Navigating Work-Life Balance

When work life and personal life are out of balance, our stress level is likely to be high.

Balancing work and personal life has rarely been an easy task but in today's technology driven environment, the lines between work and personal life can be even fuzzier. Technology has allowed people to take work home and be accessible 24 hours, 7 days a week. It has also allowed people to be on the road for sales calls, leave the office for doctor's appointments and kid's events and still be connected to the office and productive. Although that flexibility can be beneficial for both the employer and the employee, it can make it hard to identify when work life stops and the personal life begins.

Consider the consequences of poor work-life balance:

Fatigue - when you are tired, your ability to work productively and think clearly might suffer. This can lead to poor performance, costly mistakes, and a feeling of not being present with family and friends.

Lost Connections - time is a fixed commodity. When you spend too much time with work, family and friends suffer and the possibility of losing touch with them increases.

Reduced Productivity - trying to do more usually results in accomplishing less. When we are stressed, overworked, or moving too fast, our bodies and minds can't process actions and ideas optimally or efficiently.

Redesigning Leadership

I came across this post by John Maeda talking about Creative Leadership vs. Authorative Leadership that I thought was a good quick summary of changing leadership styles.

This chart represents a summary of the kind of creative leadership that is rising -- and needed -- in the face of our increasing interconnectedness due to global economies, mobile devices, and social media. In an age where anyone can "friend" the CEO, and where complexity and volatility are the only constants, what should leadership look like? I often say we are now operating within a "heterarchy" though I've also cleverly seen it called the "wirearchy." In any case, it's a world where I believe the natural perspective of artists and designers -- who thrive in ambiguity, fail productively, and rebound naturally -- will be become more and more useful in leadership contexts.

The chart was originally created for a workshop at the Davos World Economic Forum in 2009 and became the basis of my book Redesigning Leadership, written with Becky Bermont. In my own observation, there are authoritative leaders and creative leaders everywhere -- it's not something wholly determined by industry, generation, or position. And every leader will need, on any given day, a little bit of both types of leadership.

I share it here because it's been frequently requested -- I hope it’s useful. -JM

Engaging Employees to Increase Performance

Dale Carnegie recently teamed with MSW Research to study the functional and emotional elements that affect employee engagement.  In their study, a national representative sample of 1,500 employees was surveyed, which revealed three key drivers:

 • Relationship with immediate supervisor

 • Belief in senior leadership

 • Pride in working for the company

This study and past research has shown, time and again, that employees who are engaged significantly outperform work groups that are not engaged. The study reinforces the idea that in order to create a competitive organization with superior performance, organizations should focus on their employees. It is the people who are in the company that can greatly impact the sustainability, profitability and the long term strength of the organization.

The Need to Admit that We have Become Ineffective

The fact is that when most people are stuck they have lost the power of choice. They are unable, at certain times, to bring into their consciousness with sufficient force the memory of what being stuck does to them. They are without defense against it in the moment.

We need to admit to ourselves that something is wrong. We have created this mess in our life. We admit this and quit trying to fool ourselves into believing something else.

Convergence of Circumstances

Most of us have heard many topics and discussions on priorities. We have heard concepts of prioritizing such as: big rocks first, four quadrants of urgent and important, making a list (checking it twice), and your calendar is an indication as to what your priorities are…the list goes on.

I use many of these concepts myself. When it comes to prioritizing our lives, we should all have a system, or a combination of systems that we follow.

What we value in our normal life is where we spend most of our time. But when circumstances converge we alter our priorities. We adapt given our current circumstance. I heard someone talk about how his priorities changed as he and his wife were getting ready for a vacation. The husband valued being on time and he scheduled his calendar accordingly. His goal was to pack the car and pull out of the driveway by 8am. His priority was to stay on schedule and to start their vacation. The car was packed and he was ready to leave. As he was trying to encourage his wife to hurry up, he crossed the line. He asked her to hurry one too many times and she was frustrated. His priority changed from getting out the door on time to not making his wife frustrated.