Life/Work - Issue 34

Debra Engel, 47, left a major Silicon Valley job -- as a senior vice president at 3Com. But her experience has taught her that adults need to take responsibility for their own lives, including their work lives at dotcoms. "It's about choices," she says. "You can't necessarily make millions of dollars and work for the hottest, fastest-growing company and have balance in your life. You want to be a senior vice president of marketing and still be able to go home at 5 PM to your three kids. But that may not be possible. No one can have it all. Husbands and wives may have to take turns being the primary caregiver and the primary breadwinner."

Much of the problem, Engel believes, is that people aren't clear about their priorities. "In the early 1990s, when we had to lay people off at 3Com, we all felt terrible," she says. "We set up clinics to help those employees whom we were letting go to plan for their future. To my surprise, we got more positive feedback than we ever got from anything before. Over and over, I kept hearing, 'If this hadn't happened, I wouldn't have known what was possible.' People get so caught up in what they're doing that they don't take the time to figure out what's really best for their lives."

As vice president of human resources at Calico Commerce Inc., a 5-year-old startup, Lynn Corsiglia, 41, spends her days trying to find better work-life solutions for 310 employees -- and seeking balance in her own life. Calico now has a telecommuting policy, plans to add a second satellite office for people who have long commutes, offers a program that allows employees to take time off to build local Habitat for Humanity houses, and provides paid time off and leaves of absence for employees who need a break. "The population with the highest risk of burnout here tends to be those people who don't have outside obligations," says Corsiglia. "For them, there's nothing to define external boundaries."

Recently, Corsiglia arranged to trade her quarterly bonus for extra vacation time so that she could travel with her older daughter, a high-school junior, to visit colleges. "It's not an easy balance," Corsiglia admits. "With three children [she also has a son in high school and an eight-year-old daughter], I AM constantly asking myself, 'Am I serving my family well and still adding value to the company?' So far, it's worked for me. But I've noticed that women with children are becoming few and far between in companies like mine."

At the heart of the conflict between relentless work demands and the need to have a life outside of work is an assumption that long hours and tunnel vision translate into higher productivity. But that might simply be a flawed conclusion drawn by young men who haven't yet considered the alternatives.

Barbara Johnson, the founding CEO of Streetmail.com, a one-year-old startup with offices in both New York City and North Adams, Massachusetts, has another perspective. "I'm a 48-year-old CEO, but I also have an 8-year-old son," she says. "If there are 24 hours in a day, and I want to get a decent night's sleep, then figuring out how many hours I can work and still be a mom to my son is simple math."

In Johnson's view, efficiency is more relevant than the quantity of time invested. "Speed counts for a whole lot in this business," she says, "but a nonemergency call to someone's home at midnight is disruptive, invasive, and arrogant. It's a way of saying, 'What we're doing here is more important than anything else that you're doing in your life, and you had better be thinking about this job all the time.' I call it 'the myth' -- this false idea that you have to be obsessed and work around the clock in order to make a good business proposition successful. I don't buy that."

In Johnson's experience, the opposite is true. "The biggest mistakes that I've ever made have occurred when I was exhausted," she says. "I'm sitting here right now at 8 AM feeling rested and wonderful, and I can't wait to get going. I wouldn't feel that way or be nearly as clear about the three important things that we need to do today if I hadn't slept well, eaten right, exercised -- and if I didn't feel good about what's going on with my family."

Ultimately, of course, these issues are as relevant to men as they are to women. Dan Miller, 38, is the CEO of BuyingDecisions.com, a business-to-business e-procurement site -- and a father of six kids. "I could just dedicate myself completely to work," he says. "But if I do that, what happens is that my marriage suffers, my kids suffer, and I suffer. I've learned that when you don't have balance in your life, then you end up getting stressed out. You bring that burden and conflict to work with you, and then you can't be as productive. A lot of guys my age just don't get that yet. They think constantly about accumulating wealth, but they don't think much at all about the consequences of what they're doing -- and not doing -- in the rest of their lives. I think about that a lot."