If you signed up to this newsletter for your own personal use you can take yourself off our personal database here. If you signed up to this newsletter to pass it onto others within your organisation you can take yourself off our corporate database here. View our privacy policy.
Please Remember: We encourage you to forward this newsletter to employees within your organisation. We now have hundreds of organisations who are distributing In Equilibrium to their staff.
Visit our website www.in-equilibrium.co.uk for information on the following:
• Open Course
Dates for 2004
• In House Training details
• Download our
Stress Policy Guide
• Back Copies of In
Equilibrium
| THE REGULARS | FEATURES |
| 1. Stress Tip | 5 . Your Thoughts |
2.
Quote |
6 . Stress Technique |
| 3. Book Review | 7. Web resources |
| 4. Al's Column |
There are many things we have no control over, like the weather and world events, and if they are bad we accept it. There is no question of taking personal responsibility or blaming ourselves for things we have no control over. However when it comes to people and relationships we often blame ourselves or feel bad because of other people’s behaviour. Try to adopt the same attitude to someone’s bad behaviour as you would to the weather or anything else you have no control over. Remember the only thing we really have any control over is our own reactions to events.
Alastair Taylor
My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.
Clarence Buddinton Kelland, Writer, 1881-1964
3. Book Review: Beating the 24/7: How business leaders achieve a successful work-life balance.
I don't really know what I was expecting when I ordered this book, I suppose, having recently returned to work after having a baby I was looking for some help in combining work and family life as I have suddenly become aware of the organisation required!
As well as some general tips on creating a healthy work life balance for yourself, this book contains 16 chapters of work/life interviews with business leaders from Sir Dominic Cadbury to Sir Richard Branson.
Each chapter covers their thoughts on the main areas which are important in creating this work life balance: questions over working hours, working weekends, how contactible you are, whether you are interupted in your holidays, how you deal with technology such as email and mobile phones, whether you make it to your childrens sports days etc.
In retrospect I was naively expecting a book with all the answers, and I didn't think these would involve getting up at 4am every morning in order to be able to do it all! The interviewees don't really encourage this, but I would definitely say that this book is full of real practical tips rather than 'airy-fairy' ones that don't actually involve any effort on your part. To quote the author Winston Fletcher:
"...but the real secret is there is no secret. Nothing works better than working at it: aim to improve your work/life balance and your work/life balance will improve.
Of course, work/life balance isn't just for people with children, its for people with lives and without that balance you won't have a life! Friendships, extended family, hobbies, time on your own are all discussed in this book, and the interviewees all seem to have gone through a process of prioritising what they want to spend their time on.
Of the 16 business leaders only 4 are women. The support of the partner is an integral part of the success for all of these people as they tell of there own experiences. One sad fact I would say is that generally speaking the person who has made a success in their business life has had a partner who has been able to totally commit to that success rather than someone who is themselves trying to achieve a business career. It would appear to be the case that we do not live in a culture where a couple can both combine career and family life easily. On the whole, it seems that one person has to take responsibility for family life (usually the wife in these examples) to run smoothly.
Each chapter ends with the interviewees top tips for keeping your balance, so it is a great book to refer back to, just to make sure you are still on course. Here is a selection of some of the top tips, they demonstrate the diversity of experiences and opinions in the book:
Sir Richard Sykes
(Formerly Chief Executive and subsequently Chairman of GlaxoSmithKline)
"Emails, mobiles and faxes are not intrusive at all. A mobile phone only works if you turn it on. So I use my mobile, it doesn't use me."
Michael Grade CBE (Formerly Chief Ececutive Channel 4, Controller of BBC1)
"If you need time to unwind when you first get home of an evening, or to wind yourself up in the morning, explain this to your partner. A single explanation will avert a thousand misunderstandings"
Baroness Hogg (Chairman of 3i and of Frontier Economics)
"The more I look back on my working life, the more convinced I am of my dependence on good fortune. If you are working and bringing up a family, having luck, in terms of one's childrens health and the general ability to run one's life on a continuing basis, without having to drop everything and concentrate exclusively on them - and I was well aware at all points that something could easily happen that would mean I would have to do that - was just very fortunate."
