Striking out on your own, either voluntarily or involuntarily, is becoming a more common experience along an increasingly flexible career path.  And, it turns out entrepreneurship is especially appealing for members of Generation Y.   In her terrific new book, Upstarts – How Gen Y Entrepreneurs Are Rocking the World of Business and 8 Ways You Can Profit from Their Success (McGraw/Hill), Donna Fenn says we all need to pay attention,

“They were born between 1977 and 1997, and you can call them what you like; I call them entrepreneur generation.  There are approximately 77 million of them, and their sheer numbers, combined with the rate at which they’re starting businesses, will make them a force to be reckoned with…these “Upstarts” are destined to have a profound effect on the economy and specifically on the small-business landscape.”

In a recent interview, I asked Fenn to talk about some of the ways Gen Y entrepreneurs were transforming the future of work, life and career… for all of us:

CY: Welcome, Donna Fenn!  One of the reasons I love your book is that I want business leaders to expand their understanding of work+life flexibility, or flexibility in how, when and where work is done and life is managed.  Flexibility, in all of its forms, is a strategic lever that has broad application as a way to run your business.  The Gen Y entrepreneurs in your book seem to fundamentally see flexibility as a way of operating.  Here are some examples from the stories in the book:

• Cost Saving: Having all or part of your workforce work remotely to save overhead costs, such as real estate.
• Talent Resourcing: Using a combination of full-time, part-time, and “as needed” employees.
• Productivity/Engagement: Letting people flexibly manage their lives and work as long as they produce.  This boosts morale and productivity.
• Marketing/Brand Development: Devoting a certain number of hours a month to community service to promote their brand and motivate employees.

Do you think these Gen Y entrepreneurs are applying strategic work+life flexibility consciously or intuitively?  What do they “get” that many business leaders over 30 years old struggle to understand?

DF: This generation is going to have enormous impact on the future of work for all of us, as employers of their own business but also as employees.  They are hardwired for this more flexible and innovative way of operating we know is very important.

They want to work with their friends. They want to have relationships at work, and they want to play and have fun.  People might shake their heads, “What a spoiled bunch of kids,” but think about it.  What’s it like when you play games in the middle of the day?  You find out a whole lot about people that you otherwise might not know.  Like who’s trustworthy, or super competitive.   There is value to game playing and it’s a stress reliever at a time when we are working really hard.  To the older generations, there is still this dividing line, “When I am working I’m working.  When I’m playing, I’m playing.”  This generation doesn’t see it that way.

CY: From the book, it is clear that Gen Y entrepreneurs aren’t rigid about where they work. (Click here for more)

One of the keys to actively managing your work+life fit is flexibly redefining success.  Think of your work+life fit as a highway.  Too many of us see only the fast lane or a stop at the side of the road.  But the truth is there are three options—a fast lane, stop at the side of the road, and a “slower” lane.  The countless work+life fit possibilities involve moving back and forth across all lanes over the course of a flexible career between the fast lane and the slower lane, and sometimes pulling off the road for awhile.  We all know about the fast track, and about taking a break.  But we don’t hear much about what it means to move into the slower lane.  What does it look like?  How do you do it?

Notice I didn’t say “slow” lane, because no self-respecting high-achiever ever wants to admit to being in the slow lane.  But the slower lane…perhaps.   In theory, it may not sound bad at all, until you look back over into the fast lane.  What’s happening?  Someone is passing you by.  That can be very difficult.  But sometimes we have no choice.

The all or nothing, all work or no work, fast lane/stop at the side of the road mentality doesn’t reflect today’s work+life fit reality especially in this economy.  As we found in the 2009 Work+Life Fit Reality Check, a majority said they are less likely to leave the workforce to care for children or aging parents, and a majority now plan to do some type of paid work in retirement.  Taken together, we have to honestly examine what a shift into the “slower” lane involves, since it will mean something different for each of us.

Grey’s Anatomy’s Dr. Miranda Bailey Painfully Redefines Success…

The season finale of Grey’s Anatomy unexpectedly granted my wish for more examples of shifts into the slower lane.  Chief Resident, Dr. Miranda Bailey made the painful move out of the fast lane by turning down a prestigious fellowship for the less demanding position of general surgeon.  This well written and acted episode accurately depicted the conflicting considerations and emotions behind her decision.

For those of you who are not Grey’s Anatomy fans, here’s Dr. Bailey’s backstory:  Season after season, Dr. Bailey continued her determined ascent up the ladder.  She overcame professional setbacks, even if that meant periodically showing up at the hospital with her young son, William, in tow.  Although her marriage to her husband Tucker struggled, it had seemed to be back on track.

