Work Life Balance

What do these things have in common?  Keep reading to find out – and note that there are some tangible takeaways at the bottom of this post.

Have a great week end.

I was chatting recently with Michael Schreiber.  He’s the CEO of one our clients, Strike Entertainment.  In addition to other things, Strike run a series of hospitality centres including bowling alleys, laser tag etc.

Somehow we got onto the subject of work/life balance and I shared with him a session from Tedx Sydney 2010 that was delivered by Nigel Marsh.  Nigel has popular book on the subject Overworked and Underlaid: A Seriously Funny Guide to Life.  In the session he runs through 4 points he sees as important – that last one really talked to me – so much so I got it written up to reflect on when business becomes all consuming.  It runs like this….

But an incident that happened a couple of years ago gave me a new perspective.  My wife, who is somewhere in the audience today, called me up at the office and said, “Nigel, you need to pick our youngest son up,” Harry “from school.”  Because she had to be somewhere else with the other three children for that evening.

So I left work an hour early that afternoon and picked Harry up at the school gates. We walked down to the local park, messed around on the swings, played some silly games. I then walked him up the hill to the local cafe, and we shared pizza for tea, then walked down the hill to our home, and I gave him his bath and put him in his Batman pyjamas. I then read him a chapter of Roald Dahl’s “James and the Giant Peach.” I then put him to bed, tucked him in,gave him a kiss on his forehead and said, “Goodnight, mate,” and walked out of his bedroom.

As I was walking out of his bedroom, he said, “Dad?” I went, “Yes, mate?” He went, “Dad, this has been the best day of my life, ever.” I hadn’t done anything, hadn’t taken him to Disney World or bought him a Playstation.

Motivating stuff – for me at least.  Getting back to Michael from Strike.  We talked about the way his core business is in creating an environment to allow this kind of effortless and memorable connection.  Much of what we do here at CALUMO is about liberating people from toxic work activities and stresses.  Left unchecked these activities create work day lengthening stresses and a completely avoidable and unnecessary rise in the daily strain of trying to deliver your best in business.

All very interesting but how does this help you?  Nigel went on to say:

Now my point is the small things matter.  Being more balanced doesn’t mean dramatic upheaval in your life.  With the smallest investment in the right places, you can radically transform the quality of your relationships and the quality of your life.  Moreover, I think, it can transform society.

Because if enough people do it, we can change society’s definition of success away from the moronically simplistic notion that the person with the most money when he dies wins, to a more thoughtful and balanced definition of what a life well-lived looks like. And that, I think, is an idea worth spreading.

We are each responsible for bringing better work life balance into our own lives and the lives of those we influence.  So, here’s “one small step for man” in that grand vision.  Strike have put together a couple of special offers for CALUMO customers.

Starting Today - for CALUMO clients and their hard working colleagues.  Any CALUMO client who books their company or team function at one of Strike’s facilities will receive a 10% discount [any time from Nov 1st - Dec 20th 2011].  To access the offer all you need to do is to contact Strike’s Function Coordinator: Dane McNeill on 03 9425 2001 or via email.

Coming in Jan 2012 (good things may take a little time) - for CALUMO clients and their families, friends and loved ones.  Called “The Work/Life Balance”, it will be aimed specifically at helping you and your families to get into a fun, safe and open environment where they can memorably connect with each other without blowing the family budget.  This special offer for CALUMO clients will run in January and February and we will let you know the details in another post as we get closer to the launch.

We’d encourage you to take the opportunity to share in an unexpected collaboration
between Strike and CALUMO.