Over the past few weeks I have had a number of email and face-to-face discussions around the topic of work-life balance. After reading, listening and reflecting I’ve discovered that work-life balance is largely a personal opinion based on experiences, personality, preferences and cultural beliefs. However there are other factors outside personal control that also contribute to this experience of balance.
Here is an outline for a series of articles around the topic of work-life balance that I'll be discussing over the next week or so:
The Larger Community
Global Balance
National Balance
State and Local Community Balance
Business and Financial Balance
Health & Education Balance
The Micro-Community
Health & Family Balance
Work & Financial Balance
Personal Balance
From my view balance originates from the larger perspective of community that includes global, national, state and local communities all the way to our business, financial, health and education models. Balance then moves to the micro-community of the family and individual. All are intertwined and even though we may not see it directly the decisions of our leaders in the larger community impact the quality of life for families and individuals.
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been putting some thought into a variety of topics. I’m in gathering mode trying to understand and put together some of the pieces of my life puzzle. Here are some of my insights from the past 2 weeks.
The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century
I’m reading Thomas Friedman’s book called, The World is Flat, a brief history of the 21st century. I have to admit I purchased the book a year ago but the 600 pages originally seemed a little daunting. The book was sitting on my shelf collecting dust but every now and then I could hear it calling my name, “Kevin…. Kevin….”
I’m glad I finally picked it up.
Technology & Globalization
Friedman talks about how technology and globalization are changing literally every aspect of our society and how nations, corporations and individuals are adapting or will adapt to that change. India, China, Eastern Europe, Russia and other developing nations are quickly emerging as dominant economies and the overall power structure within our world is changing.
He talks about outsourcing, increased competition, education, government policies and how we (meaning everybody) need to learn to think differently and plan ahead.
Did You Know Video
Here’s a great video that has been floating around on the Internet but that I recently found at Volker’s Blurb a blogger who talks about Life and Business.
How will we Adapt to the Coming Changes?
Make no mistake as the 21st century evolves China and India will become dominant economies, American and European influence will decline and world will establish a much more level playing field. Individually we need to understand these changes, adapt our lives and educate our children to prosper within this new economy.
Our changing reality is the main reason why I began talking about Meditation and the Life Balance Project but in future posts I want to discuss strategies on how we can adapt to the changes that are being thrust upon us by our changing world.
My Career Search
My career search has been a little slow partly because I’ve been balancing the process of wanting to find a job but also making sure that I find an opportunity that I want.
Cookie Cutters
Applying for jobs can be a daunting process because applicants are forced to put together a resume most of the time geared to a job description. Most companies still take a cookie cutter approach to recruitment and if you ever work with cookie cutters everything has to be cut the same way or it just doesn’t work. Sometimes it’s nice to just plop the dough on the tray and put the cookies in the oven. They usually taste better, especially if they’re chocolate chip.
Seriously though I recently took some advice from Chris Brogan and with insights from my World is Flat book and other sources and have updated my resume and Linkedin profile to showcase my talents.
Sales 2.0 and the Hybrid Salesperson
For years I have worked in software sales in the IT Industry and quite frankly I’ve found traditional selling techniques have become less effective in a Web 2.0 world. At one time in my career (from 1997-2004) I could make a call and send an email to a prospective customer and chances were good with a little persistence they would get back to me.
Today those same customers have more control and feel more empowered to do the research on their own but more importantly their time is limited often bombarded and overwhelmed with emails and the responsibilities of their jobs. Life has become significantly faster in the past 5 years and for salespeople there is less time to connect and make an impact. The best strategy is to become what I call a Hybrid Salespersonwho is someone who manages sales, social media, marketing, customer service, relationships and helps customer find solutions - all in one package.
Here is an article from Hubspot that compares a traditional sales funnel with the modern sales funnel. (See pages 2 and 3 of the article)
You'll notice from the Hubspot article that sales used to be in control of the sales funnel but today that process at best is shared and sometimes the influence of sales is non-existant. The reality is the world of selling has changed and companies are finding they need to adapt.
Work Balance & Looking Outside the Box
As I seek out my next career or consulting project I’m looking for organizations that use cookie cutters more as a frame of reference rather than set in stone commandments. That’s part of the main reason why I’ve started the Work Balance Project because I'm interested in companies who look outside the box and have high standards for their business, customers and employees.
In a flat world I recognize that some day soon I may be working for a Chinese, Indian, European, American or Australian company. In fact location won’t even matter. That prospect is exciting!!
Of all these talents the one I relate to best is that of a story teller or teacher. For companies wanting to tell their story I’m great at getting a message across whether written, spoken or in person.
