Overwhelmed? Rebalancing Your Work and Life

Work/life balance. It seems to be a hot topic these days as technology invades more of our waking hours and allows us to connect to work 24/7/365 from anywhere in the world. When I started researching balance for this article, I was convinced that we were not striving for true ‘balance’ -- some sort of equilibrium between work and life, we were more concerned with how work has permeated every aspect of our waking hours. After researching the definition of ‘balance’, I concluded balance and work’s permeation are both issues we need to address and they are different. Balance, according to www.dictionary.com is “A state of equilibrium or equal distribution of weight, amount,’ or time, energy, etc.” While this definition of balance is about equilibrium, I don’t believe the goal of work/life balance is to have an equal distribution of time between work and life.

I think we just want to reduce the stress and overwhelm in our work and in our lives! We describe this as balance, but it’s not really about achieving 8 hours of work and 8 hours of life, it’s about achieving a quality of life that provides time and capacity to truly live, day in and day out, whether at work or at play.

When we put the emphasis on equal distribution of hours, we live for our weekends, holidays, and vacations, but with a full time job, it’s nearly impossible to catch up the life hours. We will never fix work/life balance this way.

There’s no magic wand

I’d love to give you a magic wand to wave the stress and overwhelm out of your life because living a life out of balance is toxic, but if all we do to address this toxicity is to take vacation or live for the weekends, all we’ll get is a band aid covering a festering wound.

Instead, we need to dive into the factors that cause us overwhelm and stress and begin to address them. Most people describe overwhelm as having too many things to do and too little time to do them in. Stress is created from this constant state of overwhelm.

I often hear owners talking about the constant struggle to achieve efficient operations, to provide excellent customer service, to make strategic decisions that deliver profit and growth, to constantly manage expenses, and the emotional and mental investment demanded by staffing and personnel issues.

In Brigid Schulte’s book, Overwhelmed: How to Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time, she highlights that our lives are full of multi-tasking moments. We have a zillion things on our ‘To Do’ list that will never all be done, and we add to that a zillion other things that show up unexpectedly, like a sick child or car trouble.

It’s no wonder we feel overwhelmed.

Our Busy-ness as a Badge of Honor

But we also wear overwhelm and busy-ness like a ‘badge of honor’. If we’re busy, we must be important and successful. If we’re not busy, we and/or our business must be at risk.

I’ve started tested this ‘badge of honor’ by responding to the popular question, ‘So, how are things going for you? Busy?’ by saying, ‘Very well thank you, and no, I’m not that busy’. Most people look at me with either shock or worse -- sad droopy eyes -- convinced that something is wrong, I am heading toward doom and gloom, and my company is on the brink of bankruptcy! Then they try to cheer me up by saying, ‘Well, I’m sure you’ll be busy soon.’

I am not interested in living in ‘busy’ or ‘overwhelm’! It’s not sustainable, it’s not enjoyable and frankly, it benefits no one. Clients don’t get better service from an overwhelmed customer service team; productivity and profitability don’t result from frenetic busyness; and the statistics are clear that our health is not better under the stress of constant overwhelm. In fact it’s the opposite. Many of our health issues are caused or exacerbated by the stress of overwhelm.

You Have More Control Than You Think

So how do you deal with this in your life? The first step is to recognize you have more control than you think. Start a time log and see where your time is going and where your energy is in each block of time. Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr, in The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is The Key To High Performance and Personal Renewal, noted that it’s not lack of time that sucks the life out of you, it’s lack of energy. Log your time and evaluate your energy throughout your day. Then start to put some boundaries around how much time you spend, when you spend it, and what you are doing that depletes your energy. Evaluate the expectations you are holding for yourself – and those you think others have of you -- and assess areas where you can shift from ‘exceptional work’ to ‘good enough work’.

Leaders with work/life balance are more efficient, more effective and happier – and that contributes to better workplaces and often more financial reward for all. Don’t brush this aside and promise to look at it next year.

Just tackling one time/energy boundary and one expectation per month can recharge your work/life. It’s worth it!

Transfer Your Most Important Relationships to your Successor

Your new owner brings many wonderful strengths and experiences to your business, but there’s one thing they probably lack: the depth and breadth of the relationships you have invested years building and maintaining. They will never be just like you in those relationships and they cannot start with the depth of connections you have with your key vendors, customers and employees. This is a huge concern for a lot of owners because they have been the company’s primary external relationship builders. So how do you transition them to a new owner, to build trust and credibility?

Transitioning a Relationship to an Advisory Board

A second generation owner needed to transition the relationship with his Advisory board to his successor, a key employee. The advisory board had been in place since the owner’s father started the business, so the current owner (Jeff) did not seat the board. As a result, Jeff’s relationship with the board had always been tenuous. The new successor (Paul) didn’t yet have any relationship with the board. As an employee, he had an awareness of the board as they came to quarterly meetings on site, but had never met the board members. Now, with a transition around the corner, he needed to build a strong relationship with the board quickly, establishing credibility, trust and rapport so he could depend upon them and they could support him.

