Dear Madeleine,

I am a senior leader who reports to an SVP. I lead a business unit for a region. I recently had a one-on-one with my boss—a rare thing—and she gave me some feedback I am grappling with.

My company recently started doing pulse surveys, so I thought she might want to talk about the scores from my business unit that made it seem people’s morale was low. I was right.

She said I was very good at processes and systems and she was pleased with my unit’s results. Then she told me she thought I needed to work on being more inspirational. She asked me what my vision is for my business unit and I had to admit, beyond hitting our numbers and deliverables, I don’t really have one. Then before I could get more detail, she was called away and that was that.

I don’t even know where to begin on how to create a vision—or what to do with it once I have it. Any insight would be useful.

Feeling Blind

_______________________________________________________________________

Dear Feeling Blind,

This is a very common predicament for people who are straddling senior management and executive management positions. You have been consistently promoted because you are great at setting up processes and systems, holding people accountable, and executing results. But until someone points out that you need to start developing your ability to inspire and motivate people, it just doesn’t occur to you. So here you are.

It’s okay; you can do this. It might be uncomfortable but getting good at it at this point in your leadership journey will serve you very well.

The first step is to remember a leader you had in the past who did inspiration and motivation well. Try to remember what that leader did that worked. You can also ask your SVP for her vision so that you have an example of what she means—but the fact that you are drawing a blank on this leads me to think your boss may not have a vision either. Or if she does, she hasn’t shared it or it is unremarkable.

For guidance, I turned to the book FULL STEAM AHEAD! Unleash the Power of Vision in Your Company and Your Life. Authors Ken Blanchard and Jesse Stoner define vision as “knowing who you are, where you are going, and what will guide your journey.”

Essentially, it means you are providing the why—the context and meaning of the work your people are doing. You are painting a compelling picture of a job well done that will Be motivating for your team.

People often talk about creating a vision—but I would argue that you probably have one already. It’s clear that you are super motivated, which is probably because you have a strong sense of what is possible and how the success of your team connects to the success of the organization. So your job is to articulate those things as simply as possible. My experience is that many leaders think these ideas are obvious to others because they are obvious to them. And this is never the case. You have to spell it out, and then you have to repeat it like you are broken record.

Blanchard and Stoner lay out the elements of a Compelling Vision. The questions and comments below each element are mine:

• It helps us understand what business we are really in.

You know what results you are after. But what will those results do the for the company? The world? What does your team do that no other team does? A great example is Disney, who we all know is in the theme park business but they say they are in the business of making memories.

• It provides a picture of the desired future that we can actually see.

What is possible for your BU if you continue to do well? Maybe you could grow? Attract top talent? Be a role model for other BUs?

• It provides guidelines that help us make daily decisions.

What values do you use to make decisions? Have you shared those? What behaviors do you expect from your people? Do they know?

• It is enduring.

What makes your team great? What makes it special?

• It is about being great, not just about beating the competition (or in your case, hitting the numbers.)

You and your team are doing a lot of the right things. What do you do? How do you do it? How can these things be replicated? How are you different from other teams or business units?

• It is inspiring, which is not expressed solely in numbers.

A vision is different from a goal, which can usually be expressed in measurable terms.

• It touches the heart and spirit of everyone.

It may feel too arrogant or touchy-feely to express possibility or highest ideals and use language that it isn’t brass tacks. This can be what makes it so uncomfortable for many. It took me twenty-two years to get the courage to include the word love in the vision for Blanchard Coaching Services. 

• It helps each person see how they can contribute.

More than ever before, employees are seeking meaning and connection. When people can see how what they do connects with the bigger picture, it makes their job much more compelling.

Once you have your answers to some of these questions, you are ready to get a draft vision down on paper. Don’t worry about getting it right the first time—just get it all down. Then revise, word craft, and keep at it until you have something simple. Short and sweet is much easier to remember.

You might want to follow your vision statement with a mission statement. The vision is what is possible, and the mission is why you do what you do, and for whom. A mission statement structure could look like this:

Our mission is to __________ (do something) for __________(what people?) so that __________(those people can have something, do something, and feel some way).

