I couldn’t let another day go by without talking about Jack Welch’s comments on “work-life balance” at the Society for Human Resource Management’s Annual Conference. As reported by The Juggle at The Wall Street Journal, Welch said:
“There’s no such thing as work-life balance…There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.” Mr. Welch, a thrice married father of four, said those who take time off for family could be passed over for promotions “if you’re not there in the clutch.”
My first reaction was that Welch is essentially right. If you take time off or reduce hours, your career will suffer; we need to be honest about that. But, studies show that women who are driven to high-powered careers are not opting out in droves — they know that they have to pay dues to get ahead.
Welch implies that time spent out of the office is the primary reason mothers are passed over for promotion; in fact there’s tremendous discrimination against mothers in the workforce. Consider the motherhood penalty: studies have shown that equally qualified candidates were less likely to be hired and earned significantly less when their resumes revealed them to be mothers. Mothers earn 27% less than their equally qualified male counterparts. While there are women who leave the workforce, that doesn’t explain why only 2.4% of Fortune 1000 companies have female CEOs; for the most part women in the running for those jobs are not taking significant time off.
Welch’s comments also beg a real definition of work-life balance; he seems to think that working seriously and having a family life are incompatible, and they are if you define “balance” as Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz puts it in a recent Juggle column:
“I’m going to cook a great breakfast, wash up the dishes before I leave, take the kids to school, call my college roommate on my way in to work, be a CEO all day, volunteer on the way home, do a little exercising, cook a wonderful dinner, help with homework, have sex…” [Bartz] said…Working parents should take a longer-term view, focusing on doing one thing well at a time, instead of seeking the perfection of a daily balance.
I think Bartz gets it wrong here. This might have been an idea of work-life balance 20 years ago, but I think women have now had enough tenure in the workplace to know that this kind of schedule isn’t possible, and few are expecting the kind of “daily perfection” she mentions. Unlike the women of Bartz’s generation, many of us now have help from our spouses, from paid workers, from family. We leave the volunteering to stay-at-home parents who have more time. We exercise for 20 minutes, rather than an hour. And we don’t strive for perfection in everything, but we do a very good job at a lot of things.
The notion that we should “focus on doing one thing well at a time” is one of the ideas that causes women to drop out of the workforce: the idea that you can’t be a great mother and a great worker concurrently. When someone like Bartz — who should know better — gives working mothers so little credit, why should Jack Welch give us more?
Let’s give work-life balance an honest definition. It doesn’t mean doing everything, and certainly doesn’t mean doing everything perfectly. It means making time for the things in life that are most important to you. For many women that will include a professional career; for some it will mean shouldering the hours and stress needed to get to a Fortune 1000 corporate executive job. It’s true that we can’t expect to get top jobs if we take significant time off, but taking time off is not the only way of finding peace at work and home. Providing women have the ambition, and put in the time, energy and vision, there are lots of paths to CEO — if systemic discrimination against mothers ends.
Related links:
- This isn’t the first time that Jack Welch has sounded off on work-life balance. See this Boston Globe piece from 2005 for more info on his views. I actually agree with much of what he says about how to treat requests for flex-time and the like.
- A thoughtful and terrific perspective from The Conglomerate on Welch’s talk.
- Elisa Batista at MomsRising discusses Welch’s comments.
- Andrew Leonard at Salon.com offers a male point of view on the speech.
I agree that the term “balance” really gets us nowhere fast. I prefer the term “synergy” – finding a common thread of meaning in both work and life spheres, engaging in multi-dimensional wellness, gravitating to those activities and people that energize you, and for moms especially…….a little “healthy selfishness”.
I think that before one can begin the process of allocating time, you need to get out of your current headspace of chaos and “going through the motions” to figure out those things that are important to you and that are aligned with who you are and your goals. A reduced work week will not automatically or in and of itself solve one’s work life challenges. I did exactly that only to realize after months of introspection and personal branding work that I needed to infuse my life with more of the things that both bring me joy and enable me to use my gifts/talents/skills. Dividing up my time was the afterthought.
Great post!
