The Elusive Balancing Act- Work-life/ Personal Life

Gerry Czarnecki, CEO and author of Lead With Love, tackles the ubiquitous topic of striking a balance between work-life and personal/family-life which is “simple at its core and yet complicated to manage”.

Mr. Czarnecki does not believe the issue is time or finding enough of it.  “The problem is, not knowing when you’ve actually found that balance. You cannot determine whether or not you are being successful unless you establish success criteria.”

Though Gerry concedes, it is difficult to determine success. “Is it a pure measure of time spent in each area?  Or is it a quality versus quantity issue?”  In order to determine whether or not you have completed a project successfully, it usually must be completed on time and within budget. Where time and budget are set up at the beginning of the project and then managed to completion. “You must decide what success is defined to be for you, in each aspect of your life. You must decide what professional success is, and that is not very easy. You must actually also decide what you are willing to pay in the way of “sacrifice” or “tradeoff” in the rest of your life-work balance.” He warns too that “career success, does not come without a price. It takes substantial time, energy and emotional commitment to become a winner in your professional life”.

Using Mr. Czarnecki’s project example, usually, management or the customer defines the success criteria.  “A project manager’s responsibility is delivering that project within the criteria set by the customer,” says Gerry. “But in the case of your work-home life balance dilemma, it is not you that determines the metrics for success.”

Mr. Czarnecki goes on to say that “if you have a work-life, you probably have a manager or supervisor and likely have a customer.  If you have a home life, you likely have a spouse or significant other, children, siblings, roommates, or even pets.  Each of these parties demands your time (quantity) and your attention (quality) and must be satisfied in order for you to be successful”. The two, which lie in direct competition with each other for both your time and attention, define your success criteria for you.  The “balance” is so elusive because each of the two entities has vastly different success criteria.  “In order for you to be “successful” at home, you must sacrifice either quality or quantity in the workplace—and vice versa.  Because you are loyal to each, chances are that if one “succeeds” the other will suffer”. 

In short, the work-life balance is decided by evaluating the tradeoffs in your life and work. In Gerry’s own experience, he has been blessed with “a life partner, a loving wife, who helped me balance my commitment to her and our family, while allowing me to focus on my work passions. We have been a team, and the tradeoffs that I made, were ones she bought into… my wife bought into what I was doing at work and became a part of the decision process”.  Conflict between work-life and personal-life is less jarring when they are intertwined or at the very least cognizant of one another.

About Lead with Love

Gerry Czarnecki zooms-in on the various generations, and addresses their need for engagement, personal interest and enjoyment in their work place. By showing managers how to lead with love, and validating the need of employees to be lead with love. Czarnecki has pieced together what might be the first vision of leadership to energize all associates to achieve desired organizational peak performance while each individual achieves personal satisfaction and success.

About Gerry Czarnecki

With over 40 years of experience as a leader, C level and senior executive in Fortune 100 companies (like IBM and Bank of America), privately held companies, closely held public companies and large and small non-profits, Gerry has been consistently committed to sharing his experience and vision by coaching organizations to achieve peak performance through effective leadership, focused strategy, superior organization and sound financial management. His enlightening management philosophy has led to the writing of his books: “Success Principles for Leaders”, “You’re in Charge…what now?”, “You’re a non-profit director…what now?” and his most recent creation, “Lead with Love”, due to publish April, 2010.

Read more about Gerry & his newest book, Lead with Love: http://www.gerryczarnecki.com/

Follow Gerry Czarnecki Twitter, visit his discussion board on Facebook, watch his videos on You tube and follow his blog …It’s only a click away:

Twitter - www.Twitter.com/leadwithlove

Facebook - www.facebook.com/pages/Lead-With-Love/134181852939?ref=mf

You tube- http://www.youtube.com/user/LeadWithLove#p/u

Blog - www.leadwithlove.wordpress.com

Squidoo - http://www.squidoo.com/leadwithlove

You can pre-order Lead with Love now,

LEAD WITH LOVE on Amazon.com

Pompano Beach, Florida. January 13^th, 2010

PR Contact- Steve Zucker 954-691-1102 x 102