Those work/life balance heroes who leave at 5:30? Ask them what they're doing at 9:30

A recent piece in Business Insider provides a glimpse into the philosophy and priorities of General Motors CEO Mary Barra with respect to protecting and maintaining a semblance of work/life balance while juggling an incredibly high profile and busy job with the normal demands any of us with families also face.

First, let's check the key 'I want to have a healthy and normal family life and I want everyone at GM to have that too' quote from the piece:

In the role I have now — even for the last few jobs — I'll say, 'You know what, guys? This meeting needs to end on time because I'm going to my daughter's soccer game. So we're going to be done at 5:30 because I've got to go then,'" Barra explained. "It gives everybody permission" to acknowledge their other obligations.

Sounds good, right? When the CEO can shut down a meeting at 5:30 to head to the park to watch soccer (and hand out orange slices at halftime), then the other folks at GM feel empowered to do similar. And you don't have to be the CEO or some other big shot executive to appreciate these kinds of challenges and tradeoffs. In fact, I'd argue when you're not the CEO the challenges are even tougher, as 'skipping' work time to take care of personal matters often requires you to ask permission or demand forgiveness. That aside, it is still kind of refreshing to hear the CEO of one of the world's largest corporations at least acknowledge there is life outside of work, and that life is important too.

But let's unpack the rest of the story, about what happens after the soccer game and the family dinner and the making sure Jr's homework is done. Once again from the Business Insider piece:

(At a conference in 2013) when she was senior vice president of global product development, Barra said that while she may make time to see her daughter's game, "that doesn't mean that after we go home, and after we've eaten dinner and the kids go to bed, I'm not going to take out the computer and catch up on what I missed."

It's about finding a balance that actually improves the quality of work output rather than detracting from it.

Simple, then really. Work/life balance for Barra (and by implication anyone else like her with a super-important job, or just everyone that wants to eventually get one of those super-important job), is to make sure you take just enough time for the 'life' part, (soccer game, dinner), before making sure you jump back into work, (emails from 9:00 - 11:00) every night.

And it's not a 'balance' plan that is all that unusual or unique to Barra - read any of the pieces about execs who make sure they have adequate family time. Every one of them ends up in the same place, with the exec continuing to work into the night to 'make up for' the time they missed while watching Mary Jane kick the ball around. There's two things from these stories I think are important for us to remember, particularly those of us who aspire to C-suite type roles.

1. 'Work' is the default setting for these execs. Watch the way they use phrases like 'catch up on what I missed' when they refer to getting back online after the kids go to bed. When they are not working, like at the soccer game, (assuming they are not stealthily reading emails on their iPhones), they see that time as 'missed' work. Work is the constant. Things that are not work have to be 'made up for' with more work.

2. People like Barra work much, much longer than just about all of us. If you are punching out (figuratively or actually), at 5 or 6 each night and not worrying about the job until 9 the next morning, you are losing the game compared to the Exec or anyone else who decides to grind away from 9 'til midnight on a Tuesday. I think most of us simply fail to accept the fact that in most circumstances the level of effort and commitment needed to hit the C-suite is ridiculously high. 

Work/life balance is a touchy subject since it is so personal. But there are a couple of universal truths that the Mary Barra story reveals. It is all about choices after all. But to think that you will be substantially rewarded for choosing 'life' over 'work' is probably the most important one.

Have a great week!

Volkswagen to BlackBerry Addicted Workers: We Know What's Good For You

A couple of weeks back this story, about Volkswagen's decision to disable company servers from pushing email out to certain employee's BlackBerry smart phones outside of 'normal' working hours, made the rounds in the tech press and blogosphere. The reaction from analysts and commenters was decidedly mixed, with probably somewhat more observers coming down on the side of 'Good for the workers, they deserve a break from email when they are home at night, and on the weekends.'I am pretty sure it runs at night and on the weekends

Leaving aside the practical exigencies of German labor law or union and work council regulations or contracts for the moment, (which certainly did have a role in the Volkswagen situation and that I can't be bothered to try and sort out), to me this decision by Volkswagen smacks of typical, classic, and old-fashioned thinking. The kind of mindset that leads organizations, (and more often individual managers), to issue edicts about where, when, and how work will actually get accomplished. The attitude that workers are generally not to be trusted, in this case not in that the employees can't be trusted to get their work done, but rather that they can't be trusted to know when to take a break, to decompress, and to disconnect. And this kind of decision or policy also can actually negatively impact so-called 'work/life' balance while trying to protect it - workers that have the need for more flexibility or have personal circumstances that don't lend themselves well to the 9 to 5 grind are hurt by such a policy.

Interestingly, the reports of the BlackBerry email quiet periods have noted that the new rules do not apply to senior management, ostensibly because they are too important to be disconnected from corporate email when on the go after hours, but also subtly indicating that senior management can handle the tremendous responsibility of actually knowing when they need to read and respond to company email and when they should be resting, being with family, or actually having a social life.

The great promise of advances in workplace technology is that the new technologies will enable us to be better at our jobs - to make better decisions, to develop better processes, to dream up and execute more fantastic ideas to progress our organization's mission and our own careers while simultaneously supporting making our non-work lives better as well. Smartphones, tablets, video conferencing, wifi pretty much in every coffee shop, bar, and airport in the world - all of these should be incredibly empowering and enabling. These tools and capabilities are different than the copy machine, the fax, and the employee workstation, and all the other workplace technology breakthroughs that came before. They were all about doing more while remaining in one place, on one schedule, and in lock step with everyone else. What will not work and will not be sustainable, is to apply to old ways of thinking to the new technologies.

If employees can't be trusted, then they can't be trusted. That has been true for hundreds of years, the BlackBerry did not create that problem.