. So I can imagine the political bog it might create, and with good reason.

But something even simpler, say the idea that for two years out of your tax paying life you could "opt out" of paying taxes. You pick the years. That way, if you wanted to take a break from work to be at home with your kids, you could do so without as big a financial hit. It would work for Dad or Mom, and wouldn't be biased towards any one sex (or towards any single religious or social belief that women should stay home). Couples trying expensive techniques to have children could use it to offset expenses. Singles or individuals who don't have children could use it to take a year leave of absence. Leaving the choice of when to take the tax breaks leaves any social engineering out of the equation. Limiting the options to only twice in a lifetime limits the hit to the Treasury.

I'm sure I don't have it all thought through. But fundamentally, it sounds right to me. Some sort of recognition that taking a "time out" to do something "rare but important" in your life ought to be something we should afford. Would some people abuse it? Of course; I'm sure some bonehead would use one of his two tax break years to buy a pile of lottery tickets or something equally ridiculous. But I think many people would use it wisely. And if you know you only have this option twice in your whole life, you'd think hard about when to use it. It's like those times when your parents said "OK, you can pick out any ONE toy. It's up to you, but you only get ONE." Or in this case, two.

Balancing Through The Holidays

2006-11-29T09:36:00.000-06:00

It's that time again! Time when we drink too much, eat too much, and, dare I say it, get too much family. Trouble is, we know that the effects of the first two pretty much wear off over time, whereas the last one can leave us with a lingering feeling of being pissed off that (once again) we didn't get what we wanted out of the holidays.

Want to know a secret as to how you can navigate through your holidays and not feel the effects of "too much family?" Want to know how you can listen to that same old harangue about how you don't feed your kids enough vegetables and sail through it with a smile on your face? Read on.

I call it "The Rule Of Judgment" and it's something I coach people on all the time. It's a particularly popular topic around this time of year because so many of us spend time with family in close (cramped?) quarters that would test the limits of our tolerance at the best of times.

The rule is simple. It goes like this:

Practice judging everyone, but most importantly yourself, ONLY by whether or not they (you) are taking actions to make their (your) life what they (you) truly want it to be.

This little rule works like magic. It keeps you from getting frustrated by what other people say or do, and it gives you a way to interact without setting people off (and sending uncle Bob or aunt Sadie into a screaming temper fit).

Let me explain why this works. It all centers around what I call the "gallery" effect. Think Golf for a moment (yeah, here comes another sports analogy). If you've ever watched a golf match, then you will know what I mean by the "gallery". This is the massive throng of people that march around the course, following their favorite players, "ooh-ing" and "ahh-ing" over every shot. There's nothing else quite like it in the world of sport. Imagine for a moment that you are Tiger Woods. Everywhere you go, thousands of people flock to ogle at your every little move. You can't do anything without literally thousands of pairs of eyeballs watching you. It's a force, a palpable force, that literally moves like a sea around you, whispering about you just out of ear shot, growing suddenly and ringingly silent right before you hit your shots. It is a living thing that you can never get away from, that will always be there watching you, judging your every move.

Now, we all make judgments all the time. We have to or we'd die. We have to drive on the road, judging what others will do. We have to make purchases at the store, picking based on price or quality or whatever other feature we want or need. Judgment is a natural part of being human, and it becomes a habit (as it must) that we instantly and unconsciously engage to navigate the complexities of the world around us. If you didn't constantly make judgments, you wouldn't be able to get out of bed.

But when it comes to judging each other, we don't like to admit that we do it. It feels wrong (and is wrong, in many ways) to judge people. Is someone better or worse because of their religion or color of skin? Of course not, and we work hard to avoid such judgments.

Yet, we still do judge each other, and I think it happens in particularly strong doses at the holiday season. Did I get the present I wanted? Did she like the present I bought? I only see him once a year at this time, so I have to make the most of it. I love her so much I can't tell her what I really think. You know the drill...we all do.

Which brings me back to the gallery effect. I think the holidays can feel like playing a game of golf, where every tiny shot is watched by the "gallery" of family around you. It's like we are all suddenly immersed in our own "match play" game of golf, with a thronging gallery following us around, watching and evaluating every little thing we do. And it's a big deal because it is family, and we do love them, and despite how much we might not like to admit it, we do want them to love us back.

The good news is you can avoid the gallery effect. The weird thing is that the way to do it is not to avoid judgment, but to actively practice judgment. Yep, that's right...go ahead and judge and do it on purpose! That is the key to having a good time with judgment.

Trying to deny judgment is like Tiger Woods trying to say "hey folks, can't you all just walk away and leave me in peace?" It's not going to happen. And expecting to be around family and not be subject to judgment is just as unlikely. But...and this is the key...you don't have to buy in to the typical rules of judgment. You can define your own rules, which is where the "Rule Of Judgment" I outlined above comes in.

The idea is to change the effects of judgment by changing how you think about it. The nature of judgment, after all, is that it is based on some relative standard. If you are buying a car, you can judge it in any of a number of ways. You can judge it on price, and go for the lowest cost. You can judge it on the ride and go for the most comfort. You can judge it on mileage and go for the best miles-per-gallon rating. You can judge it on quality and go for the fewest repairs. You can judge it on beauty or perceived status. Hey, when I was 22 and single and living in Houston and wishing I could be a chick magnet, you can bet the reason I bought a mustang convertible had more to do with how I thought I looked than how much money I could save!

So judgment is something you can define. You can set the standard rather than having it set for you. And I have found that my little rule of judgment works great both as a way to do the judging and as a way to listen to the judging being done of you.

Let me give you two concrete examples.

First, for the sake of argument, let's say you are talking to your sister Mary. You ask Mary what she is up to lately, and she says she is thinking about buying a new car. Now, you know Mary and she always seems to go for those kinds of cars you think are awful, because you are a granola-head and you think everyone should buy small cars that don't spew a ton of greenhouse gases into our overly burdened atmosphere. Mary, on the other hand, loves her big cars and drives around in her Lincoln Extensus, which needs it's own zip code for a parking spot. Typically (that is, if you were not following the rule of judgment) you would feel your hackles going up, because you could see yourself getting into another stupid argument with Mary, fruitlessly trying to convince her to see the horrible effects her gluttony, while she donned that insipid smile you hate so much, looking pityingly at you because you squeeze yourself into the equivalent of a golf cart with a roof every day. Obviously, the conversation is not going to go well.

However, imagine instead you employ the rule of judgment to navigate this conversation. Instead of judging Mary on what YOU think would make her happy, you instead engage her to ask what makes HER happy. "Oh really" you say "sounds great, Mary. What are you looking for in your next car? I always feel like there are so many choices to make it makes my head spin. What are the five things that you really have to have in a car?" And then, you see, you are opening a door to enter into a conversation with Mary about what really matters to her, what she really cares about. Who knows, she might even confide that she hates the fact that the only way to get the room she really wants in a car is to end up polluting more and spending $50 at the pump every week to fill the tank. You could have a great conversation talking about alternatives she could consider to get what she wants. And if you listen very carefully, you might even hear her talk about the difference between what she really wants and what she thinks she is supposed to want. It may be that she feels like the only way to keep up with everyone in her neighborhood is to buy a Lexus, yet she secretly would love to spend the money on something else. By listening for what she really truly wants, and judging her only by whether she is taking actions that match, you can not only have a conversation that won't set her off, you might find a new depth of understanding.
As a second example, imagine you are in your mid forties and thinking about a career change. You are talking with your brother Frank who is one of those "know it all guys" who has an expert opinion at the ready on every topic that he can whip out and present with what sounds like absolute authority. He's your brother, and you love him, but man it chaps your hide that he can be so rigidly certain about everything. So against your better instincts, you tell him that despite the fact that you've been an engineer for 20 years, you are considering going back to Law school and starting up a practice in family law with an emphasis on divorce cases, something you've recently discovered is your new passion (alright, so it's a stretch...but just go with me for the story, ok?). Frank, alias "authority man", pipes up right away and says "You don't want to do that. What you really need to do is go into IP (intellectual property) law. With your engineering background, you'd be a perfect fit, and be making the big bucks right out of law school. Law firms would give you special treatment because of your background. Nobody is going to think a propeller head like you has any place in a divorce proceeding." Of course, you stopped listening right after he said "you don't want to do that" out of sheer annoyance that he'd have the audacity to think he knew what was best for you. By the time he got to "propeller head" your blood pressure had gone up by 20% and you were considering the best way to tell him off.

Now, once again, consider our "Rule Of Judgment" and ask yourself one simple question: was Frank judging what you said by that rule? Was he listening for what you truly wanted and judging you by whether you were taking the actions to reach your goal? Absolutely not. He was breaking that rule right out of the box. And by doing so, he wasn't talking about you at all! In fact, he was talking about himself and everything he said actually had nothing to do with you. Reread his comments and you'll see what he is talking about is really his strategy for what he thinks he would do to make money as a lawyer if he were an engineer. Not one question or remark about you, whether this was truly something you wanted, nor how you felt about switching from something you'd been doing for 20 years to something totally new. Not one question about what had caused your change of heart to a field that seemed so different nor how you came to understand such a profound shift in your own thinking. Those would have been positive judgments, engaging questions, around which you could have had a great conversation.

At this point you now have a choice. You can simply say "well thanks for the advice, Frank, I'll give it some thought. By the way, who do you favor in the super bowl?" and change the subject. Or you could say "I know, I know. It seems wild, doesn't it? I mean, it's so different from what I've been doing for 20 years, and it was amazing how I came to the realization. I'd be happy to share that with you, it's an interesting story" and see if he bites. Either way, you are putting the conversation into your own terms, using your own rules.

