By: Jennifer Deroin
Here at the firm, we deal with periods of intense seasonality in our work. We’re always busy, but some events (tax deadlines) demand much more of our time. That, coupled with the pace of business and life in general today, often bring about the discussion of “Work-Life Balance”. In a quest for ideas and tools to compliment this conversation, I ran across the book Off Balance by Matthew Kelly, author of The Dream Manager and other business books. The concept of the hierarchy of values described in his book I am familiar with, but the words to describe it, as shared by one of his clients, are in my opinion – spot on.
The author illustrates why the concept of “work-life balance” paints a picture that is difficult to obtain for most, and instead makes the case for Personal and Professional Satisfaction. Kelly explains how energy levels, a plan, and a system will help people obtain higher levels of satisfaction, which in the end, is what they’re truly seeking.
Below is an excerpt from his book, and here’s a link to purchase it, which I recommend to gain his complete and thoughtful perspective, as well as tools for action.
Off Balance
Getting Beyond the Work-Life Balance Myth to Personal and Professional Satisfaction
Excerpt from Chapter 3: Can You Have it All? “In Search of Priorities” – the Author’s Client Shares his Story
“I don’t know if I have work-life balance. I do know I like my life. I enjoy my work, I have a rewarding family life, and both are important to me. What I can tell you is that it wasn’t always that way. A few years ago all I did was work. I was on the road incessantly, had gotten out of shape, and wasn’t even aware that my marriage was in trouble. My wife sat me down one day and told me she didn’t think our marriage was working, and that she felt like were were chasing different things. That was perhaps the scariest moment in my life. My life is very different today. The reason is that I have worked hard to figure out what really matters to me and have developed a value structure. My priority list is fairly simple: faith, marriage, children, health, and work. It took me a while to make the list, but since I made it I have carried a copy with me everywhere, and the list has become a guide and touchstone in times of decision.
Now the first thing I want to make clear is that this is my value structure and priority list. Yours may very well be different, but you should all have one. And it is up to you to figure out what your priorities are. It goes without saying of course, that there have been times since I put this list together ten years ago that I have unnecessarily violated my priorities. Sometimes I did it unconsciously and at other times I did it consciously, deceiving myself into believing that it was absolutely necessary and unavoidable. All this has served to teach me what I consider to be the first law of your value structure: don’t mortgage your higher priorities for your lower priorities. Keep the list in front of you. Keep it especially close when making decisions.
What I discovered when I started to work on my priorities was that my priorities had not changed for many years. I was just ignoring them. So, from time to time now, I reflect upon my priorities and I ask myself, “Could anyone gather 
enough evidence to prove that these were my priorities?’ For example, health is an enabler of everything else. When I am taking time to work out and eat the right kinds of foods, I am a better husband, father, employee, and manager. In a similar way, work enables me to do certain things in my marriage and with my family that are incredibly positive. The money I earn provides opportunities for my wife and children. My wife is proud of the work I do, and that contributes to the health of our marriage. My work also enriches my faith life by allowing me to contribute generously with our financial resources, but work also enables me to contribute certain skills to my church community. Work fuels the sharing of my time, talent and treasure with all who cross my path. Another example of how the lower priorities feed and strengthen the higher priorities is found in the fulfillment I find at work. When my work life is fulfilling, I am a better husband and father. Additionally, the incredible training and development opportunities that my company provides make me a better husband, father, member of my community, and citizen.
With my priorities firmly identified, my actions are not just things I choose to do – they are value statements. I do certain things because I value certain things. At the same time, it is important to recognize that value statements are not time allocation statements. Faith, marriage, and my children are my highest priorities, but I spend more time at work each day than I spend directly with any of these top three priorities. And that’s okay. If you try to make your value structure a time allocation structure, I think you get into trouble pretty quickly. My value structure certainly influences the way I spend my time and what I do, but much more important than that, it informs why I do what I do each day.
Theoretically this all sounds neat, of course, while practically, there are real challenges. In the beginning I had to completely reverse engineer the way I had been acting previously. So there were many slip-ups and some plain old mess-ups. But over time it becomes pretty clear in practical terms. Over time, we start to make logical decisions that we should have been capable of all the time, but in truth they were impossible without the value structure. An example of that is something as simple as having the discipline to leave work at the time that allows be to be home to have dinner with my wife and children. Any sensible person with a view of the whole picture comes to the conclusion that it is better for me to leave work on my desk for tomorrow (or do it later that night) so that I can get home in time for dinner. The reasons are many but here is a basic summary. It is better to leave a little work undone than to have to fix my marriage. And when I say “better”, I don’t just mean better for me, or for my marriage – but also better for work. Because if my marriage is not in a good place, it is going to drain my energy, distract me from my work, and limit my ability to add value to my team, projects, and company.
