Work-Family-Self-Community: Integrating the four domains of your life

Other people matter. —Chris Peterson 

I faced it just a few weeks back. 

Just down the street, is a vendor, who sells bhelpuri, a common evening snack in Bombay. Usually these bhelpuri wallahs originate from one of the poorer districts in North India. They come all the way to Bombay or Bambai or Mumbai, in search of something as basic as security to send back money for the families back home. You would think that they are here just for the money. So, one day, I was walking back home. I usually look away from the allure of the snack, but this time I gave in and walked over and asked for some of his goodies. Since he was busy and I love to ask questions, I asked him how many years he had been selling his bhelpuri? He smiled a rather enigmatic smile and replied that I would not believe his answer. That set me off in hot pursuit of a response. I urge him, and he says," Forty-two years". He goes on to add, “I have been selling bhel at exactly the same spot for forty-two years, I knew you would not believe me”.  He then says that he owns three rooms nearby. That has me completely wide-eyed in disbelief. That is a lot of bhel and sev puri to sell. He then says, “I just enjoy making bhel and serving people who are hungry”. When he is not busy making bhel, you will see him chatting with folks around his little stand. 

To me, he is a leader. Not because of his market share or profit or the wealth he is slowly, painstakingly accumulating. He is a leader because in one stroke, he felled the entire myth of work-life balance. With his simple words and actions, he solved the puzzle for me. 

Work is one of life’s important domains which we must pursue with passion, no doubts there. We derive deep meaning from our work. We feed families and take care of them with the money we earn. We make new friends at or through our workplace. We learn because of our work. 

But what gets to me, is the concept of work–life balance. 

When the word balance is used, our minds go back to the Physics laboratory in school, when we first had an understanding of weights and balance. How when you put a certain object on one scale, it went completely down till you added a counterweight on the other scale. When the two weights were exactly equal, the scales would be balanced. Therefore, the two were always fighting each other or keeping each other in check. 

We think of our lives in a similar way. On one scale is Work and the other scale is Life and the two will always jostle for space. Or, even worse, we think if we add to life, then we have to first reduce from work, which is absolutely unacceptable to us. We are conditioned towards focus. We decide to put all our focus and energy into one domain, work. 

The thinking is that the more number of hours we spend at work, the more successful we are. Consequently, success will bring happiness  to us (I can buy that car that I always dreamed of), to our families (we can finally take that house loan), and our communities (use some of that money to fund a NGO or even to teach). The plan sounds good. Then something goes wrong. Work begins to suffer. We do not enjoy work as much. The more we do not enjoy work, the more output suffers. The more the work output suffers and productivity declines. 

It sounds like a cricket team that expects only one batsman to score all the runs for the team.

Some clients reach out to me when their batsman is not performing. The work output or productivity of their's or their team has begun to suffer. My brief is usually, "I am not enjoying my work as much as I once did". The focus is still on the work-related outputs and inputs. People want “business solutions”. 

If you slave away every day at a job you hate and come home drained and frustrated, what is that teaching your kids? ―Alexander Kjerulf, Happy Hour is 9 to 5

The theory that work and life are two incompatible streams of activities, taking away resources from each other, was tested by Stewart Friedman, who is the founding director of Wharton's in Work/Life Integration. He lays out four domains of life, which I have modified a little. 

The first domain is your work. Work is what gives you a sense of accomplishment. I define work as something that you can learn from every day. Everyone has the same issue. I have met frontline finance and sales professionals, middle level Branch and Regional Operating heads, functional heads, CEOs of companies and chairmen of various business enterprises. Everyone has the same issue. Time and expectations of others. Everyone has an unforgiving boss. Everyone has an overly critical boss. Even people like doctors and lawyers, who are often their own bosses, can be the harshest critics you ever encounter. 

The second domain is family. I rather call it “Love”. I use the word love in a generously broad sense. Love encompasses your family, a romantic partner, a parent or grandparent, a 3 am friend. These are relationships which give meaning to your life. You could even decide to put your religion or love of a particular God in the domain of love. 

The third domain is community. Chris Peterson once famously said, “Other people matter". I like to call this 'Others That Matter' (not to be confused with Other Matters). You can put your social media friends here. You could put a cause that you support here. Basically any other people or causes that matter to you can be fitted into the domain of 'Others That Matter'. Maybe the schools that you attended or wish to attend or wish to impart your knowledge to might feature in this domain. It is interesting, but the more millennials I meet, the more I am convinced that the world is headed in the right direction. They have a deep desire to make a difference in the world. They understand the importance and the transient nature of fame and fortune. 

Chances are, if you are still reading (you have already read a thousand  words), you are a manager of people and are struggling to “balance” the domains of life without sacrificing your effectiveness at work. 

