Balancing Acts

Six months later, I took a sabbatical -- to my backyard. My goal? Not to leave the state of Oregon for two months. There were days when I didn't even leave my house. I hoped I could restructure my job at Nike so that I could have a life outside of the company. But although I knew I wanted to do less, I couldn't pass up the interesting projects that kept coming across my desk. I realized that a corporation as large as Nike has an "all or nothing at all" environment. To achieve balance in my life, I needed to create more variety. So I quit. Instead of having one big job, I now divide my work time into thirds: business consulting, public service, and creative projects.

You don't have to sit on top of a mountain to discover what's right for you. You always know in your heart what you need to do. But you do have to ask yourself if you're willing to make choices. Put yourself in a position where you're making choices about your life, rather than letting other people make those choices for you. That's what balance is all about.

Liz Dolan (lizdolan@msn.com) left a very big job -- as vice president of global marketing at Nike -- to take on three small jobs. Dolan St. Clair is a marketing company that works with no more than three clients at any one time. Dolan is also on the board of governors of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. with her four sisters, and in conjunction with WNYC (the largest U.S. public-radio station), she has developed a pilot for a talk-radio program called "Satellite Sisters."

Stewart Friedman

Director of the Leadership Program and of the Work/Life Integration Project
The Wharton School
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Last year, I was doing some work with a large bank. The people there told me a story that astounded me: After 7 p.m., people would open the door to their office, drape a spare jacket on the back of their chair, lay a set of glasses down on some reading material on their desk -- and then go home for the night. The point of this elaborate gesture was to create the illusion that they were just out grabbing dinner and would be returning to burn the midnight oil.

This type of thing happens all the time. A lot of us accept the pressure to demonstrate that kind of commitment to work. I call this "the face-time mentality": Commitment equals time spent in the office. That attitude, which comes from a fear of being replaced, is starting to change as companies implement flextime and paternity-leave programs. But often those measures fall short of solving the real problem. In fact, I suspect that some of these programs are simply efforts by companies to get themselves on the "100 best companies to work for" lists.

There is something you can do as a leader: Sit down with someone you work with and ask him or her some simple questions. What do you really care about? What are you most interested in? What do you do in your free time? If you ask these questions with a full heart and an open mind, you can establish a level of trust that benefits your company while also encouraging your employees to find balance in their lives.

Stew Friedman (friedman@wharton.upenn.edu) initiated and now directs the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project. The project is an academic-business partnership dedicated to developing leadership through both "action research" and education.

Kirby Dyess

Vice President and Director of New Business Development
Intel Corp.
Portland, Oregon

I can tell that I've hit the wall at work, and that I need to recalibrate my life, when I can no longer empathize with others, when I'm focused only on results, when I ignore other people's goals, and when I become frustrated with life's interruptions. Or when my daughter has to tell me, "It'll be all right, Kirby."

To reorient my life, I take several important steps: Every day, I do something that's totally for myself. I constantly look for ways to simplify my life. And when I start to run out of creative juices, I avoid the temptation to work harder. Instead, I do something recreational, like gardening.

As a leader, I find that the best thing I can do for people who work with me is to ask them what's important to them -- and then to give them permission to get away from work so that they can do it. I remember when one man who worked with me began to go overboard. I knew that he was working too hard and that he had no life outside of Intel. At the same time, his work had stopped being useful. He'd left all his objectivity behind; everything became too intense and too immediate. So I told him that he needed to get a life. He looked at me as if I were joking. But when I reviewed his work with him, he began to see my point. Eventually he got a life, and now he's one of the best analysts in the organization.

Kirby Dyess joined Intel (www.intel.com) in 1979 as a manager in its human-resources department. Earlier, in 1968, she had been the first woman to graduate with a degree in physics from the University of Idaho.