Give it a try. You have a couple of weeks to practice before the family descends upon you (or you upon them). Try listening to what people say they want and engaging them based on encouraging them to do the actions to get there. I promise you'll find the holidays far more enjoyable.

What Mom Can't Do For Herself

2006-11-28T08:56:00.000-06:00

If you're like me, you sometimes shake your head over the "guilt thing" that many mom's face. If you're a dad, you know what I'm talking about; it's this indelible streak of guilt that mom cannot seem to shake. It's like she is physically incapable of just relaxing at home. If you're a mom, you know what I'm talking about way more than I will ever understand. It's something about our culture that turns your home life into what one of my female colleagues calls "her second shift" of work each day.

For most moms, coming home is like a second job. It's not about finally getting out of the office. It's not about pulling a "Fred Flintstone" by jumping off your brontosaurus, midway through some project, surfing down the dinosaur's tail, and dashing to your car yelling "yabba dabba doo!" because you are finally getting to spend a few hours in your haven away from the madness you call work. That is a uniquely "dad" thing to do (you never saw Wilma yell "yabba dabba doo!" about being at home, now did you?)

Nope. For many women, the home is often just another test of their self worth. It's as though some lurking Junior Leauger with perfect hair and makeup and the body of a 25 year old fashion model is going to show up with white gloves on and point out all the reasons why your (meaning mom's) household is deficient. It's as though there's a hidden candid camera recording all the things that are not June Cleaver perfect that will suddenly show up as tonight's funniest home video (or worse, the next big download from YouTube).

Face it...no matter how "equal" we have tried to become, most moms still feel judged by how they run their home. Even that sentence is warped...notice how I said "how they run their home" like it's the mom's job by default! Even people like me, who have spent a lifetime trying to jettison all the cultural baggage that weighs us all down, slip into the role of reinforcing traditional roles. And let me hasten to say I have no problem with tradition -- so long as it's something chosen by the individuals and not imposed. I know many stay-at-home moms who are perfectly content and happy to be homemakers. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the moms who want to work yet who feel a remorse so profound because they are not full-time homemakers that it crushes the life out of them.

All of this struck me one day when I thought about the happy, charming girl I had married and how it had been so long since I had seen her as happy as she was before we got married. Now, of course, that could well be simply the effects of living nearly 20 years with me (!!) but I suspected that this "guilt thing" had a lot to do with it as well. So I asked my wife about it and we had a long talk about how we both felt about "home"; whether it was a haven or a chore, whether we felt like being home was more like time off or more like time-and-a-half. It was then that I realized how much she was dogged by this guilt thing and how impossible it was for her to shake it.

It was then that I realized she needed my active help to get this monkey off her back. I realized that mom's "guilt" was my problem as much as it was hers.

Yes, dads, that's right. If you really want that happy go lucky girl you married to come back to your marriage, you have a job to do. She cannot shake this guilt thing without help. You have to be a major cheerleader for her. She simply won't be able to do it without your help and encouragement. You have to rally the whole family to support it, to reinforce the notion that the only good mom is a happy mom, and the only way mom is going to be happy is if she can take a break. And I mean a real break...she has to get out of the house, away from work, and away from being a mom.

Remember one of the main rituals of work-life balance? Taking quiet time? Being Selfirst? If it's important for balance, then it's important for everyone, which includes moms. The trick for moms is that they often can't find that quiet time at home. To truly put themselves first, they need a complete break. They need total time off.

Which is why this Friday is our family's first Mom's Night Away night. I'm pushing my wife to literally check in to a local hotel for night and take Friday afternoon, evening, and Saturday completely for herself. It doesn't have to be far away and it doesn't have to be expensive. We have cell phones in case of any real emergency. But she needs to get away, not tell me what she's planning, and not be answerable to anyone in the family. She needs to not be around the house, see all the laundry that needs doing, the oven that needs cleaning, the lunches that need to be made. She needs to recharge her batteries, and the only way that can happen is if she gets a real break away from everything that pulls on her.

What's been most interesting is the whole process of getting my wife to really take me seriously on this. I've been encouraging it, and had my daughters excited about it, and still mom feels guilty. And that's the whole key here to this story -- that you, dad, may have to simply step in and insist. Whether it's making the hotel reservations or calling her boss to arrange the day off or whatever it is, you will probably find that you need to do more than just suggest. You need to actively participate in helping make the plans, and continuously remind mom that what she is doing is OK.

So give it some thought. We are coming up on the holiday season. Could be a really great gift, something different and powerfully meaningful. And who knows...it might just put a little "yabba dabba do" back in your marriage :-).

Is Work-Life Balance a Fad?

2006-09-27T09:44:00.000-05:00

Interesting question, eh? Obviously it makes a difference to someone like myself who is passionate about the subject. But even for the "average" person it's an important question. After all, it hits home in a basic way: can you expect any gains worker might have made in the past years in terms of things like flexible work to remain part of the corporate policy landscape? Put it another way: if you think you are working hard now, and if we are seeing only a fad in work-life balance policies as some argue, then it would mean things are only going to get harder for you.

Not a pleasant thought for most of the folks that I talk to.

But let's look at some of the evidence. I've written several blog entries on the topic of the business value of work-life balance. To me, that's where the rubber hits the road. Yes, work-life balance helps workers. Yes, companies will certainly want to use work-life balance as long as they feel compelled to use it to woo workers. But like anything else, work-life balance will only become a regular part of business when it becomes...well...a regular part of business. Like everything else, work-life balance has to prove its worth in business terms to have any lasting power. I believe I have such proof but let's listen to what is being said on the street.

For much of this entry I am going to refer to an excellent article published in The Economist magazine (see June 17th issue, "Special Report on Work-Life Balance", page 73-74)

According to The Economist article (and you see this same kind of material in other business references) you can see evidence both pro and con for work-life balance:

On the "pro" side:

Many companies are offering a wide range of programs in work-life balance. For example, IBM has over 50 programs that promote work-life balance. Furthermore, IBM has been very aggressive about promoting tele-work options, with currently 40% of IBM employees now work off-premises.
Other firms like Wegmans Food Markets have realized huge improvements in turnover rates. Wegmans has an 8% turnover rate, compared with an industry average of 19% for the grocery industry.
James Freer, a senior execituve at Ernst & Young is "absolutely convinced" that E&Y's initiatives in work-life balance help produce better bottom-line financial results. Ernst & Young also just appointed their first part-time worker as a partner, sending a strong signal that work-life balance does not have to mean a compromised career track.
DeAnne Aguirre, of BoozAllen Hamilton says that it is easy to make a good businesss case for work-life balance by looking both at their attrition rate and the cost to take a raw recruit through to a partner at the firm. That cost runs $2M per person. True, that cost is over the full time an individual would take to go from recruit to partner, but nevertheless, every time they lose someone to attrition, particularly over work-life balance issues, it means they have to start over with the next recruit.

On the "con" side:

For many firms, work-life balance means little more than child care, health care, and flexible working. This is only the tip of the iceburg when it comes to the potentail of work-life balance and clearly indicates a sort of "minimum investment". It's as if the firms are following a "meets minimum" sort of policy, providing just enough to make sure they aren't perceived as so "work-life balance unfriendly" that they trigger an exodus of talent.
As pointed out by the Economist article, "plenty of comapnies eschew" work-life balance programs. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia recently told employees to leave if they were not prepared to work weekends and long evenings for no extra reward. The CIO of Hewlett Packard recently issued emails rolling back tele-work strategies, insisting that all workers report to a physical location for work.
The Economist also argues that some would characterize work-life balance as a short-term fad. They would argue, for instance, that the new graduates of China and India will obviate the need for employers to offer work-life balance programs, presumably because such individuals will saturate the labor market creating a situation where such skilled workers will be so eager for work they will be willing to put in the long hours away from their families and friends.
Others argue that work-life balance pgrams will become meaningless over time because, they argue, the world is moving away from long-term employment to short-term contracts as the norm. In such a world, work-life balance programs would become meaningless because workers wouldn't remain at a firm long enough to make such corporate programs meaningful (e.g. people needing a break would simply not work for a while and then come back to work after their break).

So which is it? Is work-life balance a flash-in-the-pan or is it hear to stay? I would argue the latter for several critical reasons.

First, I believe most of the thinking today on work-life balance is shallow. Most employers are looking only at the potential down side of not having work-life programs. They are seeing the tight labor markets to come, they increasing competition for talent, and they are saying "wow...we better do something or we will find ourselves unable to attract talent."

Second, even the more enlightened firms are looking at only half the picture. Yes, firms such as BoozAllen Hamilton go beyond the "attract talent" argument and look at the costs of losing the talent they have already attracted. And yes, this is a good business case because it does represent real money lost if firms have a high turnover rate and have to repeatedly spend money re-acquiring talent.

But almost nobody is talking about the enhanced productivity of work-life balance. James Freer touched on it in his comments in The Economist article (mentioned above) where he indicated the programs helped produce better bottom-line financial results. I have found similar evidence in my own research at IBM, where my work-life balance studies indicate a doubling of productivity for those individuals who participate in work-life balance training. To me, this is the true potential of work-life balance: it's ability to produce greater productivity and thus even higher profits. The Economist further states that "many of the more imaginative schemes [for work-life balance] come from organisations that are not under pressure to report quarterly to Wall Street." It is only a matter of time before companies realize that work-life balance can lead to fatter profits. When that happens, work-life balance will be here to stay.

