Winning - Jack Welch [111]
I remember one Q & A session with about five hundred executives in Melbourne, Australia, where the moderator was Maxine McKew, one of the country’s most respected newscasters. The session was moving along on all the usual business topics for about an hour when a woman in the audience stood and said, “Could you tell me, Mr. Welch, why must all women who succeed in business act like hard-assed, bullheaded men? When will we see the day that every female CEO doesn’t have to be like Margaret Thatcher?”
I can’t recall my exact answer, but I know I said something very politically incorrect right off the bat about how most women slowed down their career advancements by having children, and while I thought that was a worthy choice, it wasn’t going to get them to the boardroom very quickly.
This comment enraged the questioner, who shot back, “Why must women give their lives up to get ahead while men do not? Women should not have to make all the sacrifices—should they?”*
Some of the men in the audience groaned, and one called out, “My wife did it.” Another one shouted, “Hey, we all make sacrifices.”
Up on stage, I shrugged. “I cannot give you a good answer to your question,” I said. “I’m not sure that pausing on the corporate ladder is a ‘sacrifice’ to the mothers who make that choice.”
Just then, Maxine stepped in. To be honest, I expected a real slam, but her answer surprised me.
“Women do give something up. It’s biology,” she said. “Let me tell you what I gave up. I wanted my career. And so I never had children. Maybe I would be able to do it with children now. Still, twenty-five years ago, when I was entering broadcasting, it just wasn’t possible to achieve the highest levels and raise babies along the way. It was my choice. Of course I wanted children. But I chose to put my career first, and I cannot blame anyone for my happiness or lack thereof.”
You could have heard a pin drop. In the silence, someone raised his hand and changed the subject with a question about the Australian economy.
I tell this story because you simply can’t talk about work-life balance without acknowledging that it’s so contentious because it’s so personal—and so universal.
Everyone these days makes work-life balance decisions—from working mothers and fathers to single people who want to write a novel or volunteer to build homes for Habitat for Humanity.
Work-life balance means making choices and trade-offs, and living with their consequences. It’s that simple—and that complex.
Just remember, you are not in this alone. Your company also feels the impact of your choices and actions.
And with that in mind, let’s take a work-life balance reality check from your boss’s point of view.
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1. Your boss’s top priority is competitiveness. Of course he wants you to be happy, but only inasmuch as it helps the company win. In fact, if he is doing his job right, he is making your job so exciting that your personal life becomes a less compelling draw.
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Clearly, most bosses want their employees to have great personal lives. Nobody wants their people hauling family or social problems into the office, where they can leak into the atmosphere and do nothing for productivity.
Then there’s that matter of retention. Satisfied people tend to stay where they are and work with more enthusiasm. So all in all, good bosses don’t want their people to feel unbalanced.
But more than that, bosses want to win—that’s what they’re paid for. And that’s why they want all of you—your brain, your body, your energy, and your commitment. After all, they have a big game to win, and they can’t do that effectively with absentee players—in particular, if the other team draws its players from countries like India and China, where work-life balance is not exactly a cultural priority.
The fact is: work-life balance concerns are actually a luxury—“enjoyed” largely by people who are able to trade time for money, and vice versa. You can bet your bottom dollar that the Korean