Work life balance and the negative impact of organizational heroes

Show me an organization that has members who can't unplug their cell phones for a week, and I'll point out the dysfunctions of the organization. I know, I'm using strong words. I can back this up with experience, so please read on.

So many people don't take vacation, and even if they take it, they spend a large portion of their time scanning their e-mail. Look around you the next time you are relaxing somewhere. Set your crackberry down, and actually look at people. Many are staring at their devices, ingesting some highly important communication related to world peace, or anxiously pecking at the lilliputian keyboard, firing off an e-mail about global crop shortages while sitting next to the pool in a swim suit.

More than half of the working population in America don't use their vacation days. A vacation for many workers is just an opportunity to work from somewhere exotic. What's with that? There aren't any do-overs for a missed life.

Look closely. No crackberry here.

In a previous blog post, I wrote of how I served four years in an Army Reserve unit that trained the leadership of National Guard and Reserve units. We were in essence consultants, tasked with helping units become better at making war - before they actually have to make war.

We had a technique that was always effective in identifying a broken unit. We looked for the hero. That one person who could do it all, and was counted on to do it all. We watched her run around the operations center, receiving incoming problems, as she fired back the solutions. Almost every unit had one of her. She was easy to see. Everyone lined up to feed from her energy and intellect.

We'd usually wait for a critical period, and we'd kill her. Just like that. Dead. It was a simulated death, but the impact was pretty much always the same. There'd be loud protests, appeals to our good senses, and sometimes outright begging. I've heard stories that some people would pray for a miracle, but I never witnessed this. We'd take the person off-site, get them some of that good two day old Army coffee, and not let them back into the operations center. The operations inevitably and quickly came to a grinding halt, and the units often failed in accomplishing their mission.

What they gained from this failure was knowledge. Every unit we did this to, learned a valuable lesson. If you don't have someone ready to step in for each key person, then you were setting yourself up for failure. Attrition planning isn't something to do when a retirement is announced months in advance. It's part of a good organizational plan.

This lesson also applies to you. Yes, you. The person with the crackberry, sitting by the pool, banging out an e-mail when you should be rubbing sun block on your partner's back, or teaching your child how to do a proper cannonball into the pool. If you are so important that you can't get away from work for a week or two without checking e-mail, you are setting your organization up for failure. That's right. You are not a good team player if your work can't be covered while you are out. Taking an unplugged vacation is a controlled test to see if your team is competent. If they contact you, then you may need to spend more time training them on your return.

The reality is that within a few days of your permanent departure (which will happen), your responsibilities will be absorbed by other people, and you will be blamed for whatever is wrong for as long as this is reasonable. Eventually your e-mail address will return an error to the sender. Your life at the organization will end. In six months, few will remember what you did at the organization. Your favorite stapler will have a new home.

There. How's that for perspective? Now go ahead, book that vacation. In fact, take two weeks in a row. Tell everyone you're headed to some island with an unpronounceable name, and even if they had Internet, they have no electricity, so there's no way to reach you. Your job will be there when you return. This can be a validation that you are great team player, and that the people around you are competent enough to keep things running while you are out.

No one is irreplaceable. Not even you. Now go prove it. Maybe while you're on that island, you'll rediscover how nice it feels to rub sunblock on your partner, or have it rubbed on you. Stranger things have happened outside of the office.

What is the longest vacation you've taken? Have you ever lost a job for taking vacation?

If you like this post, please use the social media buttons below to let your friends know you read cool blogs. Maybe they can take vacation with you. 

Work life balance and a wretched commute

If you've ever traveled on a road, or even so much as seen a road, you must read Tom Vanderbilt's book "Traffic". It's an informative, easy, and fun read about how we transport ourselves from one place to another. It opened my eyes to many road use dynamics that changed the way I view driving my car, as well as how I drive my bicycle. That's right, drive my bicycle.

Tom Vanderbilt often writes for Slate, and a recent post brought back memories of my commute from our home (at the time) in Rockland County, NY, to Stamford, CT. I'd leave from either end of my commute with plans for what I'd do on my arrival. There'd be productive stuff for the "work" end of my commute, and fun stuff at the "life" end of my commute.

Some of these people are still
trying to get home from work

One particular commute home stands out in my mind. It was a gorgeously sunny, blue sky, low humidity day for my Friday drive. I skipped out a little early, filled with visions of a hike with my honey, followed by a relaxed dinner on our deck - heck, I'd even barbecue! I put the car in gear, and made my way to the interstate. I made record time all the way to the outskirts of Tarrytown.

As I approached Tarrytown, the cars slowed... and slowed more. They finally stopped. After about 15 minutes standing still, I shut off my engine and opened the windows. I eventually got out of the car. Occasionally, the other cars would roll forward. I'd just get back in the car, leave the engine off, and roll down the hill to close up the gap. Time passed. My phone rang. "Hi, what time will you be home?" my honey asked innocently. "I don't know", was my definitive estimate. "Where are you?" was her next question. I drew in my breath, and told her my location. She said she'd start dinner. There'd be no walk, and no barbecue on the deck.

A half hour later, I had moved about as far as one could throw the stereo of the musically challenged driver next to me, and my phone rang again. "How much longer will  you be?" she asked. "I don't know" was my answer. "Can you make a guess?" I provided a range of 1-3 hours. We talked a while, and realized our plans for the evening no longer mattered. I'd have a late dinner, and maybe we'd share a drink on the deck before bed. We were both disappointed. This wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last.

