Forget About Work Life Balance
it feels like over the past decade
it has been a race between companies to
build the culture
that employees want to work it doesn’t
take much searching on the internet to
run across articles related to the
importance of company culture
more than ever acquiring and retaining
good talent is essential for every
business
however today i’d like to shift your
thinking of not what your company can do
for you
but what you can do to feel the most
satisfaction at work
yes we all want a good job with good pay
and good benefits but many of us want
more than that
if you want a career that gives you
meaning energy
and purpose then a lot of that is on you
yes company culture is important but
this is your career
this is your journey the question that
should be raised is
are you being intentional
as a gallup certified strengths coach
i’ve had the opportunity to have
hundreds of conversations with people
about their career goals
hopes and dreams these conversations
have provided me a foundation of
research
of when employees have felt excited
drained
frustrated or even passion for their
work
and we’ve all heard the statement we all
get 24 hours in a day and if you spend
eight hours a day sleeping
another eight hours a day at work then
you get eight hours a day at life
well i probably spend more than eight
hours each day working and i don’t
always get eight hours of sleep
regularly either
i don’t believe in the concept of work
life balance
because it just doesn’t work what i’d
like to propose today
are five ingredients to blend work and
life
yes i just said the word blend not
balance
blend is an acronym that gives you the
five ingredients
necessary to building a courier
that gives you passion and purpose let’s
start with the first disrupter
build b build a life that embraces this
imbalance
when i think about work life balance i
typically think of a
traditional scale you know one plate
holds an object of known mass while the
other plate holds the object of unknown
mass
you add that known mass until your scale
finally hits static equilibrium or the
scale is in balance
think about work life on this scale
once you get everything in balance don’t
let anything move or you’re back at the
beginning trying to get everything
balanced again
so don’t get sick don’t let them change
a system at work and
definitely don’t go into management you
know
at our firm we have a guiding principle
that points to this
it states that we believe that making a
living
shouldn’t interfere with making a life
the image we use is of a boat
pulling a parasailor i
love this image why
because it represents the tightrope of
personal and professional satisfaction
and the danger of one of those pulling
too tightly or too much in one direction
yes professional and personal goals need
to have equal tension just like
the boat pulling the parasailer the
other thing i don’t like about the
work-life balance visualization
is that it seems if you have more life
and less work
that that’s equally better well
work can be hard life can be hard
there are days that work will require a
lot out of you and there are
work days that will require a lot out of
you
the sweet spot is not finding the static
equilibrium but a blend between the two
that pushes you to be your best at both
without breaking you
build a life that embraces this
imbalance
the l stands for love
now i know it is not comfortable to talk
about love in the same sentence when we
talk about our co-workers or the
the company that you work for but it is
imperative that you surround yourself
with bright and passionate colleagues
interested in seeing each other succeed
in tom rast’s book vital friends
he talks about the three friend
threshold
his research suggests that if you have
just three close friends at work
that you’re 96 percent to be more
extremely
satisfied with your life he goes on to
say
it’s better to have a friend at work
than a bigger bonus
love is all about the environment and
the people
in that environment
e stands for energy you must
understand what gives you energy in my
own career i’ve shifted from
being client service facing to leading
the training and development efforts
and many cultural initiatives for me the
moves were intentional
you don’t have to be around me for any
length of time to understand
how passionate i am about the clifton
strengthsfinder
i first heard about strengthsfinder in
2008
i took the assessment i got my five top
themes of talent read the report
and i agreed it sounded a lot like me
now a lot of times these types of
assessments hit the bottom of a desk
drawer and i may not even remember what
the outcome was
but this report was different for me
i remember seeing colleagues who were
getting
opportunities for promotion or having
success
and it usually seemed like their success
was tied
around learning a new skill or knowledge
i also remember colleagues who were
you know maybe really detail-oriented
hard to get to know
kept to themselves nothing like me
and i thought i need to be more like
them
but what the strengths report and the
string space information taught me was
is that my greatest successes would come
from being more
of who i already am knowing that i don’t
have to be
all to everyone and everything know what
you’re good at
and get help with what you’re not good
at
the question i would like you to
consider
is when you get finished with a task do
you feel
energized you know we all have those
tasks that we’re good at doing
but we can dread even starting those
tasks
for something to be considered as
strength you must be able to do it well
consistently but you must also be able
to drive some instinctive satisfaction
from that activity
gallup states people that use their
strengths at work
are three times as likely to report
having an excellent quality of life
and six times as likely to report being
engaged in their jobs
to have a career that gives you passion
and purpose you
absolutely have to know what gives you
energy
your strengths are unique to you and
your greatest room for growth
is in your area of strengths not
weakness
the fourth ingredient is needs
you must find the intersection between
the
your passion and the needs of the
organization
and this doesn’t happen overnight it
happens
one conversation at a time with managers
and mentors during your performance
evaluations and discussions related to
your goals
and i know many of you are thinking
jennifer i don’t think
i can just shape my job around what
gives me energy
i work for this company i have a job
description
it has these tasks i’d like to suggest
that you have more influence than you
think you do
i would bet there is some small piece of
your role
that you really do enjoy and if so
there is a need in your organization for
that skill set
find the intersection between your
passion
and the needs of your organization and
then
focus on the fifth and final ingredient
dedicate you must dedicate yourself for
the long term
specialize and hone your skills to
become the expert your organization
desires
every organization wants employees that
are excited
knowledgeable innovative and passionate
so what books should you be reading what
periodicals or newsletters should you be
receiving
who should you be following on social
media or linkedin
what companies are known for being
innovative
in what you’re interested in follow them
and watch them to quote zig ziglar
success occurs when opportunity meets
preparation
success almost always follows effort
think about anything that you have done
that was worth doing
it probably took your time energy and
dedication
your future success will be a reflection
of your past efforts in my own career
when things came around that were what i
really wanted to do
i raised my hand i volunteered and i
kept putting myself
out there until the those people saw in
me what i knew i had in me
so why does the fifth and final
ingredient mean so much to me well
i have dedicated myself to stenit
this past february i celebrated my 13th
anniversary
so why have i stayed at stenit for so
long
well i found an organization that will
allow me
to build a life around imbalance
i love the bright and caring people that
i get to work with
i get energy from doing my job
i have found a need that the
organization has that intersects with
one of my passions
and i have dedicated myself to being a
subject matter expert in my role
so rather than trying to balance work
and life
i invite you to take the blend challenge
begin today to blend your work and life
to build a career that gives you more
than a paycheck thank you