Now from the very beginning some of you were perhaps perplexed that work was number five on my list. That doesn’t mean I don’t care about work, or that I don’t think my work is important. It is therefore critical to point out that there are dozens of things that didn’t even make my list. Take for example friends. My friends didn’t make the list, but I consider friend to be a very important part of life. And yet, in my value structure I place work above friendship. Some people would not agree with that. Before I was married friendships would have ranked above work, but marriage and family shift the priorities we have for the limited social time and energy that is available to us. This is why each of us needs to develop our own value structure and priorities.
Once we establish our own value structure, or list of priorities, the challenge is to start making choices that honor those values and priorities. It is then that the consequences of our choices becomes clear. And the consequences of ignoring or betraying our value structure are significant. If I ignore number one, faith, I believe the consequences are eternal. If I mess up number two, marriage, the consequence could be divorce. If I neglect number three, children, I could screw up my kids. If I ignore number four, health, the consequences are fatigue, disease, and premature death. So let’s face it, the consequences of messing up number five, work, are minor by comparison. At the end of the day the worst that could happen is that I could lose my job and have to find another one.
At the same time, while work is number five, I want to affirm that I take my work very seriously. I work harder and longer than most, and I am hungry for excellence and results in the professional realm of my life. Life is a continuum of choices. we are constantly making choices, and our choices need perspective. Some people talk about deathbed perspective, the idea that you should consider how you might think about a choice when you are on your deathbed, but I don’t think you need to go that far. Am I going to sit in a meeting that has run way over its schedule and that I wont’ even remember ten years from now….or leave and get to my son’s birthday party? I used to be paralyzed by that choice, but not anymore.
My value structure helps me to make better choices, and the business benefits from that as well. Because the truth is, if I am making bad choices in my life based on emotion, pressure from others, or other meaningless factors, I am probably making bad choices for the business also. Personal clarity leads to professional clarity. By getting clear about what is really important to me, I have become much better at making choices, which makes me a much greater asset to this company. The constant temptation is to think if we flipped the list and made number five, work, our new number one, we would get more done. It’s a lie. It’s a deception. We might for a day, or a week, or even a month or a quarter, but for any meaningful period of time it is not sustainable. Work all night and see how long it takes before the extra work you got done is lost to downtime, fatigue, and lack of focus. The most efficient people I know, those who consistently get the most done, know how to feed the different areas of their lives, and they don’t mortgage their higher priorities for their lower priorities.
I want to close by sharing three scenarios with you that I think have been important in my journey.
A couple of years after I committed to this value structure, it was tested in a way that I had not foreseen. I was up for a promotion, and it was for a job that I had always wanted. the process advanced and I knew I was going to be offered the job. When the job offer meeting came around I said to my new-boss-to-be, ‘I want this job and I know I can do it very well, but there is something I need you to know before I take the job.’ I pulled out my priority list, which I keep in my pocket, and placed it on the table in front of him. He looked at it for a moment and then I continued, ‘I will take this new role but I need you to know that these are my priorities, and I will not betray them. At the same time, I want you to know that I will get the job done.’ My boss looked at me and said, ‘Are you serious about this?’ My heart pounded in my chest. ‘I am,’ I replied. ‘Good, because that is exactly the kind of leader I am looking for in this role.’
The second scenario is more general, and my boss’s attitude in the last scenario is a perfect segue. Twenty-five years ago the attitude was you are here to work, so work. At that time there would have been no opportunity for me to share this list with a group like you. And to share it with my boss would have been career suicide. In fact, at that time if this list had fallen into enemy hands, I would never have received another promotion and quite possible been managed out of the organization or simply fired. In some companies that may still be true; fortunately, it is not here. I’m glad I don’t work for a company like that. The corporate world continues to evolve, and while some people think that corporate evolution is always negative in the impact it has on people, I think this is an example of how it is evolving for the better.
The third scenario requires vulnerability and humility. Once a year, I site down with my wife and she gives me a development plan, in the same way my manager at work does. She gives me a score between one and five in a variety of different areas. We discuss where I am excelling and what opportunities for growth I have. Accountability is the key to the process. We do it at work, and we could not succeed if we didn’t have this kind of review and accountability process. So if these other things are more important than work, why don’t we have similar processes to help us grow and succeed in the personal aspects of our lives? I invite my wife to hold me accountable, and that is powerful though often humbling.”
The term “balance” sets us up for failure and frustration. The author’s concepts that create an understanding that we can’t have it all, that it’s okay, and that we can live a satisfied life where we are the best version of ourselves, are refreshing. Let go of the disillusionment that plagues most work places and embrace instead the reality and system of a life that is fully satisfying.