Please stop expecting at-home parents to shoulder all the volunteering burden. You wouldn’t expect your daycare provider or nanny to be splitting their attention from YOUR kids while they volunteer. Everyone needs to pull their weight in this society when it comes to volunteering. A handful of at-home parents being active in the PTA doesn’t excuse the 90% of working parents from showing up too. Change the paradigm, expect businesses to WANT their employees to be good citizens of their community and help make it possible. Hell, even Target and Walmart get that enough to advertise it all over the walls near customer service!
Oh, yeah, and also Mr. Welch, assuming that you’re not twice widowed, I think I’d rather take my work-life balance advice from someone who *hasn’t* had two marriages fail already. Third time might be the charm for you, but I’d rather stick with my first choice thankyouverymuch.
The paradigm will also shift as women start expecting better from their mates. Huge amounts of money in the bank and a mansion full of stuff isn’t going to be what comforts you on your deathbed. Live like you were dying because you have been since the day you were born.
Actually, Bartz’s line from the Juggle column really struck a chord with me the first time I read it. I remember the awful recognition: “Crap. That is exactly how I try to schedule my time and fail every single day.”
I don’t think her point was so far off from yours. We do know (even if we don’t act like it) that if you try to live that Superwoman fantasy every day you’re going to end up dead or quitting your job.
Pingback: Life Meets Work Blog » Blog Archive » So the Jack Welch Thing
“… equally qualified candidates were less likely to be hired and earned significantly less when their resumes revealed them to be mothers…”
Resumes don’t reveal us to be married, single, mothers or childless — if there is a gap in time, use a functional resume to highlight skills and knowledge. I personally don’t reveal to any prospective employer that I have children.
Amen. And thanks for the shout out. As for semantics, I prefer work-life integration.
Pingback: Why Jack Welch is Good for the Work-Life Debate | Working Mother
Pingback: Queercents » Blog Archive » There is No Work-Life Balance, Only Work-Life Choices
Ahmie, Thank you for the only thoughtful comment on this topic. It is time to end the idea of “women’s work”. We all know that men are boating, fishing, golfing, playing squash or tennis and calling it “networking” while women care for home and family. Men must shoulder the responsibility for home. The extreme hour work week must end and all adults should participate in the PTA. If Jack had participated in familty responsibilities, he would have a different opinion. There are more men who agree than will ever admit it! Men want to be a part of their children’s lives. Men want to participate in charitable activities. Men want to help care of ailing parents. They will never admit it as long as the extreme hour work week continues to drive success.
What bothers me the most about what Jack Welch said is that he continues to be regarded as a corporate leadership development guru, the go-to-guy for leadership advice and insight. His words on work-life balance suggest that he simply isn’t qualified to speak about leading with care, compassion, or vision – all qualities that he says a great leader needs to exude. His time has come and gone.
Just as with everything in life, in order to achieve true success there must be some sort of balance. My wife just gave birth to our third child 4 days ago. She had to turn off her cell phone because her employees would not stop calling. As important as income is in today’s society, she nor anyone else should be married to their job.
Thanks for this interesting discussion, MamaBee. Coincidentally, I blogged about this the same day you did on my Work Wedenesday blog for CurrentMom.com: “What Do Jack Welch and Sonia Sotomayor Have in Common? Work-Life Balance at the Top,”
http://www.currentmom.com/currentmom/2009/07/former-general-electric-ceo-jack-welch—the-manager-of-the-century-to-some-and-a-greedy-dinosaur-to-others—stirred-up-a-bu.html.
Like you, I agree that we need to redefine what work-life balance really means. As I noted in my blog post, the reactions all around the web to Welch’s latest, from moms, dads, and non-parents too, were “sharply critical of Welch’s one-dimensional view of success.” In fact, it appears that most people – at least those expressing their views on the web- define a
“successful life as one that involve[s] a satisfying but not all-consuming career and ample family time. (And maybe even some time for culture, hobbies, travel, friends, and civic involvement.) Maybe not ‘having it all’ – but making compromises to achieve some balance.”
I do, though, find it dispiriting that a lot of highly intelligent and talented women never try to reach the pinnacle of their careers because of societal pressures and expectations – and the systemic discrimination you mention.
Very enjoyable!