I have a bunch of different opinions about work-life balance. At one level, I think it’s a total crock of shit that should be re-branded about 1,927 times over. When I think that way about work-life balance, here’s the deal: it’s total buzzword by this point and it allows everyone to start kneeling in the altars at The Temple Of Busy as they claim achieving work-life balance is impossible. OMG!
There’s another side of me that thinks work-life balance could actually be a strategic advantage for companies, although admittedly it would require a new way of thinking about the term or concept — and anytime you combine the word “companies” with “new way of thinking,” you’re already basically trying to walk an elephant out onto a twig and hope it doesn’t snap. Companies don’t often think in new ways unless bankruptcy is bearing down on ’em. They might think about new things — chasing shiny nickels, in other words — but that doesn’t mean they often think about things in new ways.
Alright, so … back to work-life balance. Where should we stand on it?
Work-life balance: Some contextual background
Here’s an article on Harvard Business Review from Scott Behson, who appears to be a management professor at FDU and has written a book about surviving being a working dad. (Pretty much vetted.) The focus of the article is work-life balance, and there’s a cool section near the middle where he talks about Ryan, LLC — that’s a company — and what they’ve done in this space:
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