Sir Christopher Bland (Chairman of BT)
"The more often you work through lunch, the less often you will need to work late or take work home."
Sir Richard Branson (Chairman of the Virgin Group of Companies)
"Spend as much time as you can, while you can, with your parents."
"Being able to sleep well at night is quite a good way of judging whether one is leading a good life or not. One day you are going to have that last night before you go to sleep permanently, and it will be quite nice to know that you have managed to tick everything off in a fairly decent manner."
Lord Stevenson CBE (Chairman of HBOS)
"Do not be too proud, too macho, or too scared to discuss your failures as well as your successes with your partner. A problem shared is a problem punctured."
I found this book interesting and motivational. The work-life balance I want to achieve might be slightly different from the ones the interviewees talk about in this book, but one thing is for sure, the only person that can make my work-life balance work for me is me, and this book spells that out with numerous examples!
To Buy Beating the '24/7' click here
Do you have any thoughts on work/life balance and how to achieve it? Have you got an opinion on any of the book reviews you have read in In Equilibrium?
Please email us your comments to comment@in-equilibrium.co.uk
4. Al's Column: Reflections, ramblings and especially grumblings on travel in 2003.
Another hectic year draws to a close. I have set new travelling records and been forced, kicking and screaming into the world of ‘dieseldom’. Actually the pain of giving up a 3-litre V6 (whimper) has been reduced somewhat by the realisation that the turbodiesel uses half the fuel and still goes very fast if thrashed.
Talking about going fast, I discovered this year how careful you have to be not to be booked for speeding. You can even get caught when you are 500 miles from the scene of the crime if the conditions are right, the conditions being when your car rental company say you were the driver of the car in the photograph. Actually I did hire the car but a month earlier. Here is the ‘grumble’ coming right up, with real bitterness.
“Thank you H***z, thank you very much for telling the police that I was driving that car on the M25 at 56mph in a 40mph restricted zone. Thank you for getting me into trouble. And especially, thank you for being so understanding when I phoned to complain when I received the ‘notice of intention to prosecute’ from Essex Police in the post. I know you did at first suggest in must be my fault(!), or was it the police’s, but it certainly wasn’t yours, and you did offer me a 35 dollar (dollar!) car hire. Thank you.”
There, now that feels much better having got that off my chest. Let it go, Alan, let it go. That’s it, well done. Move on. Put the gun away, and move on!
This year, I have reflected frequently on, and admired the stoicism of, those poor souls who commute, particularly in the South. Which is for me, anywhere South of Lancaster where the congestion starts. Goodness knows, it’s bad enough doing these trips occasionally. How you cope with it day in and day out I don’t know. I have noticed something of a North-South divide this year with regard to stress, and I’m sure that commuting is part of the reason (apart from excessive house price inflation, too much heat, and strange accents for course). Could we coin a new condition, PTTD or Post Traumatic Travel Disorder? I’m convinced that if ever there was another Spanish flu bug like in 1918, everyone in London would die, because of inevitable transmission on the Tube. Come to think of it, is there anything worse than forced intimacy inside a metal carriage travelling at sixty miles an hour 100 metres under the ground in the dark?
Continuing on the travel theme, this year I have really earned my wings, having become a regular on some of the worlds greatest, sorry I mean cheapest, airlines. Flying R*****r (unofficial motto – ‘breathe in’) is an ‘experience’ and I have learned to take no prisoners in the quest to find legroom. Normally I am very nice and have a ‘no, after you’ approach to life, but I have learned that being nice leads to musculo-skeletal hell, and the need for a winch system to get me out of my seat at the end of my flight. Please note I am 6 foot 3 and 16 stone on favourable scales and not really built for bucket shop flying. Now, I have really learned the meaning of ‘survival of the fittest’ – god help you if you are also trying to find your way to the seats near the emergency exits. Of course I will apologise and may even help you up, but only after I have secured my rightful place, or should that be space.
