A week ago, I interviewed an ostensible “millennial” for a supervisory IT position in my company’s IT division and offered him a nice package including potential career advancement. He was short-listed by my senior HR and IT managers as potentially befitting of the position we need. He works in the BPO industry with work from home arrangement that accordingly gave him more time for his hobbies.
He made a novel counter that got me bewildered in rapt attention: the WLB (work life balance) he currently enjoys to be monetarily valued and added to the package. I was askance what these WLB activities are and what price each activity might be. Is he subliminally suggesting that he would have no “life beyond work” in my company and losing it was an opportunity cost to be compensated on quid-pro-quo basis?
Probing what he considered to be compensation for his WLB, he asked double his current salary. I was not put off by the amount he suggested but for the subtext that work and life are opposing forces that required an equilibrium like the perfect debit and credit balancing equation of the accounting transaction, with a high premium, to boot.
As a leadership effectiveness mentor, I firmly believe in WLB. I have “Cesar’s Day” to reflect, to read, to write, to have regular personal grooming, to watch people and events while sipping coffee in my favorite Mall. The occasional mahjong with friends sharpens my mental skills and psycho-emotional make-up. I have youthful energy that makes me the envy of my “fawning” friends, so they say.
WLB is clearly a mirage if a perfect equilibrium is desired, where work and life do not overstep upon one another and exist in harmonious opposition. Though, it is a romantic and attractive notion, it is fundamentally illusory and flawed.
The total person intertwines spiritual, mental, physical, and psycho-emotional faculties; the lack of or disregard of one can unmake or “truncate” the whole person. The same is true with work and life, they are integral of each other and may not be compartmentalized and separated.
The colloquial adage “trabaho lang, walang personalan” is a false dichotomy. In reality, it is “trabaho lang, may personalan” which reflects the immutable intersection of work that sanctifies life to make it whole. If we compartmentalize them, it could lead to frustration and dissatisfaction because life and work requirements are dynamic. There will be times when the scales would inevitably tip too far in one direction at various points in our lives.
It thus requires self-mastery and self-awareness to find the harmony and the leverage to ensure there is dynamic and proactive response in the seeming contradiction. It is a value judgment, not measured by equal time spent for either of them.
Tom Oliver, in his interesting article said that one needs to know when it is “game time” and has to be full on and when it is time to step back and recharge. It is to know when “on the field” and “off the field.” Whether “on the field” or “off the field” one must fully engaged 100%. It cannot be 50% either “on the field” or “off the field because half-hearted behavior response would get below average results at best.
As example, my CEO client decries her spouse’s complaint when she brings home the same attack-mode energy from her work as always game time. But when she dreams about the next family tour and shopping plans while in the midst of important business meetings as not yet fully “on the field” is ostensibly false. There is a dynamic play that engulfs one “to work harder and smarter” and at the same time “to dream wildly” about a jaunty Caribbean tour.
In the real world, the concept of balance is not static where the debits must equal the credits. The nature of life and work is dynamic where priorities and demands constantly shift with minimal effort. It is not equilibrium.
Recognizing that there is a fluid dynamic between work and personal lives is not to find balance but to embrace a more fulfilling and practical work-life integration due to their overlaps and interactions. It is to find synergy in work as a meaningful and gratifying part of our values and identity, not as a time-consuming burden to be balanced against life.
The value of synergy allows for the realities and demands of work – such as late-night emails, early morning or evening calls and the occasional weekend work – while also providing space for family, health, personal time and hobbies.
Finally, synergy requires a conscious effort to design what truly is important – redefining success, setting priorities, fostering flexibility, nurturing health, building support, and internal reflecting and adjusting. It is about making work and life coexist in a fashion that reflects our values, priorities and the realities of our individual conditions and circumstances. It is different strokes for different folks.
Dr. Cesar Azurin Mansibang is the President/CEO of United Graphic Expression Corporation, a long-time leadership and management practitioner and graduate school professor.