A few of my favorite #worklife bloggers (Judy Martin, Chrysula Winegar, Leanne Chase, Cali Yost) have been engaging in a conversation about the value of slowing down, finding serenity, and insisting on quality of life in the workplace. For me, improving finding peace in my professional and family life isn’t about downtiming, or even taking time for moments of peace throughout the day. It’s about a consistently pleasant and rational work environment.
I’ve been thinking about this lately in the context of two stories I recently heard from fellow working mothers. The first is from a fundraiser who received an email from her boss at 9am on a Saturday morning with the subject line “Emergency!” The “emergency” turned out to be that a donor had angrily called to say that he was not listed in the organization’s annual report. My friend worried about this all weekend, wondering whether she had made a mistake that would cost the donor’s contribution (it turned out that she hadn’t). On Monday morning she went in, got all of the information, called the donor and the situation was resolved.
A second story came from a friend who is a lawyer. She was working on a big case with a senior partner and a junior partner who discussed reviewing some documents on a Friday afternoon. The senior partner was leaving for his country house that evening; the junior partner, eager to impress, insisted that members of his staff — most of whom were already on their way home — come back to the office to have the documents faxed to the senior partner so that he would have them by the time he arrived that night. The senior partner may have been impressed, but he didn’t actually review the documents until late the following week, when he was back in the office.
Neither of these friends want to down-time — if anything, they are intensely ambitious individuals who want to climb further up the corporate ladder. They don’t need to slow down, per se. But they would be much happier if their companies could better prioritize; not every hiccup should be an urgent request that pulls them out of weekend activities, absorbing mental energy even if they don’t actually have to go into the office. Even more than hours spent at work, what wears employees down is the unnecessary anxiety created by these “emergencies”.
So often companies, especially those that are client-driven like law or consulting firms, have a culture of panic. The client needs something? Summon the troops! We have to get it immediately, even though it’s already after 5pm on a Friday night and the client won’t look at the document until late Monday. President of the company has a request? Stop all other projects right away — even if he is out of the office until next week.
Of course, business needs to be responsive — quick and effective communication is often what separates good companies from bad. But responsive can also mean thoughtful, measured and calm. It doesn’t have to cause the flurry of anxious activity that sometimes characterizes corporate culture. Too often managers don’t stop to carefully consider whether a request from a client or superior actually requires immediate action beyond acknowledging that the request was received.
This is not a question of being less available for truly urgent business. It’s a matter of tightly defining priorities so that what is and is not important is clear both to manager and employee. It’s about developing managers who understand that treating non-urgent requests as if they were emergencies leads to burned out staffers who are less likely to perform under real pressure. And it’s about creating respectful and rational workplaces.
Do “urgent” requests come up often in your work environment? How do you handle them?
TMB,
This is an issue that drives me crazy– too many times, I’ve seen work, life events spoiled by someone who couldn’t set priorities. One of the biggest gifts we can give the people we work with is a sense of our own time priorities and proper respect for theirs.
cv
Great post TMB! We see this with our clients all the time, and often it comes down to clearly defining what “client service” means inside of the organization. Once you begin to clarify the concept, people realize that it’s not about always saying “Yes,” or jumping at every request. It means listening, clarifying mutual expectations, reordering priorities if necessary–communication! But the culture needs to value and reward that more thoughtful approach over fire drills which as one client once confessed, “Can make you feel really important and necessary. They are kind of addicting.” Hmmm….
Best,
cali
Ah, the tyranny of the “urgent.” Yes, it is draining. I find that it is particularly acute sometimes in public institutions even, such as school districts, where there is a layer of locally elected officials that add a whole additional layer of “emergency” requests that people feel they have to jump to. I’ve seen execs burn out whole teams of good people by making everything an emergency and as a result never giving the team time to deal with anything strategic that helps them actually make progress on important work.
Kristin Maschka
“Urgent is subjective”, depending on the person. I believe “urgency” can be defined by one’s job as, say a firefighter, IT Systems Support, Doctor, or policeman. In the workplace, where there is not imminent, life-threatening danger or systems failures, I encourage the following mantra: “Lack of Planning on YOUR part does not constitute an EMERGENCY on my part.
Great post. And a tough conundrum because I think the blame doesn’t lay entirely with the workplace. Workers need to learn how to manage this one, too. Because clearly workers are called with “emergencies” that aren’t. But part of the reason the is true, is because every time they are told something is urgent – they respond in kind. They have not put their foot down and said…”no…it’s actually not an emergency – I’ll take care of it in it’s proper time & place.”