There is no reason you can’t involve your team at this point. Let them poke at it and provide further input.

Then share it. With everyone. Start meetings by restating the vision. Ask people to print it out and put it over their desks. If you are all in the office, have posters made. In the rough and tumble of the workday, it is easy to lose sight of the vision. You should take any opportunity you can to remind your people what it is.

This will undoubtedly feel downright weird and risky to you. Feel free to share your discomfort with your people so you aren’t trying to pretend to be someone you aren’t or be good at something you are doing for the first time. You can also share that the whole exercise is a work in progress and that you are open to reworking it.

The key is to start. Examine what drives you, what makes what you do matter. Get all of your thoughts down on paper and then start shaping them. Take your time. Be prepared to have things sound hokey, or high minded, or farfetched. It will all come into focus.

I have no idea if this is what your boss meant. But I can promise that the work you do on this will not be wasted time. It will give you new insight into your team and yourself as a leader—and it almost certainly will be inspirational.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Looking past the viral-oriented nature of this video, the main concept presented is critical for leadership. Thoughts, when attached to emotions other than sadness, generally have higher “infection” rates.

Thus, it is important to generate more emotion (hopefully positive and not anger-inducing) around messages that you want your direct reports to remember or share. It seems idea is lost at times in the data-driven world of today, where it’s more important to get across the numbers and metrics than it is to tell a story.
So communicate with feeling and generate positive emotions in your direct reports. Make the topic relevant to them. They will be more receptive to your messages and will remember them better. Let’s infect the world with the good germs to promote healthy thoughts.

Just don’t anger them… or you may end up on the wrong side of a thought germ!

Video Credit: BBDS Talent

Jennifer believed she could do anything as long as she put her mind to it. And the same is true for anyone else.

Are you facing a challenge that seems too difficult to overcome? Try thinking outside the box, or ask for a second opinion. But be persistent and remember that sometimes a few falls are necessary before you can fly.

So remove “can’t” from your vocabulary and motivate yourself to stick to it. You may surprise yourself with how much you can achieve!

Click the image below for a simple demonstration of flow (use the mouse to move and remember to return when you’re finished):

The creator of this simple game used Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow to develop the game elements. Since you can decide when to move further, you are always in control of both the level of challenge and skill, meaning you can always keep yourself in a state of flow.

Now think about your direct reports and their tasks. Are they in a state of flow? If not, is it due to the task being too difficult, or the direct reports not having high enough skills? Or perhaps the challenge isn’t increasing proportionately with their skills? And think about your own tasks. Are you in a state of flow? Why or why not? What can you do to improve your workplace and encourage more flow?

It’s clear that employees can become more engaged and productive, while constantly developing and growing, by applying this simple model to the workplace. So the next time you’re at work, try adjusting the level of challenge to match the level of skill. You might be surprised to find how much fun you can have while in flow!

Image Credit: 1

 “The need to live is our physical need for such things as food, clothing, shelter, economical well-being, health. The need to love is our social need to relate to other people, to belong, to love and to be loved. The need to learn is our mental need to develop and to grow. And the need to leave a legacy is our spiritual need to have a sense of meaning, purpose, personal congruence, and contribution.”
—Stephen R. Covey

The “L” word—the BIG one—is legacy, the story of you and your imprint upon the world. It’s been a repeated topic of conversation in my spheres lately, as it should be in yours. Visioning is central to the success of organizations, teams, leaders, and individual contributors because it creates a dialogue around the meaning and value behind the work that we do. Your legacy extends far beyond your career into your personal and professional relationships; your family or community involvement and recreational activities; and in your moment-to-moment everyday experiences. What kind of legacy are you building, and where do you even begin? Covey reminds us that life is short, so ask yourself:

• What makes life worth living? What’s missing?
• What do I need to learn? To unlearn?
• How will I be remembered?
• What do I dream of?