And what of the argument about the flood of graduates from China and India? All I can say is that people are people, and I doubt people in China or India will be any more enamored of destroying their lives to line the pockets of their employer than are people in the West. And again, I'd argue the same "up side" potential of work-life balance I've made many times before: if work-life balance can potentially double the productivity of your employees, and keep them happy, and keep them from leaving, why wouldn't you have a work-life balance policy? You'd have to be an idiot.

For me, the best quote from The Economist article is the following: "the introduction of flexible working, of itself, gives no guarantee that employees' work-life balance will improve." What that says to me is that we are only half-way there when it comes to work-life balance policies. Yes, we've introduced great programs to make the workplace more flexible. But those programs amount to very little without the training and services to show employees and managers how to maximize their productivity in the resulting new world created by such flexible policies.

Dead is Not Productive

2006-08-29T09:59:00.000-05:00

The Japanese call it "Karoshi" and it means "sudden death from overwork." On Aug 29 a bunch of news outlets in the US (see Reuters) carried the results of a study on Americans showing a link between long working hours and high blood pressure.

This wasn't really a surprise to me, nor was I surprised to learn that the Japanese culture, notorious for long work hours, is also notorious for high blood pressure.

The scary thing was the one tiny additional sentence in the article that read as follows: "Today, Americans work longer hours than do Japanese".

The article also pointed out that almost all of the developed world has legislation limiting long work hours. But I'm not sure that is the answer, and I don't think that trying to get a law passed to limit work hours would be any more successful than attempts at getting fast food producers to limit the calories in their food. We are not a very regulation-happy kind of culture. We like the freedom to work ourselves to death, damn it, and eat those big, fatty, cheese burgers along the way, thank you very much.

No...I'm much more interested in research that shows how work-life balance actually increases productivity. I've done some preliminary work in that area, but I'd love to see a large-scale study like the one mentioned in the Reuters article done on the positive productivity effects of work-life balance. That will make an impression on business owners.

Though who knows, perhaps with enough mounting evidence like this, workers will simply refuse to work the long hours. After all, no job is worth dying for.

Vacation Stats: Omen or Opportunity?

2006-08-21T09:23:00.000-05:00

Just when I think I've read the worst, along comes an article like the one that appeared in the Austin American Statesman this past weekend.

It covered vacation, and how much we are not taking it. The statistics are incredible:

25% of Americans get no paid vacation;
33% of Americans take a total of 5 days off a year;
20% of Americans have not taken a vacation (considered 3 or more consecutive days off) in over three years (survey done by TrueCareers, division of SallieMae);
The Conference Board (a private research group) found that this year (2006), 40% of Americans had no plans to take summer vacation, the lowest percentage recorded in the 28 years!

Everyone knows we get less vacation time in America than in other countries, but apparently we don't even take what we are offered. Strange, when you consider that some surveys (done by TrueCareers) indicate that 91% of Americans say that vacation is very or somewhat important when considering a job.

Makes you depressed just reading it, right? Grounds for feeling pessimistic that we are ever going to make progress, wouldn't you say?

Not me. In fact, I say just the opposite. All this "lack of taking a break" comes across as a huge opportunity to me. Think about it...we're talking about 1 in 5 people who haven't had a break in over 3 years, and nearly a third who don't take more than 5 days off (and probably carry their Blackberry with them on their "vacation"). Can you imagine how burned out these folks feel? Do you think they are feeling energized? Enthusiastic? Excited about coming to work and putting in more hours? No way.

And all that spells opportunity for those who are willing to balance their lives. It reminds me of the tortoise and hare story; the hare has run himself into the ground dashing around so hard he's got nothing left to give. To me, it says something loud and clear: that the smart individuals (and companies) will realize that work-life balance offers the potential for a huge competitive advantage.

Sound crazy? Tell that to PricewaterhouseCoopers (not the part acquired by IBM, the part that is still independent). According to the article in the Statesman (Sunday Aug 20, page A10) PricewaterhouseCoopers has taken to "shutting down its entire national operation twice a year to ensure that people stop working." When asked about it, company leaders said they stated the shutdown because they noticed their employees were not getting their batteries recharged, and they are seeing positive results from the program. I wonder if they will start seeing the same results that Kitchell Corp. has seen in employee retention (see previous blog entry).

As I say, smart companies (and smart people) will realize that regular maintenance is not "cheating", it's responsible behavior. Anyone who wants to be a top performer knows they need a maintenance routine. Just think about sports -- do you think it's important for Football players to rest after the game on Sunday? Do you think it makes a difference in performance if runners take time to do flexibility exercises? Do you think Tiger Woods values the time he spends with his coach? You bet. And if it matters in the sporting world, why not in the working world? Doesn't performance matter as much (if not more) in our work as it does in our play?

Think about it. And when you do, think about this: what is your maintenance plan?

Staying "in the process"

2006-08-18T10:53:00.000-05:00

I've written several times in this blog about "process" versus "result" (or "action" versus "outcome"). The point, of course, is that you make much more progress -- and are much happier -- if you focus on the process/actions instead of obsessing on the results.

But how do you do it? Just exactly how does one stay "in the process"?

I had an interesting lesson this week on just this point from my own mentor. I was getting myself completely tangled up in worrying about results and I knew he was going to say "just stay in the process". But statements like that can be so frustrating; it's like when your parents used to tell you "don't worry, it will all work out" and you wanted to say "easy for you to say...you're sitting in the cheap seats."

So I cornered my mentor and we spent about 40 minutes talking about it. As of this morning it finally penetrated by thick head that there are a couple of very critical habits that you can follow which make this all a lot easier:

First, you need to make sure you are clear on the difference between your goals and your plans. Goals are general; plans are specific. It's easy to confuse the two, to the point where you are shooting yourself in the foot.

Here's a great example. Years ago, when I first started coaching and writing about work-life balance, it was before it became a critical business topic. My goal then was the same as now -- get myself involved -- but the approach (the plan) I selected was to market myself on my own. Now, however, given IBM's huge emphasis on work-life balance, it makes total sense to work within the company. All the external efforts I was making don't make as much sense any more. So the plan changed, even though the goal is the same.

Bottom line: you need to be open to new oppportunities. That's why it's so critical to not get wrapped up in any specific outcome. If you do, you're likely to miss the best opportunities coming your way. Don't confuse the details of the plan with your overall goal!
Second, make sure you keep a shallow "look ahead." Let me tell you what I mean. If you've ever played chess, you will be familiar with the idea of "look ahead." It's the idea that you try to think ahead several moves into the future -- what you will do, what your opponent will do, what you will then do in response to that, etc. We have a lot of reinforcement for this kind of thinking in our culture. It becomes second nature to us to think ahead about possible things that might happen and try to plan for all eventualities. We even praise ourselves for this; think of the boy scout motto "Be Prepared."

The problem is that this kind of thinking can completely mess you up. The truth is that most things are not predictable (if they were, I'd be rich from trading on the stock market and probably not writing this). And since you cannot predict the future, you can easily waste a huge amount of time on things that never happen. Of course, some planning is certainly useful, but I find most of the people I coach tend to plan themselves right out of doing anything at all. They try so hard to figure everything out that they never get started.

Bottom line: do one thing at a time; specifically, concentrate on doing the best you can on the next immediate step. Get into the habit of focusing on step 1, and forget about step 2, 3, and 4. Things can change anyway. If you can be more in the moment, you'll be a better listener and you'll be more flexible and more open to new opportunities.

So...keep it simple. Focus on just the next step. Let the future come to you. It will save you tons of time and you'll sleep much better.

Spend an Hour, Get a Day

2006-07-17T10:49:00.000-05:00

I've written a lot in this blog about the value of putting yourself first. Here's another story on that same theme...this time, not from me, but from one of the people I coach. In his words

"Paul, you've been telling me for weeks to take some time for myself, but I never realized how amazing the effects would be until I actually did it."

For the purposes of this story, let's call him David. David is like a lot of us. David has a lot to do, and he works his butt off all week. David also really loves his family and wants to "do right" by them, especially on the weekends.

As you can probably guess, David doesn't typically take much time for David.

So it turns out that last May, David's wife did something really special for him. She bought him a used Corvette, one of those "classic" models. David is a car fan, particularly fond of Corvettes, so it was very cool of her. It was also an expression, I think, on her part of trying to tell David "hey, David...do something for you. It's OK. We'd rather have you happy than killing yourself."

But David, being David, had never once, in 6 months, taken the car for a spin. Amazing, eh? Why not? Too busy, too much to do, to guilty about spending time on himself. Instead, David was trying to be a "good Dad, and a good husband" by taking his weekend time to "do things around the house." But to me, David was complaining about all the "honey do" things he felt his wife was asking him to do. Yeah...the same woman who bought him the cool car.

A little angry? Ya THINK?

And David wasn't really happy with himself either. Plus he knew, I think, that he really needed to take time for himself, and that fundamentally, his wife and family would support that. He just needed to "give himself permission."

Which is exactly what he did one fine Saturday morning this past January. He took the car out early on a Saturday for a little over 1 hour. He told me that when he came back, it was like having a completely new lease on life. The "honey do" disappeared. He felt happy to be doing things with his family, fixing up stuff around the house. He enjoyed the rest of his day far more than had in the past.

His family noticed too. And they commented on it.

