Avoid work/life balance?

I’m joking – but only half joking!!

I wanted to call this blog work/life integration, because I much prefer the term integration to balance.

I don't like the word balance because it implies a separation, with work at one end of the see-saw and life at the other. And I’m not sure we can or should separate work from life in that way. In contrast, for me, integration implies that the two things work together in a more complex and supportive way.

For example, it’s obvious that while we’re at work we think about the other parts of our lives – our family and friends etc. - and while we’re not working we think about work - well, most of us do, and that’s not a bad thing! Many of us work with our friends, or have made our friends through the work we do.

Contrasting work with life implies that life, and all its component parts, is a better and more valuable way of spending time. However, for many people, work is a vital part of their lives, it’s where they get a major part of their sense of identity and purpose in life. Work can be fulfilling, we can be passionate about it, and in that way it nourishes us.

Work is a very important part of our lives, work is not what we do when we’re not living.

Try this exercise. Think about all the good things you get from work. Here’s a list to start you off:

Money

Friends

Satisfaction

Esteem

Purpose

Achievement

Skills

Now try to separate your work from your life!

Every new idea evolves from a pre-existing idea!

Sir Isaac Newton, the father of modern physics (and without whom we wouldn’t have computers, space travel and much else), acknowledged this when he said “If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Businesses only survive by growing and changing, and that requires an input of new ideas: ‘what can we give the market that no-one else gives?’, ‘how can we produce twice as much with the same resources?’, ‘what can we do to ensure that our staff are fully engaged?’

It’s highly likely (we might even say certain) that the answers to these questions are already ‘out there’, someone somewhere has already tackled the problem, got the answer, solved the puzzle.

So, if you want to be successful in business, be a sponge! Soak up ideas as if your life depends on it. Make time for reading, watching, visiting, asking questions. The more ideas that go in, the better the quality of the ideas that come out!

When you’ve soaked up lots of ideas, play around with them until you’ve got something that suits your needs – combine ideas, take an idea from one field of activity to another, do the opposite, mix things up, take the relevant bits of an idea and discard the rest, share ideas, give some away and get some new ones back.

Be a sponge, be curious, then be creative, then be successful.

(a warning – don’t pass borrowed ideas off as your own, acknowledge the debt)

You can’t open a newspaper or magazine at the moment without David Hockney’s boyish good looks staring out at you, or without seeing one of his ultra-colourful Yorkshire landscapes.

Hockney’s career now spans more than fifty years and has been characterised by a constant and ongoing artistic development. His artistic ‘periods’ include the early 1960s pop paintings, the Bigger Splash and Californian work, the photographic ‘joiners’, and the recent multi-canvas landscapes. Parallel to this development has been his changing status, in the public eye he’s gone from enfant-terrible, to Californian exile, to the UK’s most popular painter.

Hockney has constantly changed, developed, and re-invented himself. So, what can we learn from him?

Firstly, we can learn the pleasures and benefits of curiosity. At the heart of everything he does is a restless questioning, a fascination with new ideas, and a search for new possibilities. Nowhere is this more obvious than in his use of different media. He’s employed the traditional artistic media of pencil, paper, paint and canvas, he’s been an accomplished print-maker, he’s used both film-based and digital photography, made art with faxes and photocopiers, championed the ipad as a serious artistic medium, and in the new exhibition there are multi-camera film pieces too.

Secondly, we can learn that moving on to new ideas and interests need not involve a rejection of the past. For Hockney, moving on has always been a process of adding, of combining old and new skills and interests, of building on achievements. He’s always been striving to create something new that gains strength, meaning and interest from the inclusion of what has gone before.

Sir Isaac Newton said that he achieved what he did because he ‘stood on the shoulders of giants.’ This is the third lesson from Hockney. He has stood on the shoulders of Picasso. For him, Picasso has been a role model – think of Picasso’s lifetime of experimentation and breadth of work, from painting and drawing, to prints, to sculpture and pottery. At times Hockney’s work has shown the stylistic influence of Picasso, but this was never a slavish imitation. What Newton and Hockney share is the ability to absorb, rework and improve the ideas that have come before them.

When we put these aspects of Hockney’s character and career together – the restless curiosity, the constant learning and improvement, the absorption of ideas – we perhaps go some way towards explaining his permanent boyishness, his childlike passions. Hockney has shown us how to grow and mature while staying forever young.

I’ve been thinking about personal values.

Even if we don’t articulate them, we live by a set of implicit values. They are the principles by which we behave, expect others to behave, and by which we make decisions.

It’s good to be explicit about values, even if it’s just to ourselves, because it means that we are clear about them and can more easily live by them.

Today a woman phoned from what I believe was an India-based call centre. She called herself Janet and claimed to be from the ‘shop’ attached to my mobile phone network. She was offering a new handset but wanted me to verify my contract details first. I said that if she was from my network she’d know these details. I asked her for her phone number, she gave me a false number. She was, of course, fishing for information!!

A while ago I bought a new car on credit. A day or so later I got a call from the finance company offering me credit protection. The caller quoted me prices based on their gold and platinum policies. I got him to admit that there was also a bronze option. He said he couldn’t give me details of this, and that if I wanted a policy I’d have to choose gold or platinum. He was, of course, lying so that I’d buy the more expensive option.

I’m hoping that both of these people are now covered with sore boils.

And, I’m wondering about their values, and the values of the companies they work for.

Bluffing, lying, deceiving, being economical with the truth, call it what you like, it certainly goes against my values. It gives business, and sales people in particular, a bad name.

There are lots of good honest people in business, it’s a real shame that there are also quite few who think its ok to lie.

What are your values?

I love the optimism and positiveness of this. Asset-based thinking

focuses on opportunities rather than problems, strengths rather

than weaknesses, what can be done instead of what can’t.

Some asset-based responses:

What is possible? (rather than – That’s impossible.)

What’s done is done. Move on. (rather than – Whose fault is that?)

What am I learning? (rather than – What’s wrong with me?)

How can I get around this? (rather than – That’ll never change.)

What makes him tick? (rather than – He’s out of his mind.)

For more information check out www.assetbasedthinking.com

(it’s American, so try to see through the slight cheesiness!)