Willing Slaves Fast Becoming the Business Norm

 By Ray Williams

Overachieving professionals today are seen as road warriors--masters of the universe. They work harder, take on endless additional responsibilities and earn a lot more than their counterparts in earlier times. And their numbers are growing.

A hundred years ago, the pundits were forecasting that technology would not only do away with household chores, but provide us with unlimited leisure. Yet, look what's happened. Between 1977 and l997, full time employees in the U.S. increased their weekly average work hours by .5 hours to a 47.1 hour work week. In contrast, European attitudes toward work, where the social fabric of life is more important, are very different than American attitudes. For example, Scandinavian countries have pursued a humanization of work with the emphasis on equal opportunity, child care, gender equity and the central role of the family.

Professionals in America are working harder than ever and the 40 hour work week is a thing of the past.  This slave devotion to work is reflective of our culture's embrace of an ethos of extremism. For many professionals, work is the center of their social life and friendships. Personal connections, once made exclusively through family, friends and civic organizations, are now made in the workplace. 

Work-life balance centrs on some basic beliefs and principles. 

•  Family life. Successful parenting requires time, energy, patience and tolerance. Family time must be flexible and adaptive, and not just scheduled around work;
• Home. The concept of the home needs to be seen as a creative place that reflects a sense of place, an extension of ourselves, a place where we can be free with our emotions, rather than a place for the bare essentials of storing our possessions, sleeping and eating.
• Friendships. The art of friendship requires a combination of affection, tolerance and patience with a sense of constancy in difficult times. Yet when our work-life balance spirals out of control, often friendships along with healthy habits such as exercise, are the first things to suffer. Several studies in both the U.S. and Britain show that people are seeing less and less of their best friends.
• Community. Like family, home and friendships, our local communities depend on our time and energy to function effectively and spontaneously. If we lose that vital work-life balance then the many activities the neighborhood is responsible for are marginalized and community life declines. 

  The attributes that givea workplace an advanatage in crecuriging and retention can change dramatically. And the culture that celebrates an extreme ethos today may tire of it overnight. At minimum, senior executives should think carefully about the work behavior they are rewarding and encouraging.

  Ray Williams is Co-Founder of Success IQ University, and President of Ray Williams Associates, companies based in Phoenix and Vancouver, providing leadership development, personal growth and executive coaching products and services. www.successiqu.com, rwilliams@successiqu.com