So...seems like David made a great trade. He traded 1 hour of time for himself and got back a whole day that was of much higher quality. It's a trade we can each make every single day. Take that time at the beginning of each day and do something you want to do. It really will make the rest of the day more productive and more pleasant. Doing something for yourself on a regular basis will absolutely skyrocket your productivity for the rest of the day.

Don't believe me? Try it. Just try it! Don't "green-eggs-and-ham" it...just try it. Do it on a daily basis for 1 month. I guaranty you will see huge benefits.

The Business Value of Coaching

2006-05-17T10:30:00.000-05:00

Would a half million a year for coaching be too much? Some business think not.

The Wall Street Journal carried an interesting article (see May 16 issue) on the value of coaching. Coaching is now over a $1 billion business and growning. For at least one firm, Kitchell Corp., it has become a must. Each of their top 22 executives receives regular executive coaching.

Just for sissies, you say? Think again...Kitchell is a construction company. And according to the Wall Street Journal article, Kitchell spends $200,000 a year on coaching "but it would be worth a half million."

"OK, sure" you say "so what. So one company has gone over the deep end on this stuff. So there are a lot of loonies in this world. Why should I care?" As you know from any of my blog entries, I'm right there with you. I happen to like this work-life balance stuff, but I am definitely of the opinion that it has to prove its worth, just like anything else. Most of us are in for-profit businesses, and work-life balance has to pull its weight -- in a bottom line sense -- or it can't expect to make an impact.

For Kitchell, it has. Annual turnover at Kitchell is down from 19% to 4%. Makes that $200K look like a bargain, eh?

I'll be curious to watch Kitchell to see if their performance goes up. Me, I'd rate it a "buy" except that I think it is still privately owned. But think about it, what do you expect will happen to Kitchell in the long run? Do you think less turnover is a sign of happier employees? Do you think happier more enthusiastic employees are more productive? Only something like 40 years of psychological research says so.

So I hope I'm wrong. I hope Kitchell is a publically traded company so we get to see the improvement show up directly in the bottom line. To me, it's inevitable that it will.

The Cost of Staying Home

2006-02-16T08:19:00.000-06:00

It's inevitable. It must come up about once a week. And the comment is always something like

oh (sigh)...maybe I should just quit my job and stay home.

And let's face it. Because my wife and I both work full time, we do spend quite a bit on what amounts to paying somebody else to run our house. We do pay someone to come and clean, to cut the grass, to watch our kids for the two hours between when school is out and the time when we get home. In fact, we've even taken it a step further -- we pay a "parent nanny" which is a college student who shows up at 4:30, cooks dinner, stays for dinner, and cleans up after dinner, so that my wife and I can come home and focus on our kids. And of course there is the cost of summer camps, a consideration which always rolls around this time of year.

And yeah, it adds up. It adds up a lot. And in a culture that constantly whispers in a woman's ear "you know...your place is really in the home" it's no wonder that practically every week, we feel the familiar pull of

oh (sigh)...maybe I should just quit my job and stay home

But hang on a minute. Before you just give in and join the herd with all the other cattle, take a moment to think it through.

Let's do the numbers. Let's even be outrageous.

Say you do "outsource" the running of your home. You pay someone to clean, to cut the grass. That's say $150 a week. You pay someone to watch your kids after school until when you get home. Say another $500 a month. You do what we do and hire someone to help out in the evenings doing the dinner-and-cleanup routine. That's even more, say $200 a week. And you pay for baby sitting so you can go out with your spouse once a week on a date. And you pay for dinner. All told, you're getting close to $2K a month. "My God!" you say "two thousand dollars a month!" And don't forget summer camps...that's probably another $500 a week for 10 weeks of the summer.

Holy Crap! $2K a month plus summer camp! What's that...about $30K a year! Yikes!

But hang on. We're not anywhere near done. We haven't counted all the other costs. Let's call them the "costs of unbalance".

First, there are the "psychological costs." Consider what your life would be like if you stayed home all day. You went to college, you have a degree...but what are you doing? You're cooking. Cleaning. Cutting the grass. Really fulfilling stuff. Where is all that anger at being "stuck at home" going to go? Think your kids will notice? Think it's better for your kids to see "mad mommy" or "mad daddy" stomping around the house? Yeah...great example.

Second, there are the "lost benefits costs." You have no 401K. No pension plan. No health benefits. In short, being a "full time at home person" gives you no job benefits. There's no career path, no union you can join, and no watch dog agency making sure you are getting your fair share.

Third, there are the "instability costs." What happens if your spouse dies? What are your job prospects? None. What about the effect on your spouse's job? Single bread-winner means that person is on the hook to always win the bread. And if their job sucks? Too bad Jack, you gotta keep going to that awful job and taking it on the chin. There's no "second income" to lean on while you look for a new job.

Fourth, there are the "time bomb costs." There you are at home, getting more pissed off every day that you went to college but you're stuck cleaning toilets. Your spouse is a slave to a bad job, getting more pissed off every day because they feel locked in. You don't go on regular dates with your spouse any more either because you can't justify the extra cash for the baby sitter and dinner costs because you are scraping by on one salary, or because your life is so kid-centered you've lost all perspective. So your marriage? Well it's put on the back burner...the way back burner.

What does that mean? How about when you finally can't take it any more and you get a divorce, you're looking at a average of $25,000 to sign the divorce papers. After that, you're looking at the cost of running two households on the same income. In short you're looking at another $2K per month costs anyway to run a second home -- for the rest of your life!

So yeah, we probably do spend most of our second salary on "services". After taxes, I'd bet we don't really bank that much more cold, hard cash. And to many folks, I know what we do must look bonkers.

But we get to bank a whole lot more than cash. I get to spend three hours of focused time with my kids every day. I have a date with my wife every week. I have one-on-one dates with each of my kids every week. I have added job security, knowing that if my company goes south, we have income through my wife. And oh yea...we benefit from two 401K programs, two pension programs, and will ultimate benefit from higher Social Security contributions.

So the next time you start thinking "oh (sigh)...maybe I should just quit my job and stay home" just make sure of one thing. Make sure you do ALL the math.

The Power of Fun

2006-01-05T09:09:00.000-06:00

Today is about college football. Whether you hate it or love it, after that national championship game last night, you can't help but talk about it. And whether it's your second religion, or whether you see it as an over-hyped, over monied, waste of time, you have to notice one thing that cannot be denied.

Last night, it was fun that was crowned champion.

Vince Young, the Texas quarterback, has elicited many comments about his performances this year, but the most common is how he has fun when he plays the game. And that is true despite all the noise and hype...and God knows we had way too much hype for yesterday's game. And yet to watch Vince Young play is to see someone who, no matter what the circumstances, decides to have fun.

Think about that. No matter what the circumstances, decide to have fun. I'm reminded of something my mentor taught me once...he challenged me to choose to decide to have fun with what I am doing.

Listen to that lanugage. Choose to decide to have fun. There are many things we can't choose: we can't choose the level of hype, we can't choose whether people will be disappointed, we can't choose how negative and vicious the world around us can be. But we can always choose to decide to have fun. What we choose to decide is always up to us.

Have you read my section on being "selfirst" yet? Is there any doubt in your mind about why being "selfirst" is the foundation of work-life balance?

Do you think that might have anything to do with having fun?

WANTED: Those Interested in Work-Life Balancing. Only People Who Want Success Need Apply

2005-12-14T12:27:00.000-06:00

Why should you care about Work-Life Balancing? I guess if you don't care about success you can just go ahead an blow it off.

On the other hand, if you do care about career success then you absolutely need balance. More evidence pops up before our eyes every day.

Take the great article by Jen Murphy today in the Wall Street Journal about Kelly Perdew (see "Trump's Apprentice Says He Won't Let a Deal Derail His Fitness Routine").

Who is Kelly Perdew? He's the winner of Donald Trump's second season of "The Apprentice." He also happens to have an MBA, a JD, and has been spent considerable time in high-stress jobs like getting a start-up company up and running.

What did he find? In his own words, here's what happened when he stopped balancing his life to include exercise:

I couldn't stay up late, I got tired easily, I wasn't as alert and I wasn't happy...I turned soft.

Now he never lets a week go by without getting in regular exercise. His negative experience with the start-up company was the "turning point" for him that changed his life.

The result is obviously working for him. Sure he could be spending those exercise hours closing another deal, but the time spent exercising is "totally worth it" according to Perdew.

So you can stay unbalanced, tire easily, be lethargic, get soft, and be unhappy....or you can be energized, alert, strong, and feel great about yourself. Which do you think would contribute more to your success?

for past articles on fitness from the WSJ, see the archive

Success May Have a New Definition -- Even for Men

2005-12-12T13:38:00.000-06:00

I applaud Stan Van Gundy's decision today to resign as the head coach of the Miami Heat (see today's ESPN cover story).

Van Gundy has been the coach for the Heat for season's that take him away from home virtually half of each year. And it was just more than he could take. As he put it:

I've got a 14-year-old daughter and it started to hit me when I started thinking about her birthday, which was last month. I've got four more years left with her. Four. And then she'll be off to college and I'm just not willing to sacrifice any more of those four more years.

So, was it the Christmas season? Was it just this one man? Or are we seeing more signs of a "burn out" factor that seems to be coming to a boil (see previous blog entries on Business Week cover story, and new-grad stress)?