These are big questions—Give yourself time to develop honest and deeply rooted answers.  It can be tempting to dismiss dreams as unattainable or impractical, but dreams stem from a place within each of us that British philosopher, Alan Watts, calls “the deep, down, basic, whatever there is.” In this inspirational video, Watts talks about the human need to feel significant and connected to something greater than ourselves:

There is nothing trivial about finding and giving voice to your purpose in life and however you frame the concept of legacy, the story is yours to write. In another moving video, The Real You, Watts talks about the idea of waking up and finding out who you are. An individual’s sense of self is a complex, idiosyncratic, and exquisite answer to the venerable question: Who AM I?
Before you can build a meaningful legacy, you first need to have a clear picture of who you are and what gives value and purpose to your life. Because your identity defines how you see yourself belonging in the world and relating to others, it is fundamental to creating your vision, living your dreams, and leading others to do the same. In Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the peak is self-actualization—the human need for self-fulfillment and striving to achieve one’s highest potential. This is a process of continual learning so you can always seek new ways of infusing energy and creativity into your everyday events.

Self-development is profound work but it doesn’t need to be intense. A variation of Covey’s four basic needs overlays learning with laughter because we can’t be serious all the time. That’s also why one of the founding principles of The Ken Blanchard Companies is to have fun! On your journey of life, never forget the gift of child-like wonder—not in the sense of immaturity or naivety, but rather of being curious and light-hearted along the way. As you think about who you are and most importantly the unique story you are leading, remember that life is short. Keep the “L” word always in mind.

About the Author:
Sarah is a Professional Services Intern at The Ken Blanchard Companies. She is also pursuing a Ph.D. in Consulting Psychology and her research is based on mindfulness. You can reach her at sarah.maxwell@kenblanchard.com.

With this knowledge of the power of thought, you can become a better leader and, as well, motivate your employees to become better workers. Imagine successfully navigating through a difficult conversation. Imagine making your employees feel cared for. Imagine implementing positive change. The more you imagine, the more successful you can be when it comes time to act.

The same holds true for your employees. Let them know that visualizing success can have a huge impact on actual success. Share this video with them. Encourage them to use imagination as a tool for practicing on a new task when hands-on time is limited.

About the author: Hart is an HR Data Analyst at The Ken Blanchard Companies, finishing his Ph.D. in I/O Psychology. He can be reached at hart.lee@kenblanchard.com.

The goal was “get the delicious cake” and you had to draw your solution. No other rules were given.

One response showed the figure crawling through the spikes, while others used elements from pop culture to get the cake. For instance, Harry Potter magic spells, Star Wars lightsabers, and Super Mario warp pipes were all presented as solutions to this challenge. The following are a few of the more original and creative ways people attained the cake:

Use the door!

When you want to get rid of something in an image, the eraser tool is handy

Thinking outside of the box

The lesson I took from this was that people can get very creative when presented with a problem and given the freedom to devise a solution.

As a leader, you may have goals you need to accomplish, but it is left up to you to determine how to accomplish those goals. With a little time and ingenuity, you can come up with many different and often surprising ways to achieve those goals, particularly when you have the help of others.

So how would you get to the delicious cake? Type your solution in the comments, or you can use your favorite image editor or an online one and post a visual of your solution.

How quickly things change in 10 years

Technology changes so rapidly that it is incredibly difficult to keep up with the rate of change. But looking at leadership, have there been as many revolutionary changes in the last seven years as there have been in technology?

Mobile World Congress was this week in Barcelona. For those who don’t know, it’s a huge annual conference where some of the top smartphone manufacturers introduce their latest products. Though Apple was absent, Samsung announced their latest flagship phone, the Galaxy S5. Some advances from the previous version include improved battery life, updated camera, faster processor, a heart-rate monitor, and a new fingerprint scanner (a la iPhone 5s), but despite all of these, its reception has been generally lukewarm because the changes weren’t quite revolutionary.

The response to the S5

Consumers of technology these days demand constant innovation from products. Why shouldn’t your direct reports, the consumers of your leadership, demand the same? Would you be able to keep up?

