I recently returned from our family vacation – a time of rest, fun, catching up with family, and time for reflection. I really value this get-away. I find that as I separate from “the office” by changing surroundings – both the physical environment and my human interactive environment, my mind becomes more creative. Each day I relax more and more, and my creativity flourishes. Some of my best ideas happen on vacation, planting the seed for successes to follow.
On this particular vacation, my mind turned to work-life balance. If going on vacation can help us hit our re-set buttons and inspire creativity and innovation – shouldn’t that be something we should strive for in our businesses as well? How many of us have “work life balance” or equivalent as part of our strategic plans? Sure, I see “culture” a lot. But culture seems like a vague word – it can be either positive or negative. And the thought of how to influence culture can be daunting. Instead, let’s think about work-life balance. We can all easily envision what that means – a healthy life, both physically and mentally. A life where work does not become all-consuming, pushing out our quality time with family and friends. A life where we are happy and look forward to the time we spend at work – whether physically or remotely. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
So perhaps it is time to revisit our strategic plans and evaluate the need for work-life balance as part of our organizational strategy. At the very least, I think this is a worthwhile topic for an upcoming strategy review meeting.
If you need assistance in strategy development and execution, please reach out to me personally. I’d be happy to share my thoughts. Or take our award-winning Strategy Management Performance System course – which is available both via live instruction, as well as asynchronous for those with busy schedules. I welcome your thoughts in the comments section on how you have visited work-life balance in your strategies.