I am actually encouraged. Because as long as WLB is seen as a "fringe" issue or just a "women's issue" it can, and will, be marginalized. But when it becomes an issue for everyone -- even those who are well paid and at the height of their success -- I think we will begin to see real changes take place.

Finding the Time for Relationships

2005-11-30T12:10:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving is, of course, a great time to contemplate all the good things we have. It's also a great time to catch up on reading the paper, which I did this past Saturday. While I was catching up on past issues of the Wall Street Journal, I ran across a story about how parents are monitoring their kids' blogs (see the "Weekend Edition" of the WSJ, story title "BigMother Is Watching").

The gist of the article is that teenagers will often confide to their blogs what they would never tell their parents. The very public nature of the Internet makes blog entries entirely different from diary entries...not only is it easy for your parents to see what you write, it's also easy for any screwed-up psychopath to be reading it as well.

It turns out about 20% of teenagers have blogs, and many consider it an invasion of privacy for their parents to read them. Yet parents have legitimate concerns about safety, especially when their kids are giving away contact information in their blog profiles.

Where does this link with work-life balancing? I couldn't help but think that it all boils down to spending one-one-one time with our kids. How many of us think that spending "family time" is enough? I don't think it is. If I want a relationship with someone, that relationship requires one-on-one focus. Spending time in a group is just doesn't cut it.

Don't believe me? Try an experiment: try taking your kids out on a date individually. It doesn't have to be elaborate and it doesn't have to take long. The key is to make it intentional, where they know the whole point is that they get 100% of your attention. No brother, no sister, no spouse, and no chores to be done. This is 100% about you spending time completely dedicated to something they are interested in doing.

And when you do this, just ask yourself this: does my child behave differently when we are one-on-one? You bet they do.

Here's how you can fit this into an already busy schedule. It turns out it doesn't take much time at all. We do "kid dates" about once every two weeks, literally scheduling it on the calendar in advance. We typically "double up" with my wife taking one child and me taking the other. It takes maybe an hour of time. It's a drop in the bucket for me in terms of time, but the guaranty of "dedicated daddy time" is something I know my kids look forward to.

I may be sitting in the cheap seats because my daughters are not yet teenagers. And I'm not so naive as to think that I won't face tough issues when my kids hit their teens. Yet I can't help but think that the best tool I will have to deal with any teenage crisis will be the depth of my relationship with my child. And that won't be worth much if I don't invest the time.

WLB Principle 2: Live Blame-Free

2005-11-30T10:42:00.000-06:00

Commit to living your life completely without "blame." Do this by taking the phrase "I can't" out of you vocabulary and substituting "I want" instead. This will give you a powerful tool for breaking out of the beliefs that are holding you back.

When it comes right down to it, the most powerful force working against your work-life balance is probably you. Happy thought, eh? Before you get too frustrated, know this: you were duped. You do have all the tools to make your life what you want it to be, but you were never taught how to use them to suit your purposes.

The good news is there is a process for breaking out of this rut and it all has to do with listening to the goofy ways we were all taught to put obstacles in our own path (what I call "blame language").

Consider the following lessons we were all taught:

The secret to happiness is external; please "them" (your teacher, your parents, your boss, your kids) and then you will be happy.
Success is pre-defined for us into nice, society-endorsed chunks like grades, or the size of your house, or the initials after your name on your business card. Just "make the grade"--do not pass GO, do not use your own imagination.
Don't be a wimp; you should be able to do it on your own. Coaching for people like olympic athletes is one thing, but seeking help for something as mundane as living your life better? No way...that would be admitting defeat.

The result? Life is all about rules, grades, and self-reliance. We fill our lives with "blame statements" because we have our "grade hats" on. We have been conditioned to automatically rate ourselves against others, and our culture reinforces this, pelting us night and day with signals about how we are "inadequate." In that kind of environment, blaming becomes almost a matter of sanity; if we don't find ways of blaming someone or something outside of ourselves, our self esteem gets ground to a pulp.

The silver lining to this cloud, and the way out of this trap, is to recognize a very simple truth: we don't blame if we don't care. I don't blame the sky for being blue, but I might blame my boss for making me work so hard that I don't get enough time with my kids.

But if I care about something, the key to getting what I want is to focus on what I want, not waste my time on excuses as to why I don't have it. Who cares who's to blame? So what that maybe I've screwed up in the past? The "blame" is a signal pointing me to something important.

Blame is a mask you need to strip away so you can see what you really want lying beneath. And that is the secret to getting rid of blame altogether. Once you can sense yourself drowning in blame, you can throw yourself a life jacket by thinking about what you really want that the blame is hiding. And that's when you can start taking the "I can't" junk out of your life and start substituting "I want" instead.

Try this exercise: every time you feel yourself saying "I can't," take the time to pause and ask yourself instead "what do I really want?" I mean literally take the time to stop what you are doing. I've had days when I've been on the road, driving like a jerk, mad at everyone else who is "driving the wrong way," and I've literally pulled off the road to take 5 minutes to ask "what the heck is really bugging me?" Challenge your blame head on by asking "if I could wave a magic wand and make this go away, what would I be doing differently?"

Then, start taking actions using your own grades and your own rules. Set your sights on what you want and ask "how can I make this happen?" Be creative. Challenge the "rules" you were taught. Make up new ones if you need them. And above all, "grade" yourself on your own actions (see the discussion on process versus result).

And finally, use that self-reliance you were taught to stick to your guns even when others scoff (which they will). After all, it's your life and you only go around once. How long did you plan on letting "them" run your life?

WLB Principle 4: Reinforce With Rituals

2005-11-15T12:00:00.000-06:00

Make the time to build regular reinforcement rituals into your schedule. You will need these to keep your balance. Very few of us pay attention to regular maintenance activities because their repetitive nature can lull us into thinking they amount to wasted time. They do not. They may not be glamorous, but they are essential-you will fail without them.

If you want to live a balanced life, then you will feel like you stick out. Expect it. It is unavoidable. Human beings don't live balanced lives as a general rule, so if you want to live a balanced life, then you should expect to stand out. We live in herds, and the herd instinct is incredibly strong. You are supposed to go where the herd goes, and if the herd decides to jump off a cliff then you are supposed to jump right along with everyone else.

The point is that the system is arbitrary. The problem from a balance perspective is that being in balance is all about not being arbitrary. Living a balanced life means purposefully embracing the things that are important to you, and arranging your life to suit.

That is why balance can feel wrong. It's also why I can guarantee you that you will fall off the wagon. You will backslide. You will sincerely and honestly mean to live a balanced life, and yet you will find yourself stumbling repeatedly into herd behavior that you really don't like because nobody can resist the herd instinct forever. Nobody is that aloof.

Yet the instinct to follow the herd, to engage in ritual, can be used to your advantage. What if you deliberately created rituals to renew your commitment to the important things in your life? Do you think that balance would be any easier to obtain?

You bet it would. In fact, I would claim it is exactly these kinds of rituals of renewal that are key to maintaining a balanced life. Here are some rituals you can consider using to keep you in balance and help you re-balance:

Quiet time. Take regular time to sit, alone, when you are well rested, and just think. No particular agenda, no particular problems to solve--just time to sit and think about you, what you want out of life, and to do it in a setting where you don't feel pushed, rushed, harassed, harried, or under the gun in any way. Remove the noise and you will tap in to what you really want.
Run straight at your fears. When something is bugging you, run straight at it, the faster the better. Make a note of when you are first aware of whatever it is that is bugging you, and see if you can beat your personal best time between when you first noticed the fear and when you have plunged yourself into the heart of dealing with it. It might sound crazy, but it has a very practical side effect: it is the most efficient way to get past the barriers that keep you from doing what you want. This is a close cousin to living without blame; if something is bugging you, the sooner you can get at it, the less time you will waste worrying about it.
Coach or work with others regularly on work-life balance. Nothing is so good at getting me to go to the gym as knowing someone will be there to meet me. Things done with others are always more successful than things done alone. Form some kind of regular encouragement network, which meets on a regular basis, to keep yourself balanced. So much of our culture is anti-balance and messed up that it's virtually impossible to keep yourself in a healthy lifestyle without someone you can talk to regularly about whatever hurdles you are facing at the moment.
Celebrate your small wins. Celebrate your new balanced lifestyle. Celebrate it a lot. Use any progress you make as an excuse to pop a cork and toast yourself. We know the culture around you will send you a lot of signals that will reinforce bad habits and push you off balance. You have to counteract this by celebrating your wins. If you don't do it, nobody else will.

Remember, you are changing our life. You are building momentum, rebuilding your own internal positive history to counteract years of negative history. Use ceremony to fix your new life into your mind. It's the only way you will be able to break away from the old habits.

Results-Obsession Throws Off Your Balance, and Hurts Everyone Around You

2005-11-08T17:08:00.000-06:00

When you obsess about results, you hurt yourself, slow yourself down, push yourself farther away from your ultimate goals--and you hurt everyone else around you as well.

I've written about the dangers of results-obsession before in this blog, so it's nothing new to regular readers. What's interesting is to see this view reinforced by others, especially those who make a living at analyzing the workplace.

Jared Sandberg wrote a great piece in the Wall Street Journal today (see "Deciders Suffer Alone; Nondeciders Make Everyone Else Suffer"). In short, he points out that "nondeciders" (people whom he characterizes as managers who make an art-form out of postponing decisions) have an incredibly destructive effect on those around them. They create a sort of "numbness" that pervades the entire organization.

