This week we took care of our grandson while our daughter (Theresa) sat on a panel offered by the Harvard Business School. The audience were business school students who were going to become consultants after they graduated (Theresa went to Harvard Business School and works for the consulting firm Deloitte). The professors set up the panel to help the students get some advice on achieving a work-life balance.
The students had questions such as how do you date when you travel a lot? What does it take to balance your personal needs and professional aspirations when both members of a couple have career ambitions? Theresa was there to discuss how she balances two working parents and a young family and a career.
I give the business school credit for hosting such an event. The questions are very important.
Entry level positions at a high-powered consulting firm are very demanding and high stress jobs. Lots of travel and long hours. There can also be an overt process of “thinning the herd” as the firms figure out who is partner-track versus who will be there for 2 years and then move on.
A couple of years ago, Clayton Christensen, a very famous Harvard Business School professor, wrote an article entitled “How will you measure your life?” Clay was deeply religious and had recently had serious health challenges – a stroke, a heart attack and cancer over a short period of time. He was in a reflective mode and noted that many of his business school classmates were divorced, estranged from their kids and unhappy with their jobs despite being very successful.
He observed that people get so caught up in their profession that they lose the balance of life and an understanding of what really matters. They discover the loss after damage has been done and perhaps recovery is impossible.
His advice to the readers (particularly his students and the business community) was to create a strategy for your life. The strategy should be based on answers to these questions:
- How can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career?
- How can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness?
He concluded the article with the following:
“I have a pretty clear idea of how my ideas have generated enormous revenue for companies that have used my research; I know I’ve had a substantial impact. But as I’ve confronted my health challenges, it’s been interesting to see how unimportant that impact is to me now. I’ve concluded that the metric by which God will assess my life isn’t dollars but the individual people whose lives I’ve touched.
I think that’s the way it will work for us all. Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people. This is my final recommendation: Think about the metric by which your life will be judged and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged as a success.”
Clay had the perspective of looking back at a long, accomplished, and full life. The students listening to the panel are wondering what’s in store for them and perhaps hoping that their lives will be as rich as his. Hoping that they achieve balance. Hoping that they will help many people. Hoping that they will do both.
There are no easy paths to living a successful life. But you want to avoid looking back on your life and realizing that you lost sight of what matters.