Links of Interest

The Top 10 Ten Ways to Achieve Dynamic Balance

The Top 10 Measures of a Balanced Life

Piercing Corporate Illusions
Steve Davis

Linda Miller, owner of Interlink Training and Coaching LLC, specializes in training and coaching corporate executives. Because personal and professional life balance is often a challenge for them, we asked Linda to recount an example of her experience with a prior client. The CEO began to sense problems with his VP of Operations. To the CEO, this once highly effective and energetic executive now appeared unmotivated, disillusioned, and apathetic. Because the CEO couldn't get him to open up, he decided to give him an outside resource. This is when Linda was invited in to coach him, and with the VP's consent, they went to work. During the first session, a huge issue showed up. A conflict had begun to grow inside him around the direction, leadership, and values of the company, and for some time, he felt that his only solution was to leave. But he feared his wife's reaction to this, so he withheld his concerns from her. As his coach, Linda advised him to be open with his wife. This was a key action because unbeknownst to him, while he was withholding his concerns at home, she sensed something was wrong and her mind went wild with speculation. Once she learned what was really happening, she was relieved and very supportive of him. Besides receiving support that he didn't have before, this freed him to look at the situation differently. Within 3 weeks, he was reengaged and anticipating the work environment. Everyone around him noticed a difference and reengaged with him as well. Another issue revolved around vacation, or the lack thereof -- he hadn't had one in two years. And when he did take vacations, he was in constant contact with his office via e-mail and telephone. So Linda had him set aggressive goals around disconnecting from the company while gone. She worked with him to implement a system to cover all bases so that he could be totally present with family. It took over a month to set this up. He started offloading what he could in advance. He informed key players and made his expectations very clear. He also designed his absence with the goal of assuring that a great deal of value would be added while he was gone.

Linda Miller While many executives may fear that empowering others while absent may put their value in question, this scenario can actually work to everyone's advantage. The VP was actually able to expand his area of influence. When he returned, he found that in many areas, he wasn't needed as much. This freed him to step into higher areas of leadership. By empowering others to do his job, he was empowered. This is real leadership! And this was just the beginning. Because of her results with this client, Linda was retained to coach the executive team for months to follow. In closing, she offers a few insights for executives seeking life balance: Work is part of you. Embrace it so you can let go and live in the present. This may require that you share work issues with your support system, partner, or trusted friends. Share what's sharable, being clear about confidentiality. When you recognize that you need to be needed, realize that others need to be needed, too, and that you may actually be needed in higher places. Vacations can be rejuvenating and productive. Considering that your unconscious works while you don't, new strategic perspectives can emerge when you step away from your work, hence you can contribute to your organization at a different level when you leave it for awhile. Linda owns Interlink Training and Coaching LLC and was the founding president of Corporate Coaches Inc., a coaching services company affiliated with CoachInc.com. In her spare time Linda loves to golf with her husband. Linda can be contacted at 425-503-3453 or Linda@interlinktc.com. You can also visit her website at www.interlinktc.com. Comments?

Balancing Work and Life:
Redefining Success at Mid-life
Gene Glatter

By the time I turned 40, my view of corporate life had become tainted. I was a Vice President in the technology sector of a global banking institution, highly regarded by associates, and handsomely compensated. I traveled the world. Everyone thought I had it all. I looked like the picture of success. But on the inside, I wasn't happy. During the corporate years, I had become increasingly dissatisfied with the quality of my life, which had been dedicated to the corporate gods. In the process I had back-burnered everything else that was important to me. Around the age of 40, a raging voice inside showed up -- screaming to be heard. It wouldn't be silenced until I made the changes that reflected my truest values. Ironically, as I changed my profession to Career Management and Executive Coaching, I found that many of my mid-life clients shared similar experiences. Although men frequently hear this "raging inner voice," nowhere is this phenomenon more common than among executive women. Consider their history. In the 70s, huge numbers of female baby boomers graduated from college to embark upon professional careers. Without mentor or predecessor, they raided the corporate arena -- refusing to aspire to anything less than their male counterparts. And why wouldn't they? Hadn't they always been good students? Was there anything in the corporate arena that they couldn't do as well as men? Of course not! So, they rolled up their sleeves and gave it their all. They worked evenings and weekends. They may or may not have taken the time to get married or have children. If they had children, they hired daycare workers and nannies to raise them. Some spent so little time at home that their marriages ended in divorce. But they certainly were successful at climbing the corporate ladder and the world was their oyster. Or was it? Flash forward to the year 2000. How are these women faring today? By their own description, "not so well." I'm about to make some blanket statements about the status of professional baby boomer-aged females: Their sense of meaning and purpose is drifting. They no longer feel passionate about their jobs and long to rediscover this lost passion in some aspect of their lives.

They long for more quality time with their loved ones and alone with themselves Fun and joy are blurs from a distant past or entirely invisible. When they are able to imagine such things, they dream of gardening, beautiful homes, time alone in nature. They wonder to themselves, "Is this all there is to life?" They are exhausted by their efforts to please others and, in doing so, neglecting their own best interests. Their health has begun to suffer and their waists have expanded more than they would like, often the result of eating on the run and making no time for exercise. They are stressed to the max and exhausted by their seemingly endless responsibilities. By mid-life, many very successful female executives are leaving their corporate jobs. Many of them are starting their own successful businesses particularly in the consulting arena. The reasons for this exodus are many, but the singular most significant driving force is their desire for time. Time to live life on purpose. No longer driven by title or income, the executive woman at mid-life sees her own mortality and comes to redefine success as a mix of meaningful work, pleasurable experiences, spiritual connection, physical and emotional health, thriving relationships, and financial security. It's not an easy transition, but it represents a trend that promises to grow well into the 21st century among men and women. Gene Glatter is a Career Management and Executive Coach specializing in issues of work/life balance. She can be reached at geneglatter@att.net or 732-933-1918. Comments?