What I particularly liked was a section of his article where he quotes Christopher Anderson, an assistant professor at Temple University:

People fail to make decisions at work for a number of reasons. They are spooked by uncertainty, focus on potential losses, lack a sense of control that makes them feel more comfortable with thum-twiddling status quo, or believe additional time will provide clarifying information [emphasis added]

What's the point? As a "nondecider" you are clearly hurting yourself. Sitting on the sidelines is no way to move ahead; in fact, it's not movement at all. More importantly, while you may feel safer you are, in fact, incurring the wrath of those around you. Clearly this is not going to help you meet future goals, especially those that require the cooperation of others (and how many goals don't?).

So stick to focusing on activities and let the results come to you. You'll get more done, you'll sleep better, and you won't be pissing off everyone around you!

Deficit to Impact Work-Life Balance?

2005-11-06T11:16:00.000-06:00

OK, this may be a stretch, and I would never have made the connection without having written a previous blog entry on the new strains being placed on college grads because of money concerns.

Here's the deal. In my previous blog entry, I quoted an article from the Wall Street Journal, describing how college grads are increasingly having to work long hours to make ends meet. On Sunday, Nov. 6, my local paper carried a story from the Washington Post ("Education bill could put squeeze on student loans") outlining how the House Committee on Education is having to take a bite out of student loans to meet deficit-reduction goals.

Put two and two together and you get the following: WLB is not just for the middle-aged, it's increasingly a problem for the young, and our deficit spending ways will exacerbate the problem further but putting a bigger squeeze on our kids before they even graduate.

To me it all leads to the same thing: life is tough and getting tougher, and the demands on us are both growing and starting at a younger age. Knowing how to balance your life is an increasingly crucial skill to have.

More Evidence that Balanced Employees = More Profitable Employees

2005-11-03T07:56:00.000-06:00

Need a reason to feel justified about concentrating on work-life balance? Try telling yourself you're doing it for the good of the company.

In today's Chicago Tribune (see "Excitement of job can wane quickly"), Carol Kleiman cites a study by Sirota Survey Intelligence, showing that the more enthusiastic the worker, the higher the performance of the company.

If this seems obvious (as it does to me) then ask yourself this: why are so many of us having such a hard time balancing our lives? After all, if it is in the best interests of our company that we come to work refreshed, enthusiastic, and ready to go, you'd think we all be motivated not to work so hard that we get burned out.

So why are so many of us working 50+ hours? Working on the weekends? Answering email in the middle of the night?

I think it's an example of "backward thinking" we've internalized as part of how we grow up. Do your homework first, then you can go out and play. Most of us have never developed a good, healthy notion of how helping ourselves first can ultimately help others. I call it being "Selfirst" (not selfish) and it's one of the key principles behind keeping yourself balanced.

So chew on that, the next time you're tempted to work way past your breaking point. Maybe the best thing for you to do -- the most productive thing for you to do -- is to take a break to recharge your batteries.

NY's Tax on Telecommuting Will Ultimately Backfire

2005-11-02T09:04:00.000-06:00

NY's recent short-sighted efforts to extract tax dollars from telecommuters will ultimately hurt NY business in the long run.

See the November 1 Wall Street Journal in the Personal Journal section (see "Telecommuters may face new taxes" note: WSJ is not free on line).

Let me summarize the article. A guy from Tennessee works for a company in New York. The state of NY decides to tax 100% of his income, even though he only spends 25% of his time actually in NY. Turns out NY has done this to lots of other folks too (the article sites other cases where NY has done the same thing to telecommuters who live in other states but work for a NY company). When the telecommuters try a lawsuit, they lose.

The kicker is that the Supreme Court denied hearing the appeal, which means the NY law stands.

What does this mean for telecommuters? I fear a growing trend among states, always hungry for cash, who will look to tax individuals based on where their company is based, not on where the individual actually lives.

Can't you just see it coming? Having to pay state tax TWICE? Makes you think twice about telecommuting for a company that doesn't have a presence in your state.

One piece of good news is that two members of Congress, Chris Dodd (D) and Chris Shays (R), are sponsoring the "Telecommuter Tax Fairness Act" aimed at curbing state taxes.

I think this will end up hurting NY, especially small businesses in NY. Think about it: if you are telecommuting, one way to avoid this kind of nasty tax mess is to work for a company that at least as some presence in your local state. Example: I work for IBM and IBM has locations in Texas, so even though IBM has a HQ in NY, it would be tough for NY to try to make a claim on my salary because IBM has a Texas presence. I could work from anywhere in Texas and be OK.

But small companies don't have this kind of US-wide or world-wide presence. Worse, a small company in NY has no control over what the state is going to do.

So think twice before signing up to telecommute for a small company based in NY, unless you already live in NY. Unless they have an official presence in your state, they have no way to guaranty that your income won't be subject to NY tax.

Work-Life Backlash Just Got More Likely

2005-11-02T08:26:00.000-06:00

Companies thinking about business strategy for 2006 ought to give work-life balance a new look as one of their top strategic business priorities.

Why? Because the backlash is going to come a lot sooner than anyone thinks.

Consider the article in the Nov 1 Wall Street Journal (title "Working on the Double" note: WSJ on line is not free) which shows how the never ending skyrocketing costs of college are now starting to impact work-life balance of even the newest workers.

The gist of the story is that typical new college graduate has piled up a mountain of debt because of out-of-control college costs (which have tripled in past 15 years). Yet, in the same period, starting salaries have only gone up, at best, 30%.

The result: it's nearly impossible to live off your starting salary and pay off your school loans. So graduates are working two jobs, and 60 hours per week, just to make ends meet.

To me this will only fan the flames of the work-life balancing problems companies are going to have to face. Most of us only hit the really serious WLB issues after we get married and have kids. But now we're hitting people at 22 with 60 hour weeks.

Unfortunately, companies have grown used to people being willing to put in 50 hour weeks (as this article states, as did the Oct 3 Business Week cover story, see blog posting).

This is totally insane. There's no way this can last.

The smart companies will figure out that they are going to lose their most precious resource -- their people -- if they don't address work-life balance as a strategic corporate issue.

WLB Principle 3: Embrace Your Passions

2005-11-01T11:08:00.000-06:00

Find your passions in life and embrace them with every fiber of your being. If you do this, everything about your life will be easier, come faster, be healthier, take less time, and produce vastly more results. Nothing-absolutely nothing-can compete with passion.

Life is full of irony, but when it comes to work-life balancing, nothing seems quite so ironic to me as the fact that I can actually get more done with less effort. It defies conventional logic. Yet I am here to tell you that you can indeed get more from less, far more than you believe possible. The key is passion.

Fundamentally, it's all about not working against yourself. To put it in business terms, it's like reducing overhead. If you reduce overhead, your business is more efficient and makes a higher profit. To put it in terms of physics, it's like reducing the friction in the system. If you take friction out of a system, it takes less energy to produce motion and you travel longer distances with each effort. So it is with passion. When you tap into your passion, it makes everything easier to start, simpler to maintain, and you produce better results.

When you carry your passions uppermost in your mind, it's like walking around with an automatic instant decision making box at your finger tips. You don't have to spend a lot of time planning because you can be confident you will do the right thing at the right time. And you don't have to predict what's going to happen because you know that whatever happens, it will be obvious whether it is something related to what you are interested in. It will literally feel right. If not, you need only figure out how to either avoid it or, if it can't be avoided, then how to deal with it as efficiently as possible.

Passion also reduces another huge time waster: doubt. Passion is the grease that will keep your gears moving even when doubt makes you feel like your engine is going to seize up. And there is one simple, compelling reason why. Despite all the feelings of doubt, despite the inescapable truth that you cannot know what lies ahead, you do have one rock solid certainty that you can take to the bank: you know you will be doing something you enjoy. No matter what else happens, you will be having a great time--by definition--because you will be pursuing the things you love to do the most.

The point is: embracing your passions gives you the power to eliminate most of life's decision making overhead. Decisions are simpler and can be made more quickly because it is so much easier to ignore the irrelevant. It's like going to a restaurant thinking, "you know, I think I want fish tonight." Just knowing that eliminates most of the menu from consideration. Compare that to thinking "I have no idea what I want to eat." Not knowing what you want means you'll take a whole lot longer to make up your mind.

Work-Life balance recipe: common sense plus uncommon bravery

2005-10-31T11:11:00.000-06:00

A lot of people come to me asking about work-life balancing expecting that I have some kind of "silver bullet" secret that will suddenly make their life easier. I don't; or rather, I should say I don't have that silver bullet but I help others discover that they have the silver bullet, and they have had it all the time.

Which is to say that work-life balancing really boils down to common sense, and uncommon bravery. We can all have the life we want, but it takes a brave person to make the commitment to swim against the stream.

Take, for instance, the story about the White family in this weekend's Austin American Statesman newspaper. Great article about a family that decided to chuck it all and take a year off for an educational tour in Europe. And they literally did "chuck it all" -- the sold their cars, quit their jobs, rented out their home, took their kids out of school, and spent a year touring Europe as a family.

So what's the point? Joe and Kim White remind us of a very important lesson: that the power to have the life we want lies completely within us. Not that everyone needs to rush out, quit their jobs, and sell their cars. Rather that we spend too much of our time telling ourselves why we can't do what we want, which just ensures we always get what we've always got in the past.

Work-life balancing isn't about the big disruptive things like chucking it all for a year off. It's about all the little things, the "death by a thousand cuts" that grind us down. It's about having the guts to do what we really want with our lives, and stand up to all the commentary we get from the culture around us.

