With the "Life In the Margins" series, I am aware that we are swimming against a strong and deep current in American life, and many of you may be tempted to dismiss it as unrealistic. We're collectively convinced that the most successful among us are the workaholics, that if we are just willing to work longer hours than the next guy, success is bound to be ours. We hear that the greatest athletes are obsessed with their sport, coming to practice early and being the last to leave. Their great coaches practically live at the field house, pouring over film all night and neglecting their families. The great businessmen and women are driven to pursue success 24 hours a day. Great achievement requires everything--it's so obvious to us that it doesn't even need to be discussed. So 70-hour weeks are just what it takes. And it's a given that our kids have to give all their discretionary time to extra-curricular activities. And it's as plain as the nose on your face that if you want to be exceptional, you have to live like the Zeiss family. I don't know who started this rumor. Must have been some tired, stressed out workaholic who wanted to justify his lifestyle. Almost everyone believed it, so it must have worked.
I met a friend for coffee not long ago and he asked me about a job offer he was considering. It was lucrative, but required a time commitment that would change his whole family's life. He said, "This is just how it is at this pay scale. If you want to make top money, you have to put in these kinds of hours, right?" Not having ever been in that tax bracket, I couldn't speak from personal experience. I think I mumbled some mild cautions, but pretty much took him at his word. Who was I to argue? Maybe he was right. Well, as it turns out, the hours were even longer and the money more scarce than advertised (surprise). After a lot of stress, conflict, and family sacrifice, my friend picked up what was left of his life and moved on...to another job, equally lucrative but sane. Yes, such jobs do exist. And I owe him an apology for not saying more before he jumped into the quagmire in the first place.
The most successful people in the world do not sell their souls to the company. Hear corporate guru Warren Bennis talking about us ambitious types in his classic study of great CEOs and COOs called Co-Leaders: "Too often ambitious adjuncts make a Faustian bargain. They give up everything else in pursuit of top billing. They lose touch with their spouses. They become strangers to their children. They turn their backs on work that might bring them real satisfaction.... Avocations are forgotten. Friends drop away. In extreme cases, parents are lost and barely mourned. While many apparently successful people are able to live this way for long periods of time, they ultimately pay a terrible price.... At some point, their obsessive ambition has cost them soul and substance." He goes on to describe some of America's most successful businesspeople who refuse to make the "Faustian bargain." Among the examples: Steven Spielberg, who insisted on family time built into his schedule before he agreed to join Dreamworks; and Intel CEO Craig Barret, who refused to live in California where his headquarters was located--he commuted in once a week from Phoenix to prevent the job from gobbling up his life, and ran away to a ranch in Montana once a month to intentionally become out of reach. These guys are not just milking their companies for leisure lifestyles; they are among the most effective and successful leaders of our day. Bennis observes this trait so often in top business leaders that he lists "self possession and independence" as marks of great leadership.
So, if you really want to get something done, give it to a well-rounded, balanced person who has a life. Her family life and healthy relationships with friends and neighbors will make her better at her job than the burned-out workaholic who lives for the paycheck. His time away from the job actually makes him better when he's on the job. And since people with "margin" in their lives don't live just to get "top billing," they can actually care about the company they work for and not just about themselves. Margin is not in conflict with the American Dream. It is the lost ingredient of the dream that turned it into a nightmare.
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