I'd taken the position less than a year before because it was a great career opportunity. It would provide me the opportunity to build experience leading higher level initiatives, and be a logical next step on my career path. It was a great company, with a very flexible atmosphere. As I interviewed for the position, I glossed over the commute. I could hack it. It'd be manageable, I could rationalize that all I was getting from the position would be a fair trade off for the unpredictable commute. All would work out. I'd overcome bigger challenges in my life.

Within a few weeks of starting, I was not liking a long commute while driving a stick shift in stop and go traffic. It wasn't just stop and go, it was a continuous practice of drag racing skills - starting and stopping continuously, trying to protect the space in front of us from the drivers who insisted on changing lanes as often as possible. Almost daily I'd see what happens when someone misses the brake pedal. There's be auto carnage every few miles.

I gained weight, lost patience, and increased stress. This carried through into other areas of my life. It was easier to ignore life, and grab a beer to decompress after a terrible commute. Wouldn't you agree that beer is the best choice after a long drive?

Within a year, I had become so turned off from the long commute, that I found a new position. I now have a 17 mile round trip commute, and am able to commute by bicycle a few days a week. I love the bike commute around Christmas. The cold air invigorates, and the ride home in the dark provides me the opportunity to enjoy the lights people put out to decorate their homes and businesses. There's a Zen-like feel to the ride. I combine something I have to do (commute) with something I love to do (drive my bicycle).

Many days as I pedal my bicycle over the Garden State Parkway, I see the density of car tail lights heading south, and envision the disappointment these lights represent. Many occupants of those cars are just like I used to be. A lonely commuter, with plans and a life. Instead of living the dream, they are sitting in traffic. Life is like that. We make a choice, and sometimes the choice makes sense mathematically, but the real costs can't be calculated in dollars. It can only be measured by the opportunity cost of what we lose in terms of living.

What is the value of having a fulfilling life? What was your worst commute, and how did you make it more bearable?

If you like this post, please share it with your social network using the clever buttons below.

__________________________

You can't out run stress

I've been monitoring an interesting topic on LinkedIn. Harvard Business Review used their group to ask readers to provide what appeared to be very simple advice: HBR wants your tips for managing stress! I intended to respond later that day. Later that day, there were several hundred responses. I decided that with that many responses, my opinion probably wouldn't add much to the discussion. As of today, the number of responses exceeds 800. I quickly skimmed the responses a few times, and saw that few people who responded to the request understand stress.

Think about physical stress. Let's pretend that your posture is causing your shoulders to be sore, and this in turn is making your neck hurt. The next logical step may be to visit the doctor, and have medicine prescribed to remove the pain. Just go with me here... there is a point to this. Maybe the doctor also provides us with a neck brace so we don't have to cause additional stress to the muscles. We return to work, comfortably numb, and continue to work. The physical pain is no longer an issue, because we've treated the symptoms. What we haven't done, is treat the cause. The cause in this case is your posture. If you treated the cause, your symptoms would go away. It's that simple. By treating the symptoms, we have allowed the stress to continue, and we can expect the damage to increase.

We've all been stressed at one time or another. Maybe we have an overwhelming sense of too much to do, or we have deadlines looming and it looks like we may deliver late. Or we end up working for a boss who has unrealistic expectations, and we are being pressured to do the impossible, such as giving up our home life for "the cause". Stress sucks. It keeps our blood pressure elevated, precipitating heart disease, unhealthy lifestyle choices, and a poor diet. It sends many people to the liquor cabinet, and keeps them glued to the television, watching escapist shows that in turn destroys productive hours that the person could have invested doing something meaningful. 

We are told by many experts that exercise is a great way to deal with stress. I'm not sure how that works. So if I have a crappy day, I'm supposed to put on my Vibram Five Fingers, and run a few miles? When I come back, all will be well. Or I can go to the gym, run on the treadmill while watching a 24 hour infotainment channel, and when I am done, I will be sweaty and the stress will be gone? If only this were so. No matter where you go, or how fast you run, there you are. Always there, stress and all. Exercise may help us sleep better and keep us physically healthier, but it doesn't remove the stress. It can also be helpful to provide us the space and time we need to identify the stressor and formulate a plan of action. But exercise alone won't solve our problems.

So how can we rid ourselves of stress? In my experience, the only lasting way to remove stress is to address the cause of it. In some cases we know what it is, and we're able to utilize tactics to change the situation. Other times, we may not be able to remove the cause of the stress, so we must resort to a different approach. We can shift our perspective, and by shifting our perspective, the stress no longer means anything. Or we can remove ourselves from the situation causing the stress, often by changing jobs.

A simple planning tool for managing stress

The above flow chart isn't something we should run through in an hour, a day, a week, or even a month. Earlier in my career, I may have quickly made it to the bottom terminator "Form an exit plan". Over the years, my perspective has changed, and with this change, I am more likely to utilize discussions with peers (or my honey) to make sure I am accurate in identifying the stressor. I also invest more time in shifting my perspective. 

Shifting perspective is a rich topic, and one I will delve into on future blog posts. It is truly the key to enjoying our lives. As humans, we often latch onto something negative, like a terrier holds a sock. We can't unlock our teeth from it. Stress originates here. Where our teeth meets the sock. Why don't we let the sock go?

What are your tips for managing stress? (Just kidding. We know there's only one way to manage stress.) Have you ever found yourself stressed, and as a result, made a poor decision that had a long term impact on you and your life? This blog supports anonymous posts, so no worries that you will be "outed".

If you like this post, please feel free to share it with your social network using the buttons below.

____________