As Chief Resident, she had to choose an area of specialization.  While she liked general surgery, midway through the season it seemed she’d found her true passion as a pediatric surgeon.  She began to pursue a prestigious fellowship for two additional years of training, which would keep her in the fast lane.

But when Dr. Bailey receives the news she’d won the fellowship, she goes to the hospital’s Chief of Staff, Dr. Richard Webber. She asks him if there is still an opening for her as a general surgeon.  He says there is but admits he’s confused.  He’d supported her for the fellowship because he thought it was what she wanted, and with that she confesses, “It is, but Tucker said if I took the fellowship our marriage was over.  I need the consistency of a general surgeon’s schedule to be home at night as much as possible.”  She goes on to say that she’s decided to leave her husband anyway because that’s no way to have a marriage, and she catches her breath as she concludes, “I am now a single mother, and need to be home for my son…”

And then there’s the reaction of Dr. Arizona Robbins, the doctor who sponsored her, “You don’t turn down a fellowship like this!” Her response symbolizes the toughest part of pulling into the slower lane–the outside voices telling you what you “should,” “ought,” and “can’t” do.

So how does being a general surgeon put you in the slower lane?”  For Dr. Bailey, turning down that fellowship meant she had to redefine success.  She settled for a position she enjoys and will give her the work+life fit she needs right now, but it isn’t her passion and doesn’t have the same prestige.   To her mind and perhaps in the minds of her colleagues, Miranda Bailey is in the slower lane.

How I missed seeing Michelle Obama speak….

Actively managing your work+life fit and consciously redefining success doesn’t just happen at major life reset points, like a divorce or potential promotion.  It’s something we do on a daily basis, and it never gets easier…even for me.

The last three weeks my schedule has included more than the usual amount of travel (thus, the light blogging).  When I committed to the opportunities that took me to Boston, Chicago and then Lexington, Kentucky I knew there would be very little room for any last minute additions to my work+life fit—personal or professional.  Then I got an invitation to attend the Corporate Voices for Working Families conference in Washington DC.

The conference sounded wonderful, and I knew many of my favorite work+life industry colleagues would be there.  But looking at my calendar I saw that if I attended the conference I would have to fly from Chicago to Washington and be away for the last two days of my older daughter’s statewide standardized tests.  Because these tests partially influence her placement in Junior High School next year, she was more nervous than usual.  So I declined the conference invitation in order to be home.

I was disappointed, but happy with my decision, until the first day of the conference when I received an email from one of the attendees telling me about Michelle Obama’s fabulous speech! Michelle Obama?! Yes, Michelle Obama delivered an unannounced speech at the conference that I had consciously chosen not to attend!  (Click here to read the post by Ellen Galinsky of Families and Work Institute about her meeting with the First Lady).

I spent the rest of the day reading articles and blog posts about her speech.   I found myself thinking of what it must have been like for my “fast lane” colleagues who attended the conference to hear her speak about a subject many of us have spent more than 15 years studying and promoting.   Had I missed a once in a lifetime opportunity?  What had I done?  But all of my doubts were erased when I put my daughter to bed that night and she said, “Mom thanks for being here.  It made me feel better in my tests.”  I’d said no to the conference, pulled into the slower lane, missed Michelle Obama, and made the right decision.

Maybe I’ll see Michelle Obama another time, and maybe Dr. Miranda Bailey will get that fellowship in a couple of years.  But we both actively managed our work+life fit and redefined success in a way that worked best for us, for our jobs and our personal realities at a given point in time.  There’s no right answer.  Today, we pulled into the “slower” lane, as we defined it.  The next time the decision may be to put our blinker on and pull back into the fast lane again.  It’s not all or nothing…as hard as that may be sometimes.

How many lanes are in your work+life fit highway?  Have you even pulled into the slower lane as you define it, either by choice or circumstance?  What did that look like and what did it involve?

By nature, I am a glass half-full person.  So even though there are many dark clouds hanging over this long and painful recession, I continue to look for the silver-linings.   And I believe this recession is going to force some people to finally find the work+life fit they really want. 

The other day I had lunch with Bob, the brother of a friend, to help him think through a difficult work+life fit decision.  A year ago, Bob negotiated that in January 2009 he would take a package and leave the job he’d held for 10 years with the same company.  While he had been very successful, a change in leadership and the sense he needed a new challenge made the package seem like a perfect segue into the next phase of his life.  Then the recession hit full-force, and now he is reconsidering. 

He doesn’t want his current job anymore and his employer wants him to stay.  They have offered him a few alternative jobs none of which are particularly appealing.  But Bob has a 15 year old going to college soon, and a large portion of his college fund as lost in the market downturn.  Bob is concerned that there won’t be any jobs out there, which is understandable given the unemployment figures. 