Let’s get the ball rolling on change. Are you currently doing something differently from other leaders to improve your leadership skills and/or meet the needs of your direct reports? Perhaps that thing you do is actually the game-changer that will revolutionize leadership as we know it. Share it in the comments.

Image Credit: 1 | 2 | 3

The leaders I met, whatever walk of life they were from, whatever institutions they were presiding over, always referred back to the same failure – something that happened to them that was personally difficult, even traumatic, something that made them feel that desperate sense of hitting bottom–as something they thought was almost a necessity. It’s as if at that moment the iron entered their soul; that moment created the resilience that leaders need.
-Warren Bennis

Brian Alexander is the Marketing Project Specialist with The Ken Blanchard Companies. To learn more about The Ken Blanchard Companies please visit www.kenblanchard.com

So, of course, they decided to sleep in and didn’t do any physical training for the day.
And of course my team was upset that they didn’t get to sleep in and come to work at 9:30. The last thing I wanted to create was resentment across the two teams. I thought that maybe a “team building” exercise was in order, but I didn’t carry it out because I felt I would probably screw that up too.  I was upset about the whole situation, but mainly I was irritated at myself.
After looking back on the incident, here’s what I learned:

• I never really gave him full autonomy

Here’s what I really said: You can have full autonomy unless you do something I don’t want you to do or something that I disagree with you on. What I told him he could do and what I wanted him to do were two separate things.

• I shouldn’t have given him full autonomy

Giving full autonomy over everything is not really leadership at all. I thought I was doing the right thing by giving him autonomy, but what I should have done in that situation was to give him more direction as to what is expected and necessary. Autonomy has its place and limitations; using it correctly is when it’s the most impactful.

• My communication was not aligned with my expectations

I was never clear on my expectations. What was standard and status quo for me was not necessarily the same for him. Talking through each other’s expectations would have been helpful for minimizing conflict and building trust.
For any further information or questions contact me at gus.jaramillo@kenblanchard.com

***

Cheryl DePonte is a Human Resources Learning and Performance Specialist at The Ken Blanchard Companies and has over 15 years experience in the fields of organizational effectiveness and human resources development.

 “We know what we are, but know not what we may be.” —William Shakespeare

When recently opening a package of Green Tea, the quote, “It’s not a privilege to know others. Know yourself. That’s a privilege,” was attached to the string. Perhaps the tea manufacture was having a caffeinated paraphrasing of a Lao Tzu philosophy to push the notion that you’ll some how be more enlightened when you drink this potion.

Self Reflection?

Recently, I decided to try some new ways to be more productive and less stressed:

1. Spa water – in a scientific study, those who were fully-hydrated had improved mood and were less sleepy. So, I decided to try drinking spa water (sometimes called “infused water”) and I’m hooked. You get your water in for the day and it’s flavored without all the calories and chemicals. Refill as needed and enjoy. Here is a wikihow on how to make spa water:

How to make spa water

2. Concentration Music – it is said that listening to baroque classical music has been scientifically shown to improve mood, productivity, and concentration. So, I decided to give it a whirl and wouldn’t you know, it works! I get more work done faster and more precisely while being relaxed the entire time. Gotta love classical music! Here is a sample for your listening pleasure:

3. A Timer – scientific studies also show we have a limited attention span for tasks. This time has varied in studies anywhere from 10 minutes to up to 40 minutes. So, I set a timer and only worked on a task for a specified period and then took a break. I also used a timer to go back and forth between tasks. This has worked wonders for getting many more things done in a day than I could have imagined. A link to a fabulous, easy-to-set online timer:
Online Timer
These tips for containing the crazy work well for my own personal work style and help me to be a more calm, productive, and focused leader.
Share with us your tips to contain the crazy, increase productivity, and reduce stress. No matter how unique they may be, please share! What works for you?

