Work-Life Balance or Work-Life Success?
A few things I’ve learned over the years in business management – there is not as much of a division between work and life as we often portray. There is simply living. Every time someone says “work-life balance”, I tense up. Balance, really? Success, yes? One of the things I’ve learned over the years in business management – there is less division between work and life than we portray and hope. There is simply living. Every time someone says “work-life balance,” I tense up. Balance? Success, yes? Or simply having a good life?
After teaching communication techniques and conflict management at work, we would hear comments about how these skills also helped improve employees’ personal lives. The lessons did not stop at the workplace door. People would anecdotally report improvement in marriages and relationships. When teaching financial literacy, we talked about cash flow and balance sheets, and one of the more effective ways to approach this is through a person’s finances. If they can see money and finance through their daily lens, it is more effectively transferred to the work lens. Going even deeper – business literacy is learning how to grow value. If financial literacy is the micro, business literacy is the macro. Again, we hear stories of life improvement where people can begin to look at debt and investments in a new light. We see a report that workplace democracy can impact national or global democracy. When we can teach about the role that fear plays in our lives, conflict, critical thinking, debate, participation, and influence – these skills are furthered into the world.
Through the NCEO, we would measure “feelings of ownership” in the business sense. One trend was that people with a college degree or higher had greater “feelings of ownership.” This is absolutely not academic arrogance but likely a matter of exposure. I can’t say if high schools are teaching personal or business finance broadly, but how many of us realistically recall what we were taught in one class once? Certainly, if it stuck and had a fantastic teacher, let’s look realistically at the typical, not the anomaly. College graduates are more likely to be exposed to business education, study skills, or critical thinking methods. This repetition and exposure had an impact.
As business leaders, we can begin teaching organizational citizenship and financial literacy to grow the intellectual effectiveness of the fantastic people who work in the business. As managers, we must refrain from assuming or relying on schools to feed us a pipeline of well-balanced, well-educated talent. In business and our marketplaces, our status quo is regularly challenged by external forces – why not bring more life-based enlightenment into this world and try to get ahead of these external forces? Not only will it grow the effectiveness of the business, but it will help people in their personal lives and possibly build a more democratic world.
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