He’s stuck in an all-or-nothing quandary—do I stay and have salary, or do I leave and face a financially scary unknown.  This is where I come in.  We talked, and ultimately Bob realized that maybe there was a middle way work+life fit.  Here are some clues from our conversation that helped Bob begin to see the possibilities.

“They’ve offered me a lower level job I could do in my sleep.  It would give me money, and a lot of flexibility to investigate other opportunities, but my ego would take a big hit.”   Maybe Bob doesn’t have to quit.  He could try take this lower level job, do what he needed to do, but take advantage of the autonomy and flexibility to beginning setting up his next career move.  (Click here for more)

(Check out my latest Fast Company blog post, “Launching the “Attention” Movement, Distracted by Maggie Jackson)

One of the most entrenched mindset shifts we need to make about work and life in the 21st century is that it’s no longer a dichotomous choice between working or not working. The truth is that there are countless work+life fit possibilities from which to choose, and there’s no right answer.

You would think this realization would be a source of celebration and liberation, but I often find confusion. “What do you mean? What do these possibilities look like? How do I do it?” People want examples. They need new models of the work+life fit possibilities that they can adapt to their own lives. This is why I love “Shared Care” the model of shared parenting developed by Jessica DeGroot and the ThirdPath Institute. It is work+life fit in action.

The “Shared Care” model and the work of ThirdPath got a big boost last weekend when it was showcased in Lisa Belkin’s cover story, “When Mom and Dad Share it All,” in The New York Times magazine section. In the article, you get to see how a number of couples worked together to creatively manage their work+life fit to share the care of their children.

A couple of important takeaways from the article that will hopefully help parents make the mindset shift and allow shared care to work for them and their children:
Continue Reading…

Recently I was asked to offer tips for two very different groups–working parents for BusinessWeek.com and small businessowners for SmartMoney.com.

BusinessWeek’s Working Parents Blog — How to Keep Your Job (And Flexibility!) in a Recession

For BusinessWeek’s Working Parents Blog, blogger Lauren Young asked me to provide advice to working parents about how to keep the flexibility they have during a recession. Here’s an excerpt and link:

“Today’s news that U.S. payrolls declined by 80,000 jobs in March left a sinking feeling in my stomach. BusinessWeek’s chief economist is predicting job cuts in sectors such as financial services, real estate, as well as some consumer areas like hotels and restaurants.

How can you keep your head off the chopping block? Career experts say this is the time to shine at work, but plenty of the working parents I know already have a tough time juggling the demands of their professional life with their personal life.

So that’s why I turned to Cali Williams Yost, president and founder of Work+Life Fit and author of Work+Life: Finding the Fit That’s Right for You (Riverhead/Penguin Group, 2005). Her tips for keeping your job afloat during a recession are geared to working parents, but this advice applies to anyone who wants to stay gainfully employed: (Click here to more)”

SmartMoney.com — Small Business and Flexibility as a Competitive Advantage

For Smart Money.com, the focus was on how small business owners can use the inherent flexibility they offer to compete with larger employers for talent. At the end of the article I discuss the “floodgates fear” and the fear that the work won’t get done that partially-paralyze most managers no matter the size of the company within which they work. Here’s an excerpt and a link:

“Any arrangement, of course, has to benefit the company and its bottom line. It’s important for a small-business owner to ask for accountability when giving an employee the freedom to set their own hours or schedule. They should discuss with the employee how work will get done, how deadlines will be met and how flexibility can improve business results.

“The big fear amongst naysayers is ‘if we give it to one person, then everyone will want it, and no one will be there,’” says Cali Williams Yost, a consultant on flexibility strategies in Madison, N.J. “That almost never happens.” Another concern is that flexible scheduling can hamper productivity. However, “most people don’t want to work less,” Yost says. “They just want to work differently.” (Click here to read the entire article)

(Check my most recent Fast Company blog posting: CIOs Decide: Is Flexibility “Naïve” or a Reality That Can’t Be Ignored?)

On this day before the unofficial start of Memorial Day weekend, I thought I’d share some random work+life fit related observations and insights that wouldn’t necessarily fill an entire posting, but are interesting nonetheless….

Coverage of the Tuck/Aquent/Work+Life Fit Surveys…Fast Company, Bloomberg, and Time

“Because I Did It That Way”-itis: Over the past month, I’ve found myself having the same conversation with three male managers over the age of 50 years old. And the common theme is that they find themselves sometimes resisting offering flexibility to members of their team because they personally weren’t able to work that way when they were at that level. And in all three cases, the issues related back to the time they had sacrificed with their children.