Gratitude
Earlier in the week I posted about gratitude and what I've learned is that gratitude is all their is. I feel an incredible appreciation for my life, my family, my health, living in the country that I do (Canada), the opportunities that exist out there in the world and the people that I meet both online and in person. The worlds is good and as much as the world has problems there's a lot more good going on than bad. This is good to remember. The Weekend
The weekend is here. I’m looking forward to exploring the areas of work-life balance and finishing my World is Flat book. There are other books sitting on my table ready to be read. Maybe I’ll check out Twitter, do a little meditation, play my guitar and then go to the gym.
This is part of a series of posts on how companies are creating work-life balance. I’m in the process of collecting data for this project so this information is by no means complete. Here is video I found through Business Week. Jill Smart is a Chief Human Resources Officer at Accenture and she discusses strategies they are using to create work life balance.
Accenture is a global company with over $23 Billion dollars in annual revenue with over 181,000 employees in over 200 cities and 52 countries world wide.
5 Ways Accenture Creates Work-Life Balance (from the Video)
Bottom Up Support - Programs that Ask & Listen to Employees.
Top Down Support - Senior Management respect and support for Work Life Balance.
Programs for Celebrating Performance – Software used my managers, co-workers to give credit and award points for employees who perform well. People want recognition.
Future Leave – Employees can take future leave – companies can hold back a portion of salary so when they take leave they can be paid a portion of their salary.
Giving Back (Development Partnership Programs) – Programs where employees can take leave for a month or two or up to a year and spend time in developing countries helping with a variety of projects.
Work Life Balance is what’s important for you and and can vary by geography, (culture) and individual. Jill Smart Chief Human Resources Officer - Accenture
Gathering Data on How Companies Create Balance in the Workplace
This is part of a work in progress and I'm working to gather all the data I can on how companies are creating greater balance in the workplace. Note I have been having some difficulties with the comments section so if you have any problems email me (contact link below) or direct message me on Twitter.
If your company has a program or best practices that promotes work-life balance and you want to be profiled here feel free to contact me.
Sometime ago I wrote a post about finding my authentic voice. I’m not sure how many bloggers go through this process but I’ve certainly needed time to figure out what I want to say in a public forum. Even though I’m not a Gemini (I’m a Virgo) I must have about 12 distinct personalities all with something to say.
My Many Personalities
There is the inner reflective side of me that takes personal growth and a search for meaning and purpose to a primary level in my life. This has been prominent lately as I have been trying to figure out what I want to create with respect to my blog and also my career.
My analytical side has an interest in a wide variety of topics from history, economics, technology, current events, social issues, politics, business & government models.
My intuitive sidelikes to understand human behaviour, psychology and why we as humans do the things we do (good and bad).
And finally there's the visionary who wants to pull it all together, to understand the big picture of life, where we are today and we are going as a society, a people and planet.
For me the visionary, the analytical, the intuitive and the inner reflective personalities are one and it’s my belief that you can never really understand any one of the components without looking at them all.
So here’s where I’m taking all this.
Life Balance Project
Earlier in January I started to meditate and back then I said my interest was to talk about my experiences with meditation and personal growth in what I called the Meditation Project. What I found is meditation by itself is a limiting term and is only one factor that has contributed to my personal growth. Also I found people interpret meditation in a variety of ways (mostly good) but I found some people had a hard time relating to the term.
Instead of the Meditation Project I’ve decided to call what I’m doing the Life Balance Project. The Life Balance Project brings in a wide variety of personal growth strategies that people can use to improve the quality of their lives.
My FREE E-Book for the Life Balance Project will be available soon.
Work Balance Project
People are definitely looking for Life Balance. They are looking for more time, more peace and greater fulfillment within their relationships, careers, health and other aspects of their lives. Work and finances are part of that balance and is one major area where people have difficulty. Many of us work long hours in jobs we do not like for the sake of financial security. As a society we are out of balance within our mindset about work, some of this is self created, but much in my opinion is created by our business and economic models, our corporate structures and our traditional approaches to leadership and management.
People are looking for new ways to interact with their careers, to be part of a team, to love what they do and have a certain flexibility that allows them to balance their careers with their lives. There are some great companies today who understand this need for work balance and who have put together innovative approaches to create positive working environments for their employees.
The Work Balance Project will look at corporations, organizations, leadership models and how these can be (or are being) applied in our business world today. This discussion will be about the good news stories, companies who have innovated and who foster positive employee-employer partnerships.
If you are with a company and have a story to tell please contact me or connect with me on Twitter.
My FREE E-Book on the Work Balance Project will be available soon.
Visions for the Future
Through this discussion I plan to take the topics of Life Balance, Work Balance, technology, social media and business models and talk about how our lives are changing and offer some visions for the future. At heart I’m a futurist with keen desire to see this world become a better place and I want to make sure that I bring voice to what I see as our potential opportunities for the future. I’m most excited about these discussions.
For those of you who have joined me on my personal growth journey I appreciate all your comments and support. Although personal growth will continue to be part of my discussion I think you will be pleased with how I bring Work Balance, Life Balance and Visions for the Future together.
Thanks once again for your support and joining the conversation.
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