When people ask me how to get more work/life balance (a word I know we both hate). I tell them:
Set boundaries (and stick to them – like no email/vm checking on weekends)
Manage expectations (bosses, family, friends)
Say “no” – and really won’t everyone in your life ask for more, more, more until you finally say “no.”
Ask for help – it does take a village at work and at home to succeed in life
This really is one of those issues sits with both the employer and the employee. An urgent Saturday client need is really no different than a phone call from the school to pick up a sick child on a Thursday. Both would be considered “urgent” by at least one of the two sides. The key is good communications – preferably in advance – to ensure both sides use the same definition. Then the pendulum can comfortably swing from work to life and back again as necessary.
This topic is at the core of the problem. 24/7 access feeds the need for instant gratification. For employees looking to stay put – the demand can be grueling. But where does it stop?
Yes, managers need to realize that their human capital is at risk if they overwork them and impede on their family life, but I don’t think that’s in the cards in the immediate future. Although, if we make enough noise about prioritizing, perhaps some corporate executives might listen.
What can happen is a shift in the mind of the worker; perspective on what an employee needs to do to make it work for them.
At this point it’s a game of survival. (And I truly feel it’s taking the reins of ones inner workings.) How we respond to this crisis is up to us for now. Y’all know I’m a big proponent of scheduling some “downtime” or “whitespace” in the calendar.
I think it accelerates the ability to think critically, to create, and to stay competitive in an info-overloaded environment. That’s my work life fit and it may not work for everyone – but isn’t it worth a shot?
Great Post!! I soo relate to this post. 1/2 time etc doesn’t work in my world. I’m a partner so when I hear the if you tried hard enough you could make it balance..well I feel like I’m about to drown all of the time. I can how ever relate to what you wrote. I can relate to every single issue being a FIRE..Saturday morning at 8 AM. I can relate to that..I can make a difference there..I can insist that only true emergencies warrant a weekend/late night call.
Thanks for the post- AWM
I’m late to comment because I was on vacation. Isn’t that appropriate?
My work straddles science and IT. On the IT side, there are always people with urgent needs and on the science side, there is the cultural attitude that if you are a “real” scientist you want to do nothing but science all the time.
Still, I feel like I manage to keep the fake emergencies at bay and feel pretty good about my work-home balance. I have always been opposed to long hours, since I realized in grad school that I was actually getting LESS done when I pulled long hours (this was long before I had kids). So I go home on time most days with zero guilt despite the occasional raised eyebrow from colleagues.
The thing I struggle to handle, though, is the emergencies that are real, bona fide emergencies, but only got that way because someone else failed to plan. There is a famous quote, posted above many IT people’s desks about this- “A failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part” or something like that. But I struggle to really live that. Honestly, dealing with that nonsense was easier before I had kids and a mortgage, back when losing a job would have been an excuse to go on an extended trip and not a financial nightmare. I think one of the reasons I’m so obsessive about keeping a good savings buffer is that I always want to feel like I could walk away from a job if the demands got too crazy.
A friend told me about her new motto: “Your lack of planning is not my emergency.”
In some situations, by being able to yell “Emergency!” people can cover up the fact that with their proper groundwork, work could’ve been done smoothly and calmly. It’s a pain to plan ahead, and it’s a pain to set priorities — calling “emergency!” is a way to make it someone else’s problem. Arrgh!
I think we all just want some R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Especially when it comes to time management. Both at work and at home. Time is so limited, so when a co-worker, supervisor, client, customer or even a friend or family member eats up your precious time, it’s tough not to feel resentful.
That being said, good time management skills include building in flexibility. Especially if you have a boss who doesn’t keep to the clock or stick to a schedule, then you need to learn to roll with it…or find a new job!
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The hidden giant in all of this is fear.
The junior partner had fear of not pleasing the senior partner, the office staff had fear of not pleasing the junior partner.
In any team environment, we need to have candor enough to call BS and push back. The push back should be back to the senior partner on “how soon would you read this if I got it to you by tomorrow?” The answer would probably have been it isn’t necessary.
The problem is an office worker questioning the junior partner might be met with the junior partner’s fear of “I will loose control if they call me out on it”
That is the fear which kills teams.
I wonder if we fear more because loyalty between a company and an employee is worse than ever. Layoffs still happen; hiring isn’t happening; and people are afraid to insist on work-life balance for fear of being the next one on the list.