Category: book

What is work life balance? For some people it means that at 5pm you go home. But would that be enough?

Work life balance is much more than that.
It represents how much your work is intertwined with your life.

Let me share an example: You come home at 6 pm, everything is fine.
But then your phone rings, your boss needs some questions and you answer to him.
Or maybe you receive a work related email.
Or maybe your manager writes you on whatsapp and you don’t know if he want something for tomorrow or asking how are you doing.

Does it means that getting early at home protected your balance? Of course not.
Work life balance is a two way ticket and should be considered in all aspects, like what if your life impacts your work?

Like the example before: You are working, but your wife sends you a message that she wants to buy pizza, but which one?
You reply to her.

Seems like a simple thing to do right? But maybe you were in the zone and you were fully focused on a task, that simple change made you switch. Now you have to warm up again and start working again.

So, how can we fix this?
First: Rules, both with coworkers and friends.
Second: Tech. Put your phone in DND.
Third: Honesty. Because 90% of the people would surely say that their work is impacting their life, but not the other way around (so they’ll keep whatsapp open/whatever).

This issue is much like any addiction, like smartphone addiction. You don’t notice it. That’s why the best way to fix it is to start thinking about it each time so that we learn to see when we’ve fallen again into the same trap.

Cause your life and your work are fragile things, crystal class and you should take care of them in the same way.

It happens, you get stressed, a little bit depressed.
Suddenly the job you love so much doesn’t seem so appealing.

You start wondering: What should I do? Should I leave? Maybe it’s time to switch jobs, maybe this is not for me, it’s not the right time.

We all got to that point, I did multiple times and I continue seeing people on that edge. 
To me there was one thing that changed it all: “It’s your job, no  matter how good or bad, you should always do your best”.

This doesn’t automatically translate into “Don’t leave the job”. What it says is that, _while you’re on that job_ you should always do your best.
Shit will come, bad times will come. They will always come as they do in real life. But you can’t quit in real life right?

It’s hard to know when it’s a bad time that’ll pass and when a bad time will stay. But whatever the situation you’re in you should do your best, work your best, put the best you can do.

Because, even if you leave the company, what you left behind is a better place than the one you first met.

There are many many ways to delegate work. For example one common thing is that when we got more responsibilities we stop delegating, instead we abdicate.

The main difference between the two options is that when we Abdicate we’re simply handing over the task to do without any added value, nor help.

It’s like when you’re playing football, a friend launched the ball towards you and you avoid it, telling the next person in line “you! Take it!”.

Delegation, on the other hand, means that you got to know what’s to do and you can prepare the way, helping the person next in line as much as possible so they can do their work instead of figuring out all the variables.

Seems like a simple thing but we’re often abdicating instead of delegating.
It’s easier, much more easier.
But by doing so you’re asking the other person to do a part of the job you were supposed to do.

You’re asking them to prepare the work, getting the information and _then_ start working.
The worst thing of all? You’re not taking ownership of your tasks.
You are not helping the company, nor adding value. 

If you abdicate chances are you won’t consider yourself responsible if things go wrong, but guess what? You _are_ responsible. Because in the chain of command you’re at a higher level.

So no, if the project fails, it’s not someone else to blame because they didn’t do what you told them (or didn’t told) to do. 
It’s because you didn’t do your job, you didn’t take the ownership and cared about yourself and the project.

Always strive to prepare the work for others as much as possible, lend a hand, clean the way. And if shit happens, take responsibility.

Avoid abdication, because with abdication you’re teaching people two wrong things.
1. It’s not our job to help people do their best work
2. whatever the outcome, I’m not responsible for the task.

There was a story along these lines that I always loved: A man goes talking to a big Hotel and ask the owner if they would have the space for an event. The owner promptly replied “yes”, then the man asked if they have a place big enough to accomodate 1000 people.  The owner confirmed, then the man asked if, for each person that would come, they would give him one orange by hand (so no self serve). The question did put off a little bit the owner, he said it was impossible to do it. Then the man asked if they could offer one juice each on entrance, a fresh orange juice made right away, not pre-prepared. The owner promptly replied a clear No. End of the story, the man didn’t choose the hotel. But what’s the takeaway?  The man didn’t need a place for 1000 people, he needed a place to accomodate only 200 people, and he didn’t need all the oranges things. What the man wanted to know was if the hotel was able to arrange those request, if they could find a way to manage them,  There’s _always_ a way.  Think about the orange thing. The owner said no because in his mind “We can’t afford this for the prices we have”. But did they talk about prices? Of course not. What the owner missed is the fact that each and every request is a negotiation. Many if not all the request we receive are possible, what makes them “impossible” are the constraints. When we usually say “we can’t do this” what we actually mean is * We don’t have enough resources to do this * There is not enough time * We can’t cover the costs  What if you didn’t have _any_ limit or constraint? You would probably say “Yes, we can do it”. So why say it’s impossible?  Maybe the person in front of you can help you remove some constraints by adding more money/time/resources. If not, then it’ll be impossible, but whenever someone comes to me and say “Hey, can we do this?” I always reply “Of course, it all depends on time, money, and resources”

I will always remember one time when I saw a dear friend of mine being humiliated in front of other people in a discussion. I remember the other person was angry, furious, and made him look like a stupid.

I felt bad for my friend, but more than that I felt bad for him when we discovered that he was not guilty. He, in fact, did everything perfect and the person accusing him was wrong.
I felt bad for him because I knew nobody would give him the same treatment. The “sorry, I overreacted” would come in private, while the gigantic shitstorm was public.

This is what we’re used to: Public criticism, private congratulations.
It’s easy to imagine why: When you humiliate someone in front of other people you’re the one with power. You feel powerful right?

But when you discover you’re on the wrong side of the fence, without that power what happens? You just don’t have the courage to do the same, to the same extent, in the same manner.

And honestly: It’s stupid.
It’s stupid for many reasons but above all it’s stupid because it’s a matter of protecting yourself.
We’re so obsessed of protecting our status, our power, that we focus on the opposite actions to do.

Think about it: Praising someone in public would give you a good image, and will surely avoid you losing your face in case you’re wrong.
The same goes for criticizing people in private: It’ll allow you to let them grow and understand what they did wrong, this won’t surely happen in public where we are pressed to protect our status and therefore we tend to avoid admitting our errors.

And honestly: Didnd’t we all hate being humiliated in public? I think that would be enough, it should’ve been for sure.