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The BALANCE MYTH

Greenleaf Book Group Press

Contents

Acknowledgments...........................................................viiPrologue..................................................................xiPart I One Life. One Family...............................................1Layers....................................................................5Part II Push Through Adversity............................................39Growing Up Fast—Mental Illness, Divorce, Suicide.....................43Infertility...............................................................59September Meltdowns—Cowboy[girl] Up..................................65Wearing the Game Face—Cry or Throw Up?...............................69Part III The Privileges of Leadership.....................................75The Intangibles of Representing a Multitude...............................77Workplace Issues..........................................................103Part IV Between the Lines—Integrity & Ethics.........................121Modeling Behavior.........................................................125Part V Connections........................................................157Build Circles—Personal Relationships.................................159Build Circles—Professional Relationships.............................167Navigating Political Situations at the Office.............................181Epilogue..................................................................199A Special Message to My Sons..............................................203About the Author..........................................................207Index.....................................................................211

Chapter One

We all want to be successful at work and at home, but no one can maintain a perfect balance between the two. Regardless of what home is for us—a spouse and children, a domestic partner, a roommate, or our pets—we all have the desire to be the best at all of it. Yet the moment we think we have achieved balance, something falls out of place or doesn't happen in time and knocks everything else off kilter.

In either case, make your home life a priority. If your personal life is a mess, you'll never be your best at work. I firmly believe that to achieve success at work, you have to create a solid personal life. If problems at home are constantly nagging at your conscience, you will never be able to devote enough energy and talent to a successful career.

You really can't have success in one area of your life without having success in the others. It's all about creating alternatives, options, and backup plans, and it's about asking for help. You can't take the mother out of the career woman or the career out of the mother, so use both to your advantage.

Above all, try not to think of your life as a zero-sum game or as an equation that has to be balanced. I've learned there is not one magical answer to the question of "balance." Society tells us it's acceptable to succeed at work, provided it doesn't impact our home life. Unfortunately, trying to achieve this mythical "balance" simply causes us endless frustration. To minimize my frustration, I use the concept of "layers."

Think of it like layers of clothing. Wearing layers of clothing gives us options: We can add something if we need to, or we can take something away, allowing us to adapt to the changing weather. We wear more layers of clothing when it is cold, just like we need more layers of help when our work life is challenging. We wear fewer layers of clothing when it is warm and our work life is moving along more easily. And, sometimes, we bring an umbrella when we think it may rain, just like sometimes we need an umbrella to shelter ourselves professionally in the office.

Thinking in layers allows you to integrate your work and your personal time to create one life and one family.

Layer #1: Time Management

At an early age, I was introduced to the concept of time management. Each summer I had three jobs, and I had to make sure I could get to each one on time. Before I had a driver's license, that meant riding my bicycle or getting a ride from an older friend or my mom. Even after I could drive myself places, I had the added responsibility of making sure that my brother was where he was supposed to be. When the two of us were in high school, this included getting back and forth to sports and after-school activities. The free calendar from the local insurance company that hung on the wall in our kitchen was the time-management tool for my mom, my brother, and me.

Lists

We all have younger, more naïve versions of ourselves. Mine grappled with the idea that most lists were a waste of time. I believed that the time I spent making all those redundant lists would be better spent on doing the things I would be putting on the list. I justified this to myself by saying that I wouldn't forget anything that was important.

I definitely changed my mind, and I perfected my time-management skills out of necessity. My true appreciation for list-making came when I became VP of Product Management at Qwest Communications and my children were in elementary school. At work, I managed a large, growing team and had ever-expanding deliverables. At home, there were always field trips or away games to prepare for, bake sales to support, or parent-teacher conferences to attend. I was determined to be a good parent by staying involved while still accomplishing everything at the office. So I kept lists.

My process was to start with checklists in my head, categorize them, and then jot them down with the first pen and paper I could find. Also, when ink met the paper, my lists often fell into categories, such as grocery shopping, meal ideas, meeting agendas, and phone calls to make, among others.

My lists helped me kill the erroneous idea of multitasking. Instead of spreading myself too thin by working on multiple things at once, I focused on the big picture and broke it into small pieces.

I was also willing to crumple up my lists and start over. It wasn't about having twenty things to do; it was about having three or four. And those three or four would be scheduled, accomplished, and crossed off the list. Whenever the list began to overwhelm me, I knew it needed to be cut down to size. I always made my lists based on prioritizing what needed to get done next. Which item on my list was the wolf at the door?

Because so many things compete for my attention, I scribble thoughts and ideas in order to make lists of them. I do this out of necessity, and everyone who knows me makes fun of my ongoing scribbling, but I don't care. My lists allow me to be efficient and highly effective. They keep me on track and prevent me from getting overwhelmed.

Take the time to make lists, and make the time to complete the tasks on them.

Assign Time Limits for Everything You Do

Just how do you "make the time" to accomplish everything on your list that you set out to do? After all, the list is only effective if the items on it can be realistically completed. If you don't assign a time limit to completing each item, a list is just a paper mire—albeit one that reveals your priorities—without any proper results.

Begin by assigning a time limit for completing every item on your list.

Here's an example of how it works. If "wrap Christmas gifts" is on my...