E*****t is a quite different proposition all together. I have to admit I have become a fan. For a start, I can understand the pilots. Now, please don’t get me wrong on this point; I have nothing against recruiting pilots from Eastern Europe, but if the other ‘low-cost’ airlines could only give them a crash (sorry, a very unfortunate pun) course on spoken English, it would help. The other great thing about E*****t is that I can be really nice and say ‘no, after you’, because on E*****t I can get into all the seats without crippling myself. On the other airlines I start worrying about deep vein thrombosis three days before I travel, and that chronic rumination cannot be good for me.
Well, Christmas is coming and my neighbours have started their annual ‘who can overload the National Grid first’ competition, so thoughts turn to family get-togethers over the festive period.
Anyone got a tranquilliser?
Happy Christmas
Alan Bradshaw
We are keen to hear your thoughts and opinions....Perhaps you have a comment about work-life balance, bullying in the workplace, rights to flexible working etc.... Maybe you don't agree with something you have read in this newsletter...
Please email us any comments to comment@in-equilibrium.co.uk
A question you may get asked over the next few weeks! However research is still not clear as to whether it is good or bad!
Do
you enjoy drinking wine but feel confused by conflicting studies? Here
is an update on what the most current research suggests about the relationship
between wine consumption and health.
Several hundred studies conducted since the early nineties have shown
that moderate alcohol intake (defined as one glass per day for women and
two for men) can reduce the risk of heart disease. More specifically,
when used in moderation, alcohol can raise good cholesterol, lower bad
cholesterol, ward off heart attacks and strokes and may even lower blood
pressure slightly.
While this all sounds good, there are other benefits and risks to be aware
of when considering whether or not you should continue your daily consumption.
Most studies show that the higher your average daily consumption the higher
the risk of breast cancer. In addition, several studies link alcoholic
beverages with increased risk for cancers of the mouth, throat, and oesophagus.
The research is still conflicting and inconclusive. For instance, one
study found that moderate wine drinkers had half the cancer risk of non-drinkers,
whereas those who drank beer or spirits had triple the risk as non-drinkers.
Furthermore, moderate wine drinking has been linked to a 75% lower risk
of Alzheimer's disease and 80% lower risk of dementia.
If you like to imbibe, here are some tips:
- Spread out your wine intake throughout the week rather than on one day. Of course this is common sense, everyone knows it....but did you know why? ..Once the compounds from the wine begin circulating in your blood, they mingle with sticky disks called platelets, preventing the sudden clots that can clog an artery and trigger a heart attack or stroke. The catch is that the effects only last between 24 and 36 hours so a binge is no good!
- Drink wine with food as it may better protect against clotting. When the fats from an ingested meal circulate, increasing the blood's tendency to clot, that's when wine's protection tends to kick in.
- Too much wine consumption (probably more than 3 drinks per day) can increase your risk of heart failure, liver disease, cancer, and malnutrition. So, if you drink wine, enjoy it in moderation but don't overdo it.
Source: Health Magazine, March 2001.
We have started this section to tell you about resources on the internet which we have come across and think may be of interest to you, if you know of anything please email us at webresources@in-equilibrium.co.uk.
The Department of Trade and Industry website has an area devoted to work-life balance issues: http://164.36.164.20/work-lifebalance/
There are some useful factsheets for further information which you can download.
Sign up to this newsletter for your own personal use.
Sign up to this newsletter in order to pass it onto others within your organisation
To update your email address, simply reply to this email with both your old and new email address.
This message has been sent to the following e-mail address: subscriberemail.
Go to the Training Page on our website for information on the content of our open courses.
We have dates for Open Courses in venues from Stirling to Southampton.
©
Copyright 2002 Equilibrium Associates Limited.
Edited by Jan Lawrence