Initially, Jeff and Paul spent some time talking about the reason for the advisory board, the history and the contribution it could make in guiding the business, introducing qualified prospects, and providing support to for Paul. They also recognized the board could be a thorn in his side and difficult to manage if he did not invest in the relationships up front.

Because Jeff had somewhat tenuous relationships with the board, he encouraged Paul to meet one-on-one with each board member outside the meeting with a specific agenda. The agenda they crafted would give him perspective on who the most influential board members were, how the board operated, their priorities and goals for the business, and what they expected of him over the next 1, 3, 5 years. Asking these questions 1-1 and being open to the input created a high level of mutual respect and an understanding of the contributions of all involved.

Jeff also insisted that Paul attend the monthly board meetings and gave him targeted responsibilities, such as presenting the ‘state of the business’ and addressing key sales and operational challenges. He had him join the ‘Sales’ committee to more deeply understand how the board influenced the growth of the business. It gave Paul an opportunity to hear the conversations, learn who’s who in the community, and work with several key board members in a small group setting.

Within six months, Paul had established himself as a credible leader for the business, with the commitment of the full board to help him accomplish the business goals.

Transferring Strong Relationships in Your Business

How can you leverage this story to help your successor begin to build strong relationships with outside constituents?

• Share the history, value and purpose of the external constituent relationship to the company and to you as the owner. Identify reasons the relationship will be valuable to your successor too. Just remember, the value equation might be different for your successor. For example, you may have received value by the addition of complementary skill sets, such as strategic planning or accountability. Your successor may receive value from the networks the outside constituent may bring and their ability to tee up referrals.
• Give your successor a sense of the person -- and relationship -- their personality, priorities, nuances, challenges you’ve encountered in the past, etc..
• Provide targeted assignments to move the relationships forward. Paul was given responsibilities to present, join a committee, etc.. and that enabled the outside constituents to see him perform, learn his priorities and working style and assess ways to support him.
• Insist upon 1-1 meetings between your successor and key outside constituents so they can get to know each other without you in the mix. These meetings should have a planned agenda that your successor creates with input from you. Craft the agenda to ensure the relationships get built through the lens of the business. Don’t just suggest a round of golf. Go golf, but with a set of intentional topics to discuss.
• Be available to your successor to debrief from meetings to coach them on what they are learning from these meetings and how to use those learnings to be a stronger leader.

Paul was fortunate that Jeff was willing to set him up for a successful relationship with the Advisory Board. Because Jeff’s relationship had always been tenuous, it could have been easy for him to taint Paul’s experience of the board. Instead, he focused on what was best for Paul, the business and the board.

By proactively assessing the most important relationship transfers, you can establish a runway for your successor. And by the way, it’s not a bad idea to use the bullets above to strengthen your own partnerships … and while you’re at it, why not expand this concept and invite more of your team to expand their external relationships – customers, suppliers, referral partners. It’s usually a win for your business and a win for your partners.

Who are you going to connect with today?

How Great Managers Engage Great Employees

Being a great manager or owner isn’t simply about you and your team performing well. Being a great manager is about engaging with your employees and helping them want to perform well. It is no secret that employees who are happy in the workplace tend to perform better. But those same employees who perform better will also likely care not only about their own performance but the performance of the company as well. So the question still begs, how do I, the manager, engage with my employees to help them grow into caring and dedicated individuals? Here a few ways to get started. Add these to your managerial to-do list and watch your employees engage:

Communication is key. Communicating with your employees regularly is the most important way to connect with them. Whether it be in person, on the phone, or by email your employees will value the fact that you are taking the time to help them learn, grow and improve the business.

Life is not all about work. Your employees have lives outside of the workplace, and so do you. While you don’t have to be best friends, it is a great idea to know at least some things about your employees’ lives. Talking about more than just work will help them to see you as a person and not just their boss.

Let the positive shine through. Providing positive feedback to your employees instead of only acknowledging the negative will help them learn what is important to you, what you want from them, and how they can exceed your expectations. All of that will increase their effectiveness in the workplace. Dwelling on the negative will only make your employees feel worthless and unhappy, when they should feel like an asset to your company.

Be clear with what you want. Employees will struggle if they are unsure of what they are supposed to be doing to move the organization forward. Setting clear goals and expectations will help to keep your employees from getting frustrated and worried about disappointing you.

There is so much more you could do to engage with your employees to make them feel comfortable and happy in the workplace. Trying out these four strategies is a great basis for creating a foundation for employee engagement.