Life/work harmony is crucial to the success of today's workplace

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Each Friday's podcasts are always under 10 minutes.

This is episode 104.

There’s a lot of talk about the hybrid workplace meaning people are working at their organisations locations and others are working from home, and where many people have a blend of both. The buzz word is hybrid.

In my view this is all essential.

The evidence is clear that in the majority of places productivity improved during Covid 19.

I believe there is something deeper going on here. People want life/work harmony. 

The idea of work/life balance has been around for many years. I have always believed it to be a poor idea. 

In our working life we spend more time working than we do engaging in other pursuits. I created the concept of life/work harmony as I feel it more accurately describes what we want.

In my Changing What’s Normal book first published on 2011 I suggested 11 laws of life/work harmony. In the decade since they have become even more relevant.

1. There’s the law of harmony. Opposites attract. There are always at least two sides to every story. Think Yin and Yang.

2. There’s the law of possibility. The opportunities life offers us are endless. There are no limits, except those we place on ourselves. There is nothing we cannot achieve.

3. There’s the law of personal responsibility. No one else can make us feel or think glad, sad, bad or mad. How we feel and think are choices we make.

4. There’s the law of attraction. Success is not something we attain, rather something we attract.

5. There’s the law of the farm. You find fertile ground, plough it, seed it, and nurture it, and more often than not you reap a harvest. We get what we give. What goes around comes around. These are modern ways of describing an old adage; we reap what we sow.

6. There’s the law of relationships. We gravitate to those we like, know and trust.

7. There’s the law of service. Giving without attachment to getting back creates one of life’s great paradoxes; we get more back.

8. There’s the law of confidence. Confidence is to maintain a positive inner and outer image and display them.

9. There’s the law of communication. Not all dialogue is communication. We often talk just for the joy of it. To actually communicate is to agree on some course of action even if it is to agree to disagree.

10. There’s the law of adaptability. I heard a great saying one time “better to adapt than be a sitting duck and get run over”

11. Finally there’s the law of synchronicity. Everything is connected in some way to everything else.

Suggested Actions

1. Always think both/and, rather than either/or; accept the good with the bad; appreciate pleasure, gain from pain; focus on the positive, learn from the negative; and you will soon begin to find harmony in your life.
2. Own your feelings and thoughts and refuse to get tangled in other people’s feelings and thoughts. We must let go of attachment to what other people feel and think. Soon we eliminate guilt and worry; two of life’s most useless and most debilitating emotions.
3. Commit to life-long learning; focus on insight more than information and wisdom more than knowledge. The more we become who we are capable of becoming the more we attract success.
4. Focus on proven processes and detach from outcomes. If we are taking the right action, results take care of themselves.
5. Fully understand what others need and provide it; go the extra mile. By adding value to every transaction and interaction; co-create wow experiences at work, home and play. Before long others will be serving you in ways beyond your wildest expectations.
6. Demonstrate openness to learning and not asserting your way is the only way. At the same time believe in yourself and believe in others. 
7. Speak and communicate from your heart and confidence will rarely get mistaken for arrogance.
8. Communicate with a specific goal in mind and listen simply to understand. When speaking and listening ask for feedback to ensure message effectiveness.
9. Demonstrate your willingness to adapt, be flexible, and go with the flow. A key seems to be to realize it is not what happens to us that is important rather our response to what happens. 
10. Take responsibility for your responses to life and life will respond to you.
11. Establish a shared-view with family, friends and work colleagues, about how you will live your values and have ongoing conversations about living your values. More on shared-view here.

I found the following article about hybrid work valuable.

The Next Great Disruption Is Hybrid Work—Are We Ready?

We are not going back to normal. Wise leaders choose now over normal.

Become the wise leader you want to be.

Ian