Bravo for Joe and Kim White, who not only got the life they wanted, but also inspired a major newspaper and an entire city along the way.

WLB Principle 5: Be "Selfirst"

2005-10-30T11:36:00.000-06:00

Put yourself first. Most of us are taught that looking after our own needs is selfish and we overcompensate by completely ignoring our needs. The busier you get in life, the more important it becomes to make sure you are taking care of yourself.

How curious that a snippet of airplane etiquette which goes largely ignored should hold the secret to the most important principle of work-life balancing I could possibly share with you. How interesting that so many of us have memorized something that holds the key to keeping our lives balanced and happy, and yet fail to heed the advice.

If you've been on an airplane, you've heard it. It goes something like this:

Should we experience a sudden change in cabin pressure, an oxygen mask will automatically deploy from the compartment above your seat. Reach up, grasp your mask, and pull firmly to start the flow of oxygen. Place the mask over your nose and mouth and tighten the adjustable straps on either side of the mask. If you are seated next to someone who needs assistance with their mask, put your mask on first and then help the person next to you.

Notice what they tell us to do first: "put your mask on first." I'm guessing here that the phrase "sudden change in cabin pressure" is probably a euphemism for something more descriptive like "listen up, bone head: when the you-know-what hits the fan you've got exactly 30 seconds to get that mask on your chops if you don't want to pass out." And of course, even if you did pass out, someone else can get your mask on for you and you would be fine. But then, it would be up to someone else to do that for you. Most importantly, if you want to be effective, if you want to know you have done something useful with yourself in the situation, you need to act with purpose, without any doubt, and you need to act by taking care of yourself first.

So you have to put yourself first, and not just when there is a dramatic event. After all, what's the point of waiting until you have a heart attack to take care of your health? You have to make a habit of keeping up with your needs because nobody else is going to do it. And you have to get over feeling guilty about it, because it's not just you that suffers when you suffer. Everyone who depends upon you suffers too. You can't be any good for anyone else if you run yourself into the ground. You need to be what I call "selfirst."

Notice that I have made up a new word here. As far as I can tell, we don't have a word in our language to describe this concept. We have some words and phrases that come close, but they are all negative in one way or another. Isn't that interesting? I think that says something very profound about our culture. Think about it: we have no single word that we can use to describe how it's possible to be doing something for yourself without that being negative.

Being "selfirst" means being committed to living the most positive, productive life you can. It means having the courage to take time for yourself, so you can be a more complete person for those around you. It means setting an example of how to live a full, balanced life so that those you influence will be inspired to do the same. Above all, it means recognizing that peak performance in life flows directly from your ability to take care of yourself. You can't have one without the other. If you want to be a good dad, a good husband, a good friend, or a good employee, you have to be a good "you" first.

Work-life Tele-Seminars

2005-10-29T15:55:00.000-05:00

What is a work-life tele-seminar? Simply put, it's a conference call where we explore a work-life topic in depth, over the phone. The call is hosted by Paul Baffes, Ph.D. and up to 20 other callers may be on the phone.

How does it work? It's simple. You sign up, get a date and time, and a telephone number with a passcode. On the given date at the pre-set time, you dial the number and enter the passcode. That's it.

Why would I do it? Tele-seminars are a great way to sample work-life coaching without having to go to the expense of hiring a speaker and paying for travel. For individuals who have struggled with their own work-life balance, or who want to focus on a specific topic, or who just want to "test run" the coaching experience, there is no better format. Plus if you're with a group, you can reserve your own tele-seminar to focus on a topic of particular interest to your group.

How do I sign up? Let us know which of the following tele-seminar topics are of most interest to you and we will contact you with potential dates:

WLB Principle 1: Be Process Oriented

2005-10-28T09:11:00.000-05:00

Make a fundamental paradigm shift to being process oriented versus outcome obsessed. Most of us interpret a desire to be "goal oriented" to mean the end result is everything. That is a mistake. Results are important, but you must focus on the process, not the end-game, and let the results come to you.

One of the keys to remaining balanced is learning how to deal with this bottom-line world we live in. Let's face it, we are constantly pushed to achieve results. Moreover, we all reinforce results-oriented thinking every time we comparison shop and select a product or service because it has a superior brand or because the price is lower than the competition. So results do matter.

And yet, if you really want to hit a result, the stupidest thing you can do is to dwell on it. In fact, the more you dwell on it, the less likely you will be to achieve it.

How can that be possible?

Where we make our mistake (myself included, by the way) is when the result comes to dominate our thinking as the only important thing. In reality, a result is a point in time, the end of a series of actions. It has absolutely no impact in terms of getting you anywhere. Simply put, a result is not an action and, therefore, cannot help you make progress.

Thinking about a result, and dwelling on it, does nothing for actually moving you forward towards achieving a result. In fact, it holds you back by wasting your valuable time and energy. Being result-oriented is, ironically, counter productive to actually achieving a result!

By contrast, a process-centric view concentrates your energies around things you can actually do--actions you can take that will move you in the direction you want to go. Even if you want to hit a particular result, some particular goal by some deadline, the only way to get there is by taking actions.

I'm not saying results don't matter! To be sure, the actions you take should be those which maximize your chances of hitting the results you want. But the key is to learn how to get your jollies from what you do, not from what you achieve.

You will find not only that you are happier, but also that you will get way more accomplished because you aren't wasting your precious time worrying about what you can't control.

The Five Principles of Work-Life Balancing

2005-10-25T15:28:00.000-05:00

I have a dilemma.

I've been trying to treat this blog like, well, a blog and not like a book. "Book," you ask, "what book?" What I mean is, while I have written a book on work-life balancing, I don't think a blog should just be a restatement of the book. That would be a waste of space, and not really what I think a blog is all about. If you want the book, that's fine. I've made it easy for you to get by putting a link to my book on side bar. But let's use each medium as it is best suited.

However, there is a lot of good stuff in the book, and I've noticed that several of my postings (which I just re-read) refer to points I make in the book. As a result, the postings make a whole lot less sense than they could, and they lose impact. Take my last posting, on the World Series. I thought it was great when I wrote it, but looking back, I realize it was missing a bunch of context (represented by chapter 1 in my book).

Consequently, and at the risk of abusing my blog, I've decided to make a few entries (five to be exact) in this blog which can act as "foundational" entries. I've only recently found out about permalinks (very cool, if you haven't used them yet), which only proves I'm about as much a novice in blogging as I am an expert on work-life balancing. But with permalinks, I'll be able to write a blog entry and create a link back to the principle when needed.

So, without further ado, here are the five principles of work-life balancing that I espouse. They are:

If you practice these five principles, you will have the balanced life you always wanted to have. I know it to be true in my own life and I know from the experience of coaching that they work for others as well. They can work for you, too.

World Series Game 2 Proves Principle of Work Life Balance

2005-10-24T08:46:00.000-05:00

Did you happen to catch the game last night? Wow, what a finish (and I'm not even that much of a baseball fan).

And did you happen to catch the interviews after the game? I was especially piqued by the comments of Scott Podsednik (the guy who hit the winning home run in the bottom of the ninth). Here's how the post-game interview went:

(Announcer) So Scott, you didn't hit any home runs in the regular season. What was different here? Were you thinking 'home run' when you got up to the plate?
(Podsednik) No, I was just thinking about getting on base, getting a good swing at the ball.

Do you hear it? Burried in Scott's comments is one of the key secrets to work-life balance that I teach everyone whom I coach.

Put simply, the idea is this: if you want great results, the best way to get them is to not dwell on them

Podsednik was not alone. Paul Konerko, the White Sox player who hit the grand slam a couple of innings before said something similar:

(Announcer) Were you thinking 'home run' when you got to the plate?
(Konerko) No. I was thinking I'd like to get a single, maybe drive in a run. I hadn't had a good swing all night, and I just tried to get good wood on the ball.

So both Konerko and Podsednik were not trying for the home run when the got it. Interesting, eh? To me, this validates the principle of "process over result" -- meaning that if you really want to get to a result in the bottom-line-obsessed world that we live in, the best way is to not dwell on it. Instead, you should relax, do what you do well, focus on the fundamentals and on enjoying yourself, and have faith that the best results will come from that.

What does this have to do with work-life balance?. Everything. Because remember that work-life balance is all about being optimal with your time and effort. It's about getting the most out of what you do, not trying to live up to some impossible-to-predict guaranty. To the extent you are spending your time worrying about results, you are wasting that time.

It's hard, I know, to have faith that the right thing will happen if you concentrate on a healthy process. It is just so easy in our society to look around at others, compare yourself, and feel down because you don't have that big house, that fancy cary, that salary. But you've got to do everything you can to put that out of your mind, because it will only pull you down and waste your precious time.

Keeping your focus on a healthy process is the only way to success, and will maximize your success potential. I can guaranty that from personal experience, and from years of coaching others. I have seen it over and over again.

And we saw it again last night, played out on national TV.

Another Work-Life Balancing Book Reference

2005-10-24T08:42:00.000-05:00

Passed along to me via email by someone looking at this blog:

I've mostly read a book called "The Simplicity Survival Handbook" that covers stuff that is adjacent or may overlap a bit with your book and blog. Ironically I got sidetracked onto a project and never found the time to complete reading it :-) Regardless, the author maintains a fairly complete web site that you might find interesting. Check it out and let me know what you think.

http://www.simplerwork.com/sp-main.html

I checked out the site briefly and it looks pretty reasonable. As I dig in to it more I'll post any updates on things that I find interesting.