Ok, so we like to watch a little TV and play video games, so what’s the big deal? We live life on the edge (of reality) and love to surf (the web) and socialize (on Facebook) all day. We are the doers. We seek not war, but peace. We love reality television and hang on every word they say (even the illiterate ones). We are not better than any of you, but we are special. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are just extensions of our inner self. We love rap music, iPhones, and Dancing with the Stars (my wife made me put that in here). We are not all about ourselves; everyone is just all about us.
This is our motto.
Tom Brokaw accurately named the World War II generation as the Greatest Generation. After reading the book, watching the Band of Brothers series, and hearing the stories from WWII vets themselves, I can’t deny this. These men and women were some of the purist of Americans—hard-working, dedicated, and loyal to their values. I remember visiting Normandy about 10 years ago and seeing the crosses of the buried soldiers neatly displayed—such a beautiful display of sadness and pain. In my own experience as a captain in the Army and a combat veteran serving in Afghanistan, I hardly saw any sense of entitlement among the troops. There were men and women who were generally unhappy to be there (I admit even sometimes I wondered why we were there),  and hated everything about the war, but they still wanted to fight. There was a sense of pride about them and they fought long and hard. While in Afghanistan, I had a West Point Captain tell me about his 18-month deployment. He said the length of the deployment really hit him hard at the first Thanksgiving dinner. They were just about to start eating when one of his soldiers said, “Hey sir, don’t worry about saying grace. I’ll do it this year and you can say grace next year.”
I don’t claim we are the Greatest Generation but I do think Gen Y has contributed significantly more than just TV and video games. We are a young generation, but like many others we adapt, overcome, and move on. I never liked the label, “entitlement generation” because frankly I don’t think we deserve it. I hope this generation can rid ourselves of this brand and demonstrate the core American qualities that have been delivered to us from previous generations.
For any further information or questions contact me at gus.jaramillo@kenblanchard.com

It’s important to remember that you have a choice to control who, what, and how you let the world affect you. It is vital that you develop a daily routine so you can find the time you need to shut out the world for a few minutes and focus on yourself.
Use these three times during your work day to create a productive routine:
The first 30 minutes at the office:

• Be social with work colleagues. Ask people how they are doing and be prepared to dive deeper into their answers.
• Write out your top-of-mind tasks and prioritize them for the day. Be sure to revisit and check them off the list as they are completed.
• Most Importantly, DO NOT CHECK YOUR EMAIL OR SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS. Don’t seek out additional tasks first thing in the morning – more often than not, they will only overwhelm you more than you already may be.

The Lunch Hour:

• Read for recreation to put your mind at ease. Distract yourself with non-work related material so that when you go back to work you have a clean, fresh perspective.
• Go for a walk outside. Connect with nature to clear your mind and re-connect with the world outside of the office.
• Work on a home project. If you have a list of to-do’s, use a portion of this time to schedule service appointments or plan out your home project.

The first 10 minutes of your drive home:

• Praise yourself on your accomplishments. Take a few moments to think about what you achieved during the day. This act emphasizes the importance of mindfulness.
• Formulate a mental outline of tomorrow’s task list. Once you have a picture in your mind you can come in the next day and write it out.
• Prepare to be fully present for your spouse and children. Separate your work and home life by embracing the time you spend with your family. Give them your full attention.

Finding the time for yourself requires dedication and directed focus. Once you hone your prioritizing skills you will find a sense of relief and satisfaction. Your productivity will increase while your stress levels will decrease because you are organized, optimizing your ability to lead yourself.

“This is the key to time management – to see the value of every moment.”
– Menachem Mendel Schneerson

 
If you are feeling overwhelmed and inundated with more and more tasks at work, you are not alone! Visit www.leadershiplivecast.com and register for The Ken Blanchard Companies next livecast, Doing ‘Still’ More With Less, where some of the most respected leadership experts will share their thoughts on the topic!

, those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events (Emmons & McCullough, 2003). Challenge yourself at the end of each day to focus on and write about three reasons you were thankful that day for people or things in your personal or professional life. Having to come up with three reasons to be thankful

each day requires you to be aware of, and even seek out, positive experiences.

