Speaker: Stewart D. Friedman, practice professor of management and director, Wharton Work/Life Integration Project, Center for Human Resources, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Panelists:

Kathleen E. Christensen, Program Director, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Karen K. Narasaki, president and executive director, Asian American Justice Center

Rand Wentworth, president, Land Trust Alliance, LLC

Moderator: John Gompert, chief executive officer, Experience Corps; president Civic Ventures

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Comments from Dr. Friedman:

“Total Leadership” way you can integrate all aspects of ourselves to be high functioning human being – leadership from the position of the whole person in order to move from a position of balance to a position of integration.

How do we think about these various aspects of our lives and how do we see them as either enriching or depleting?

Work
Home
Community
Private Self – mind body spirit

Rate these aspects from 1-10 (1 being totally rotten to 10 totally awesome).  Rate how other people would rate your meeting expectations in these categories.

What small steps can you take to better align your work with the rest of your life? How can you improve your overall aspect of your life?

We are breaking out into pairs to discuss these four aspects of our life, where we are and where we want to be, as well as what we can do to move in the direction.

Sidenote: over half of the people in attendance at this presentation are not on Facebook. What does this say about the demographics of this conference?

Observations from exercise:

- put a lot of time to work than to family or ourselves

- work and community are interconnected and there is little division (particularly in the nonprofit world)

- the interpretation of the categories and how they are important vary

- didn’t find any solutions but felt good to talk about the issues

Improvement performance is about being a better leader and the steps necess:

- being real

- telling critical story about what events shaped the person that you are

- telling a critical story of what you think will make you a better person in the world

- being hole, acting with integrity with the whole you

- what are your expectations of yourself in your various rolls and how does that reflection of yourself match up to how other people reflect your expectation

We often have higher expectations of ourselves and we perceive that others have higher expectations of us than is reflected in reality.E

Evaluation of these domains results in people refocusing time and attention so that alignment is more as you like or want it (actions and values shift away from work to other parts of life).

Aligning our actions with our values results in an increase in satisfaction throughout all aspects of our life. (common sense, no? even though we tend to overfocus on work to the point where work becomes the center of our life)

Panel Discussion:

Kathleen: Middle class privileged in the sense that they enjoyed their work. They also loved their families and the refuge. Yet there was not enough time to do everything. Until recently this was seen as a private problem needing a private solution. What was overlooked was the changing dynamics of the workforce – a lot of women and a lot of older people, as well as NGen populations.

Workplace structure not changing with the changing demographics of the workforce. People wanted flexibility not only with the hours that they worked, but where they worked and how they worked.

Effective implementation of flexible workforce practices: Increase retention. Enhance recruitment. Reduced absenteeism. Increased productivity.

Is flexibility an excuse to work all the time? How can we make flexibility a good convenient team for managing our complicated time, but actually also to get some balance in our life?

Kathleen: not a fan of balance since she is not sure if we can ever achieve it.  Flexibility a dual edged sword. Flexibility should not be seen as just a change in schedule. It should be seen as a reexamination of work practices – creating boundaries between family and work. Creating a new work culture i.e. no email or travel on weekends. Time is not infinitely expanding and that boundaries need to be placed on time.

Rand Wentworth: Life as a constant practice in resurrection? Rising above the life burnout. How to we renew or restore ourselves? How do we make small choices throughout our lives to make healthier and better choices? How do we balance this in a suffering world?

Confession: early years I worked out 9-10 at night. Dinner was Doritos or pepperidge farm cookies. I get up early. I would get 5-6 hours of sleep. You can do this at 20 or something but not 50s. I wake up early and reserve the first 2 hours of my day for personal and family. The first thing I do in the morning is 20 min of yoga and contemplative practices. I then do something fun and exuberant – bike or swim to clear my head and give me energy. As long as I am at home, I have breakfast with my kids. I am rarely home for dinner, btu I always have breakfast with my kids. The three nights a week I am home we always sit down for dinner.

Remember to renew throughout the day and remember to breathe. Reschedule your life with YOU in mind.

The practice of rushing: If I am doing more faster I must be more efficient in practicing my mission.

Learn how to use technology not let the technology use you. Learning how to turn it off.  He ever does email at home.

“No Screen Time” – During the weekend, creating a time where all screens are turned off.  Honoring the personal sabbath!

Sundays in the Wentworth household – visiting with friends, sharing meals, reading, going for walks, and spending time with each other., Nervous system is profoundly relaxed.

Talk Daily

Talk Weekly

Annual basis – honorable birthright as servant leaders to do some kind of retreat for yourself. Yoga or nature retreat. Some time when you deeply relax and reflect on how your life is going and how you want your life.

The culture of his organization: All administrative staff are eligible for 3 month sabbatical after 7 years of work. Adopted practicing no scheduled meetings on Fridays and no sending of emails to subordinates on weekends.

Karen: “Hi I am Karen and I am a workaholic.”

Working for clients whose lives are more desperate than ours. Nevertheless, you are only as good as the energy that you can bring to your job.

As we look as diversity – thank god there are a lot of minorities being leaders – we need to make sure that we do not take on the responsibility of representing our communities to the point of burnout.

The power of no!

Disciplined about number of boards you choose to be on and the amount of projects you choose to engage in. Creating an ebb and flow and accept that imperfection is perfect.

Importance of coaching – even though we know the things we need to do, to create balance sometimes we don’t know how to achieve balance.

- Need to write down boundaries.

- Need to vocalize goals to be accountable

Sabbaticals allowed us to strengthen the cohesiveness of the organization.  Allows for a strong foundation for the organization and group relationships. Better delegation and group effectiveness.

Question and Answer

Suggestions for Millennials, young leaders who are trying to prove themselves to their organization and maintain balance

Opportunity to teach elders to live right and alter the culture of our organizations.  Allowing space for people who are productive in their work space yet allow us to have a personal life.

Agreement with staff about production schedules that are reasonable and checking in to evaluate realistic parameters.

Importance of policing our performance expectations of ourselves and other people – the differential between our perception and reality.

Kathleen: The current environment there will be more fear and anxiety and more sense insecurity and power will be shifting to feeling less empowered. Anything that we say will be set in that context. Within the next 1-2 yrs people will be feeling the sand shift underneath their feed.

Ending questions and comments:

How do you reconcile pressures of the job and the desire to have a life?

Flextime – option of a three day weekend every other week.

No meetings on Mondays or Fridays

Do people really change? Do you see a true transformative sense in your life?

When you are trying to make the changes how do you deal with pressure from people around you to revert to old behaviors and attitudes?

Kathleen – Issues about employers to motivate to adopt 80/20 work weeks. People have a hard time to imagine beyond “what is”. Encouraging organizations to put boundaries around projects and time in order to create more manageability.

Rand – yes, there is hope. Addiction of overworking isn’t true to who we really are. Any addiction requires new habits of being that claim each day. Each day needs to be started anew. Structured approach of setting goals is necessary for change.

Karen -not knowing if she was truly able to change, but had staff around her who were committed to helping her change. Also, accepting the idea that change is gradual. Having expectations of overnight change is unrealistic.  You tend to make more mistakes when burned out. Change requires commitment.

Stew – Be a better leader and have a richer life. Putting on a lens that puts your life together that is mutually enriching and is valuable to key people in your life. Take small steps – YES WE CAN! Create sustainable change not just for you but for the people around you. What do the people around you really need and what can you do to achieve balance for the two.