As one man noted, “I look at these young parents who want to work from home periodically, or leave early and then work later after their kids go to bed, and I am jealous. I think of all the times I had to work late getting a project done in the office, and what I missed because of it. It’s not that they can’t effectively work from home or shift their hours, it’s just that I wish I could have done it. So I do find myself resentful and resistant.”

My response is always the same. First, I applaud them for their candor. Until we all start being honest about the outdated “because I did it that way,” beliefs that keep us from innovatively rethinking work, real change will be limited. Second, I point out that they had no choice but to work the way they did when their children were little. We didn’t have the technology and the 24/7 time zone business reality. So they need to give themselves a break. And finally, flexibility can still benefit them. Even though they aren’t parents of young children, they may be children of aging parents, or someone who wants to work in retirement. The flexibility ship has not sailed for them, so work with your team to make it a mutually-beneficial work+life fit reality.

Work+Life “Fit” Choices of Michelle Obama and Roger Clemens: Recently, the work+life “fit” choices of Michelle Obama and Roger Clemens made headlines. And they highlight two important issues—Language and Possibilities. Continue Reading…

But first, check it out…my Workopolis TV interview for Canada’s Report on Business Network (Air date 2/14/07, so scroll down to almost the bottom of the “Thrive at Work” column for the link.) and my interview on The Cranky Middle Manager Show with Wayne Turmel on The Podcast Network (Love new technology!)

Back to the research….

The cultural dialogue about the challenge of combining work and life in today’s 24/7, high-tech, global work reality often gets bogged down in simplistic, stereotypical ruts. So here are some highlights from the thought-provoking work-life research published in the Alliance of Work-Life Progress 2006 “Best of the Best” conference summary.

The research included was selected through a rigorous and competitive international peer review process which I highlighted in last week’s blog. In other words, it’s very good, and therefore should be seriously considered in terms of the questions it raises.

Here are the headlines, as I see them, that you probably won’t hear about but might make you think differently: Continue Reading…

Please excuse my absence last week, but sadly we just found out that my mother’s Stage 4 lung cancer has returned. While we aren’t sure exactly what this means, I will share in my Success Magazine blog posting later this week how I’ve begun to rethink my work+life fit and revisit my definition of success in order to support her.

Work+Life “Fit” Blog: Breaking Down Stereotypes #6 – Even though my company supports it, it really isn’t “okay” to use flexibility

Drum roll, please…the final work+life stereotype we will break down is: “Even though my company supports it, it really isn’t okay to use flexibility.” This is the reason 32% of the Work+Life Fit Reality Check survey respondents gave for not improving their work-life “balance.”

Over the past decade, I have heard this excuse countless times and it continues to fascinate me, because there are usually no facts to back it up. Notice the survey question begins, “Even though my company supports it.” In other words, this belief prevails even when a company has offered flexibility and other programs or policies to help its employees achieve work-life “balance.” Furthermore, I often hear experts commenting on the subject of work-life “balance,” say the answer is that, “Companies have to do more,” but what if they are and employees aren’t using it? Continue Reading…

STEREOTYPES BLOCK WORK-LIFE BALANCE PROGRESS
ACCORDING TO RESULTS OF FIRST ANNUAL WORK+LIFE FIT REALITY CHECK

New Year’s Resolutions are Bound to Fail as Research Finds
Rigid Thinking about Workplace Flexibility

Those New Year’s resolutions about work-life balance are bound to fail, according to new research, as stereotypes continue to block the progress of employees trying to achieve more work-life balance. The first Annual Work+Life Fit Reality Check, conducted by Opinion Research Corporation for Work+Life Fit, Inc., found while corporate workplace flexibility efforts and media coverage continue to focus on women and moms, more than 90 percent of a national probability sample of 981 full-time employed adults surveyed by telephone believe work-life balance is “An issue for everyone.” Yet, only 15 percent say they actually have work-life balance. Holding back the other 85 percent are stereotypes about money, work ethic and supervisors. The survey was conducted September 7 – 11 and has a margin of error of +- 3 percent. Continue Reading…

Is There Another Way? Yes! But We Don’t Hear About It Until Now…

Sue Shellenbarger’s terrific article in today’s Wall Street Journal offers sobering proof that one of my fears is coming true: “Opting out” is becoming a work/life balance management strategy that is no longer limited to high-income mothers. It is trickling down to mothers in lower earning brackets, and the result may have potentially negative long-term financial ramifications on their families.

I am all for each of us making work+life choices based on our unique circumstances. However, I’m concerned that too often those choices are not being made using 21st Century thinking or facts, and instead are being guided by outdated approaches. It’s this mismatch between the outdated and often inaccurate way we, as a culture, still think about how to manage work+life and today’s realities that is causing many of us to make choices that may not be optimal given our specific set of circumstances. That includes our personal financial reality. Continue Reading…