Michael Licenblat, Resilience Expert, speaks with Andrew Ward, CEO & Founder of 3 Minute Angels, about his discovery and utilisation of Resilience in his businesses.

Andrew Ward speaks with Michael Licenblat - Resilience and You - Resilience in action in business

https://www.workplaceincentives.com.au

Mark Dobson - Work-Life Balance vs Work-Life Alignment

I had the great fortune, when I was twenty one, to be given a very healthy view of work-life balance.

I was living with my aunt and uncle in Oxford, my uncle is a very famous anaesthetist, and he's in the middle of a nine hour operation where they pull down the front of somebody's face, and they were rebuilding the face while he kept him under anaesthetic.

So, he came home in the middle of the operation while someone else is looking after the guy and I said just, that's an incredible operation but isn't it a shame you've got to get back to work, we're having a great time, dinner and laughing and he said to me:

"Mark, never make a separation between work and life, because you'll end up resenting one of them."

Wooooah that made a lot of sense!

What I've learnt is that there is just life, sure we do need to earn, but it's still my life. If I'm still in that desk, that's still my life, right here right now this is my life, so, if you've got a staff member that's talking about work-life balance, they're separating work and the good parts of their life, the fun bits.

Not only that, if they're saying that they're looking for work-life balance which one do you reckon they think is out of whack?

They're not saying they want work-life balance because life is taking on too much and they're not doing enough work! What we've got to realise is that we need to coach our staff, to understand what work is.

Work is a component of life that needs to be fulfilling. We need to take a role in making it filling, and they need to take a role to make sure that their life, can fulfil their obligations at work.

There's an alignment that needs to happen and that's what you'll find that all partners of workplace incentives will talk about, work-life alignment, and that really happens, firstly, by acknowledging that the work-life balance concept is crazy, you're just not going to be able to balance it, there is JUST life.

Secondly, we need to listen to what our people want their life want to be like, and see if we can contribute to that. If you can contribute to a persons life, then they want to be around you and your organisation. That's a no brainer - because life is rich there.

Then we've got to look at how you can do that in a most cost effective, intelligent, educated, strategic way. The plans here (Workplace Incentives) can do that sort of stuff but you as the manager can do that right away. But you just got to let go of this work-life balance concept, it's nuts. Look for work-life alignment.

Can work align with my outside work life, so they align and both help each other? That's way more fun.

Resources:
Mark Dobson - Staff Morale: https://www.workplaceincentives.com.au/work-life-balance-alignment
Workplace Incentives Free Suggestions: https://www.workplaceincentives.com.au/free-solutions
About Workplace Incentives: https://www.workplaceincentives.com.au/who-are-we