 
Praise the People: Now that you are documenting your gratitude, take the next step and praise your people. When an employee believes his or her superiors are grateful for his or her work, the employee will benefit by having an improved sense of worth to the organization (Kerns, 2006). As a leader expressing your gratitude to the people you lead will be both beneficial for you and them. You will be amazed to see the positive outcomes produced by this simple action.
Remember, leaders are there to serve the needs of the people they lead. What better way to serve than to lead with positive praises?
Take the last few days of 2012 to develop a “praise plan” for 2013 that includes mindful meditation, keeping a gratitude journal, and praising people around you. It will increase the level of positive well-being in all aspects of your life and the lives of those you touch.

“It takes but one positive thought when given a chance to survive and thrive to overpower an entire army of negative thoughts.”
-Robert H. Schuller

Harvard Yard Autumn

Enter Wisdom

Enter to Grow in Wisdom  

As I roamed the colorful yard, painted by the tip of Autumn’s brush, gazing upon the buildings surrounding this beautiful centerpiece, I contemplated this place as the temporal home to some of the most influential leaders and thinkers since the enlightenment.  Great men and women who had entered the hallowed halls of her academia—a host of United States and International Presidents, Prime Ministers, Foreign Dignitaries, Lawyers, Authors, Poets, and Business Leaders. (It was also here that FaceBook was conceived to the delight of us contemporary learners).
As I stood at the statue of John Harvard, reaching for my iPhone to make a status update, gather some information about Mr. Harvard and the history of the university, a funny thought struck me. I pondered what he might think of the device that I, and the many people standing around me in Harvard Yard at that moment, held in our hands. Like an ephinay that Emerson or Eliot might have had in this very yard, I sensed the merging of classic learning with contemporary learning.

John Harvard

Depart to Serve

Depart to serve better thy country and thy kind. 

 And so it remains, at this cross roads of the classic and the contemporary, it requires action to advance learning into posterity. Higher learning is not about ascending up a mythological mount, it is about going out and into the world to apply what we have learned at our own personal Harvard Yard. We do not remember all of the great people who attended Harvard for entering into a campus or buildings; but rather, we remember them for what they were able to achieve after they passed back through the eye of the needle and into the world, apply what they learned in the buildings surrounding Harvard Yard.
Today, we have that same opportunity, without the need to depart; because we are already there. The wisdom is within us, and it is all about us, and we are always ready to serve thy kind.
Jason Diamond Arnold is a Learning Media Consulting Associate at The Ken Blanchard Companies in San Diego, CA, and is the Co-author of Situational Self Leadership in Action, a virtual learning programmed designed to help individuals develop personal strengths while collaborating with others for success.

1. Set Your Alarm Clock. Sleep in. You work hard. You deserve it.
2. Check Your E-Mail. Don’t worry, those “urgent” e-mails will still be there when you log in on Tuesday.
3. Make or Take Business Calls. Please step away from the cell phone. Turn it off or send those calls straight to voice mail. Just like your e-mail, the messages will still be there for you on Tuesday.
4. Engage Your Professional Social Network. I know you’re concerned about your Klout score but a couple days away shouldn’t cause any irreparable damage. Besides, we’ve got something in common with your e-mail and voice mail, we’ll also be here on Tuesday.
5. Neglect Your Family and/or Friends. Spend some time with those other people in your life who you don’t get the chance to see while you’re in the office.

Hope you all have a fantastic, relaxing, and disconnected three-day weekend!
Follow me on Twitter: @adammorris21 | Add me on Google+: gplus.to/AdamMorris21
(…just wait until Tuesday.)

—If by Rudyard Kipling
Work is hard! If it’s not, you’re probably not working hard enough. Every good employee who pushes to higher levels of success goes through major challenges in the pursuit of worthwhile work. There are dreams and shattered dreams, hopes and hopes deferred, projects launched and projects crashed. The one easy certainty in today’s workplace is that nothing is certainly easy.

Lead Up

• What worked well for you in the past that you’ve gotten away from? Did you have a system or process that worked well for an old task or job that could be applied to your current job or a current task? Do you no longer flex your leadership style as well as you used to?
• What have you learned in the past that you never put into practice? Have you ever read a book or article and thought, “I need to do that,” but never did? Have you ever taken a class, loved the subject, but forgot about it the minute you put the textbook up on the shelf?
• What were you once very passionate about that you’ve since abandoned? What activities or hobbies significantly contributed to your overall happiness and well-being that you no longer participate in?

