Strategy

What is work-life balance?
A Deeper Look to find Balance
It is well-accepted that ill mental health can cost the individual their income, as well as the burdens of the conditions itself (https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com), whilst also impacting the economy in the loss of productivity (among other things) amounting to billions of pounds (https://www.networks.nhs.uk).
“The financial costs of the adverse effects of mental illness on
people’s quality of life are estimated at £41.8 billion per annum in England.”
[Quote from National Mental Health Development Unit]
In attempting to address this, many experts point towards finding a healthy work-life balance. And this certainly sounds like an ideal that everyone should strive towards. Let us dig a bit deeper into what this means, and the ramifications of such ideas.
The Simple Meaning
Here is the common understanding of the work-life balance – from The Balance Small Business: “Work-life balance simply means striking a healthy balance between your working life and your personal life... The perfect work-life balance would mean never sacrificing one for the other. It involves continually push your achievements in a professional sense while also finding new and fulfilling ways to enjoy your time off.”
Therefore investing in well-being, be it as an employee or business owner, it is critical to find support outside of the work-related surroundings. Guidance from mental health resources demonstrate that there is a concerted effort to make sure that our mental health is in good condition so that we can be active and productive in both the work- and family- environment. This can take the form of wellness classes and other physical activities; setting boundaries between the personal and workplace technology; or finding fulfillment in hobbies outside of work (making some sort of positive contribution) in order to bring out restoration to the individual. (Adapted selection from Qualtrics.com)
It appears that there is a clear separation and distinction between these two fields of life (the work scenario and the personal scenario) where the individual has to accommodate their personality in both settings. We can ask: Is it fitting to attempt to preserve the individuals’ personality in stretching it in two opposing directions? Meaning that during the working week there is a motivated financial incentive and so the individual has one mode of being to sustain and accomplish said incentive; and contrary to that, on the weekend the individual finds themselves with a relaxed, more emotional temperament whereby a different code of conduct is maintained.
A Different Approach
This dichotomy was first brought to light with the writings of Oliver Arthur Ohmann in the Harvard Business Review. The work-life balance that we speak of nowadays meant something different to him. Namely that:
“The conflict between work and life was not a simple matter of time allocation.
It required preserving one’s spiritual and psychological integrity
across the domains of labor and leisure, the workplace and the home.
It required keeping one’s personality intact.”
If we do want to follow this train of thought and keep the individuals’ personality intact, we can ask: Are personality tests helpful to determine what vocation is best suited for the individual? If they are then it is possible that they are missing out on the personal part of the lifestyle that the individual has.
Perhaps by identifying the intention of these tests we are then able to determine their benefit. If it is to solely place the individual in the right role in the work force, then while they are engaged there they will find fulfillment. But how does this integrate with the personal side of life? We are encouraged to delve a little deeper to understand the position of Ohmann, since this attitude does not settle well with his definition provided – keeping one’s personality intact across different aspects in life.
Building Momentum
It is a well known saying that the first step is the hardest. How the ‘journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step’. How the initial energy output of moving from zero to one is greater than from the first step to the second. This seems to be true in the sciences as well as other endeavours or projects that we undertake. The same applies to having a business idea. The concept is great, however moving from those first steps into actualising it takes a lot of effort.
But there is more to the story than just this. There are many factors that impact the physical journey. These can be both external, that need to be managed and dealt with, as well as internal challenges that must be addressed. The external factors can be obvious like coming across unforeseen obstacles in a project that need to be dealt with to move forward. Fortitude is needed to overcome this, and such things can be hard.
Internal factors are sometimes more challenging. It may take effort to begin to learn an instrument, however the continued learning with constant practice until one reaches a level of proficiency can take more energy than the first step.
Final Thoughts
To bring this back to personalities and to make an obvious statement, people are different. Some people relish the challenge that comes from beginning a start up – they have a skill set that makes this stage enjoyable and easy; whilst other people are more comfortable in the day-in day-out grind of growing a start up to something bigger.
If the intention of personality tests administered on potential employees is not to find what role best suits them, but rather to identify the synergy between the personal- and (constructive) professional- life, then this higher purpose would have a greater impact on both personal well being and corporate productivity.
“The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator… offered him [Ohmann]
the perfect solution for preserving the “wholeness of personality” —
a way of introducing people to their true selves and convincing them
that the work they were doing was a natural extension of how God had created them.
The fact that it might also help enhance productivity seemed, to Ohmann,
the ideal marriage of “higher and more enduring spiritual values”
to the material realities of work.”
[Quote from – The Personality Brokers by Merve Emre Sept 2019]