If you have interesting sites, books, etc please pass them along! I'd like to eventually assemble a nice index on the right side of this blog for folks to pursue whatever mechanisms work best for them.

Take Back Your Weekend

2005-10-22T18:57:00.000-05:00

Does this sound like you?

You get up on Saturday morning, having slept in to the ripe hour of 7 am (if you have kids like I do) and stagger downstairs to make the coffee, stopping on the way to turn down the volume on whatever cartoon is playing on the TV.

Somehow, you never really seem to get a completely hot cup of coffee. There's just a never ending stream of things to do, people to satisfy, chores to catch up on, and just plain time that you want to spend with the kids that you haven't been able to spend during the week because you've had to work late, work at home, work, work, work.

And then, suddenly, without you even having the time to notice, it's 5:30 pm on Sunday and you realize with a jolt that you never really got to do anything that you really wanted to do.

And of course now it's too late.

And though you are probably loathe to admit it (like I was today) you are completely pissed off at yourself for letting the entire weekend get away from you.

I just did this today. It's still Saturday so I have time to recover, but it's amazing how easy it is for time to get away from us when we let our guard down.

Consider the "Family Meeting" Technique

All of this reminds me, again, of a technique my wife and I developed which works absolute wonders on the weekend. And it's just so darn simple and common sense it always amazes me when I get temporary amnesia and have to relearn the technique. So let me share it with you and re-educate myself in the process.

The idea is simple:

Sit down, with everyone in the family, for a 10 minute meeting (we typically do this right when we get up on Saturday morning, while we are making the coffee--but if you have teenagers, it may be that you have to do this the night before because it may be past noon before they get up!)
Everyone gets to take a turn listing what they want to do. For Mom and Dad this can be particularly difficult because they will have a tendency to list what "needs" to be done. Don't give in to that temptation. This is about having fun. You can certainly list what needs to get done, but be sure to pick at least one thing you would like to do.
Everyone agrees to cooperate to make sure everyone gets to do at least one thing on their "want" list.

That's it. After that, the weekend takes on a natural shape of it's own, based on what everyone has said they want to do. Let's say Mom wants some time to just sit and read the paper, Dad wants to watch the game, sister wants to ride bikes and brother wants to play computer games. Thus it makes sense for Dad to take the kids out for a bike ride in the morning while Mom reads the paper, knowing that later on, Mom will take the kids while Dad watches the game. It's possible that brother might want to play computer games while Mom reads the paper...that's up to whether brother wants to join in on the bike ride or not. If that doesn't work, Dad might be able to help brother during half-time or perhaps Dad can TiVo the game, watch it after the kids are in bed, and spend time with brother playing computer games.

You get the picture.

The point is that everyone gets to do something they want. The weekend isn't about any single person, it's about everyone, and everyone's opinion matters. Even Mom and Dad's opinion matters, and they don't have to get angry or shout or feel guilty or even resort to a "because I said so!" comment. It's a simple recognition that we're all human, we all need a break, and we all need to respect the other guy's needs if we want him to respect ours.

I cannot overemphasize how much this can transform your life. It sounds so simple, but it makes such a big difference. Ten minutes of effort, a little common sense, and a recognition that everyone needs a break...and suddenly you start looking forward to weekends again.

For me, I got to write this blog entry. My wife probably thinks I'm nuts to spend my time this way (good God! you spend all week on the computer and you find it relaxing to do more of it on the weekend!?!?). But hey...that's my call and she respects that (and so do the kids). Just like I can't stand what seem like the monotonous Barbie computer game that my youngest daughter loves, but hey, who cares what I think? She love the thing, and it gives her a sense of control over her weekend to know that the rest of us will help her do that, if that is what she wants.

The best part is when you get to Sunday night you aren't saying to yourself "damn...another week and I feel like I never got a break." After all, how much of that can anyone take?

So do yourself a favor. Try the family meeting and take back your weekend.

Work Life Balance = $

2005-10-20T13:02:00.000-05:00

Check out the latest Business Week cover story.

Looks like work life balance is not only useful, but profitable. Not that Michael Mandel actually says this in his article, but if you read between the lines, you can see that the smart companies will take work life balance seriously.

They will have to.

I love the fact that this issue is getting attention, and I like most of what Michael writes. But there is one part of this story that I strongly disagree with. I comes late in the article, where Michael writes:

Many of the most overloaded managers are not yet at a level where they have the luxury of controlling their schedules

Do people actually believe they have no control over their schedules? Do you believe this? I sure hope not. This is exactly the kind of negative culture-wide belief system that pulls us all down. Michael writes it without even blinking an eye...and we all read it without even noticing it for the awful assumption that it is.

Work Life balancing begins, and ends, with you taking responsibility for your schedule. There are not excuses, and no exceptions. Either you take control of your life, or you cede that control to others (who are more than happy to control it for you).

I will offer you one "proof point" for this. When I first started practicing the five principles I outline in my book, I was at the bottom of the hierarchy at my job...6 levels of management away from the CEO. Yet, within 2 years, I had practically doubled my salary and had been promoted twice...all without working on the weekends (with a few exceptions) and all the while spending extra time with my family. To make it even more unbelievable, I also wrote two books in that period (one being my work-life balancing book).

So you can always control your own schedule. Don't let anyone sell you on the idea that you can't.

An interesting "tips and tricks" web site

2005-10-19T21:36:00.000-05:00

Check out the "life hacker" web site:

http://www.lifehacker.com/

It's a really interesting collection of tips...almost like a "bag of tricks" to help you save time in various ways.

Of course, some of these things will work for you, some will be completely unrelated to your particular needs. But often it's good just to get a feel for what other people are doing to save time and simplify their lives.

Passion and Balance

2005-10-18T11:37:00.000-05:00

I've spent a lot of time coaching individuals one-on-one in work-life balancing and one of the topics that comes up a lot is passion.

And when it comes to passion, I just say a really
great article in Newsweek by Rabbi Marc Gellman related to this topic.

What's the big deal about passion? Because passion is the key to time savings. This probably sounds bizzare to most folks, and I have a very long section in my book about it (a whole chapter devoted to it, in fact), but you can get the basic idea if you think about the concept of "overhead" (as in business overhead).

Everyone knows that one way for a business to run more efficiently and profitably is for it to reduce overhead. Overhead is like the "cost" (or added cost) of doing business. So...if you think of yourself like a business then, by analogy, if you could somehow reduce your "overhead" your life would "run" more efficiently. In terms of work-life balance, the "overhead" equates to "worrying." The more you waste your time worrying about what you ought to do, the more overhead in your life.

Which is where passion comes in. If you are following your passion, doing truly what you love to do, you don't have to waste time worrying. You just know. And
this means not wasting a lot of time worrying about what you ought to do. And if you are following your passion, you can avoid wasted time.

"That's fine Paul," people will ask me, "but how in the heck do I find my passion in the first place?"

I've grappled with this question in a lot of different ways, all of which basically amount to coaching people that you really already know your passion, you just need to get quiet enough to let it come out.

But people don't always get this when I tell them...and it can be frustrating. All of which brings us back to Rabbi Gellman's article.

In his article, Rabbi Gellman talks about the difference between an external view of life and an internal view of life. For Gellman, of course, the internal view is spiritual. He poses a very simple question to help people find their passion:

What do you think God made you good at?

Now, whether or not you are spiritual, Rabbi Gellman's insights are powerful. He has several quotes from famous (and successful) individuals whose lives attest to the power of passion. All of them share the same thing in common: they focused on an internal compass to drive their lives (a passion if you will) and it made all the difference.

Try this out...

Set aside an hour a day for "quiet time" for yourself. Commit to doing this for two months, once a day. In that hour, ask yourself what you'd really like to do, not what you think you should do. Over that two months, gradually transition from spending that hour thinking about what you want to actually spending that hour doing what you want.

Can't find an hour a day for yourself? That's a topic for another blog entry...

A different view of work-life balance

2005-10-17T12:40:00.000-05:00

How many of these questions are true for you:

Ever feel like your life is out of contol?
Tired of being torn between work and family?
Feeling like you need to be all things to all people?
Sometimes wonder if you're a juggler...only without a rest?

We all struggle with work-life balance. It has become a national epidemic. I watched my own father, a 24x7 never-miss-a-day-of-work cardiac surgeon, miss out on most of his children’s lives. I watched it tear a hole in his heart that never got repaired. By the age of 12, I was destined for the same fate. The same fate you and millions of others are suffering right now. The same fate we were all taught to suffer.

I'm just like you. I'm not a theorist. I'm not an academic. I am a Computer Scientist working as a manager at a Fortune 100 company. I'm living through work-life balancing right now. I struggle with the same issues you do.

But I saw the train wreck coming 20 years ago and was determined not to let it happen to me. Along the way I eventually figured it out, boiling it down to a few principles that guide everything I do. And now I find that not only is it possible to have a great life and be wildly successful at work, it would be impossible to have one without the other.

This blog is about sharing those techniques with you. I want to show you how I get more done, in less time, get more work done while spending more time with my family, get promoted faster and get paid more than I ever did before. I know that probably sounds impossible, but it is not. If I can do it, anyone can.

I know it works because I've lived it...and I've taught others how to do it too!

I used to think I was just lucky. Then, I started mentoring and coaching others, and realized these principles are universal. I got so much positive feedback I wanted to share what I've learned with as wide an audience as possible.

Let me give you the benefits of some hard-earned lessons.