I challenge you to sit down and do some brainstorming around this subject. What ideas, practices, methods, systems, and behaviors from the past can you breathe new life into? Once you’ve identified them, bring them home where they belong.

Follow me on Twitter: @adammorris21 | Add me on Google+: gplus.to/AdamMorris21

Mud Time

Circles of Work and Play

–Robert Frost, Two Tramps in Mud Time

About the Author: Jason Diamond Arnold is a Consulting Associate with The Ken Blanchard Companies, and Co-Author of Situational Self Leaderhip in Action

• What is the answer to the equation?
  Is it 24 hours (day)? Is it 120 hours (work week)? Is it 168 hours (full week)? Or, should I choose to measure in minutes or days?
• What is the equation to the answer?
  Let’s say I decide the answer to the equation is 24 hours. I need to set up the equation to give me the answer I’ve decided upon. Initially the equation is: 12 “work” hours + 12 “life” hours = 24 hours? Hmm, seems a little “work” heavy to me. Perhaps I factor sleep in separately so that the equation now becomes: 8 “sleep” hours + 8 “work” hours + 8 “life” hours = 24 hours. Still seems off…sleep probably should count as “life” time but I also have a one hour round trip commute to and from work that should probably count as “work” time. But, I’m paid to work an 8 hour day though I also have a one hour lunch break that, while technically is “life” time, feels more like “work” time since it’s smack dab in the middle of my “work” day…
  …see where I’m going with this?

Even if I am able to settle on an answer and an equation, it’ll most likely change tomorrow, or the next day, or next week, or next year. Variables will inevitably come into play shifting the focus heavily in one direction or the other. I’ll have an important project that requires more “work” time. Or, I’ll have a family emergency that requires more “life” time. Ideally, there is flexibility built into the equation to allow for these shifts so that I still feel in balance or can cope with a temporary imbalance.
Of course, time is just one of many considerations that go into an individual’s internal definition of work-life balance. Other factors such as finances, family, emotional and physical well-being, growth potential, work passion, and others, will likely be considered, and weighted differently, by individual employees. A single employee will likely have a different definition or work-life balance than a married employee. A male employee will likely have a different definition of work-life balance than a female employee. A Gen-Y employee will likely have a different definition of work-life balance than a Baby Boomer employee. Perhaps most importantly, a manager will likely have a different definition of work-life balance than each individual member of their team.
As leaders, it is important to understand that everyone’s definition of work-life balance is different. Take the time to help your people define what work-life balance means to them so that you can support that individual in achieving their version of work-life balance. Help them transform work-life balance from an empty dream into an achievable goal.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on work-life balance. Is it possible? If so, how do YOU define it? What does it look like to YOU?
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1. Am I passionate about the work? I need to do something I truly believe in and something that I truly enjoy doing.
2. Is the passion sustainable? I need to be confident that I’ll feel that same level of belief and enjoyment over the long haul.
3. Will it provide financial security? I need to make enough money that I won’t have to worry about money.

That’s it. Three not-so-simple questions that typically play out in my head something like this…
Out of all the things I really enjoy doing, how do I choose just one to build a career around? Whichever one I choose will most assuredly get most of my time and energy. And after investing so much into just one of my passions, will I still enjoy it or will it eventually just become “work?” Even if I feel content with the answers to those questions, can I make enough money doing this for me and my family to live comfortably?
While I’m not quite there yet, I feel closer than I ever have to finally figuring it all out. I have an idea but I still don’t know exactly what I want to be when I grow up and, I’m OK with that. I know I’m not alone. I, like countless others, will continue to work and put my best foot forward while longing for something more, something to satisfy the void in the pit of my stomach, something that undisputedly captures my soul and stakes claim to being the one.
What do you want to be when you grow up? If you’ve achieved it, how did you know? If you haven’t, how will you know?