"Yes, well that's the fallacy of work / life balance, isn't it? I mean...it's all life.”~ Lean Coffee participant, Sydney June 2011
The Fallacy of Work / Life Balance – Work life balance is more than personal and it is more than a choice. Whether we are employers or employees, we need to recognize and respect that “work” is part of life, not some opposing force we balance against life. Studies show that a strong collaborative corporate culture helps organizations weather the current economic downturn better. Pre-Lean Campconversations have drawn focus on this fallacy and toward respect in the workplace.Work / Life Balance. It's one of those concepts that just simply falls apart under the slightest scrutiny. At what point at work do we cease to be alive?I've just come off two weeks of working / living with AMP, a large financial services firm based in Sydney, Australia. This is a conservative company that is examining just what "conservative" actually means. The conclusions people were coming to were very exciting for me.Several people agreed that people at AMP bifurcated their lives. They would come to work, focus on work, and then leave at the end of the work day to return to their homes and presumably to their “lives.” Everyone agreed that this scenario was true…for other people. But not for themselves.As we spoke they realized that they were holding back at the office, because they assumed their co-workers were bifurcating their lives – but in reality very few people actually did so. Everyone was wanting work / life … balance?No.They like their work. They like their lives. There was no division. There was no opposing weight to balance.What they wanted was their home life to respect their work life and vice versa. They wanted these two elements of their lives to stop being a zero sum game. Some days home life happened during working hours. Some days it was the other way around.Some days …? Or maybe all days.Definitely all days.Life happens during life hours.Work / Life Balance is a fallacy. It's all living. Right now, you are living. Wherever you are reading this, you are living. And everywhere you go today, you'll be living there, too.Now, I ask you. In this moment, what is the thing of highest value you could be doing?Think about it.Then do it.Image by Tonianne DeMaria Barry.