The fourth domain is the self. Y.O.U.! Just the real and authentic "you". The 'you' that you really want to give an opportunity to express. The 'you' who could be a single parent, or undergoing anger or even violence issues, who could be caring for an ailing parent or a severely challenged sibling or child. It could be your health. It could be the stresses your mind feels. It could be the values that bring you joy. It could be the legacy that you want to create. It is anything that describes your position, a stance of personal responsibility and a desire to bring harmony a small positive change in your life and to the lives of the people and causes that matter to you. 

Now here is the experiment. 

Make a table of four rows and two columns. In the four rows write down the four domains— Work, Love, Community and Self. Now, label the first column as, 'IMPORTANCE'. Divide 100 points amongst these four domains of life. Write them in the first column. In the second column, label it 'ATTENTION' and write down what percentage of time you spend on each of the domains in a typical working week. For example, for work, if you read e-mails at work or during the commute, add that to work. If you are on conference calls early in the morning, add that to work. If you are out on a family picnic on Saturdays, but your mind is on the Monday review or on a presentation, add that time to work. It is not only about the time you are physically present at work or home, but it is about the time you are mentally present at work, home, community or self. That is why the focus is on attention and not number of physical hours. 

Chances are that most of your waking hours and mental resources go towards work. There is nothing to feel bad or guilty about ignoring the other aspects of your life. You now have the chance to make an impact. 

Decide which of the other aspects of your life domains you want to put a little more focus on? Do you want to focus time on your family or maybe the community or just yourself? 

A good spicy challenge strikes a balance between flavour and fear. —Adam Richman

I know what you are thinking. You fear that perhaps a reduction of focus will lead to a perception by your boss or the people at work that you are shirking work. May be it is just guilt that your productivity is already suffering and reducing focus on work will add to the guilt. You are certainly not alone. 

Here are some rather counter-intuitive results that Friedman discovered in his experiments. 

Participants in an experiment were first asked to undertake these two steps. Listing what is important and how much time is spent. Then they were asked to rate their satisfaction on each of their domains and what according to them was their perceived performance in each of their domains. 

Then they were asked to identify one person in each of the areas of domain who mattered most to them and talk to them to validate the expectations from the people who mattered. So participants could talk to their girlfriend, saying, “I think you expect A, B, C and D from me”. Once she hears that, she might fall of the chair, and once she has recovered her composure, she would have said, “Your A is very important, B is somewhat important. I do not really care about  C and D. But, if you can do E for me, it will be really nice.” So they would go on thinking about A-B-C-D, when all they needed to think about would be A-B-E. It happens so many times that people perceive others have a higher expectation from them than they actually do. But what does happen is that other people have a different expectations from them.

Then the participants identified one small step that they can undertake. It could be spend an hour in the gym (self), spend an hour a week for a cause (community) or spend an hour at work (work) or spend three hours every weekend with the children watching their favourite cartoons and talking about Pro Era and Linkin Park (family). 

My coworkers should understand that I need to go to a party tonight—and this is just as legitimate as their kids' soccer game—because going to a party is the only way I might actually meet someone and start a family so I can have a soccer game to go to one day!  ―Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In for Graduates 

When participants reduced their attention to work by just 12% (say, not responding to e-mails after 10 pm at night and before 7 am), it resulted in 21% higher satisfaction and 10% higher performance at work. Even more dramatically, it resulted in a 27% satisfaction at the family front and 39% improvement in the self-front. 

How did this happen? They are the simple rules of positivity! 

• First, the participants had a better understanding of the expectations of the three people who mattered most in their lives. Unrealistically high expectations were moderated. Unfulfilled and ignored expectations were given a new lease of life. Expectations were aligned to be realistic and heed their needs. They became compatible. Participants sought help, because remember "other people matter". 

• Second, once the participants focused on the other aspects, say family and community, they felt good about themselves and found more meaning in their lives. They witnessed how a small change in their behaviour brought a big smile on the faces of the most important people in their life. Perhaps it was the nourishment their minds and hearts needed. Perhaps the stakeholders also felt accountable and helped the participants in their journeys of change. 

• Third, once the participants were energised, they brought their true selves to work. Their outlook and perspective about themselves changed. They started bringing their strengths to work, they started setting higher goals for themselves, they started engaging people in their goal pursuit. 

• Fourth, participants perhaps felt a sense of freedom to pursue the goals that were concordant to their true selves. They were free to pursue their own intrinsic goals with as much passion they wished to bring. Many years back Deci and Ryan demonstrated that people who perceive to have autonomy over their lives show a sense of deep satisfaction. It improves their well-being. 

• Fifth, once the upward, virtuous cycle began its ascent, there was no stopping them. The spirals would become stronger than the earlier. 

Success from one aspect of their lives led to success in another seemingly unrelated aspects of their lives. By giving a bit more attention to other domains of life, you increased performance. 

The domains of life are a bit like a cricket team of four batsmen— Work, Life, Community and Self. All four batsmen can contribute to your satisfaction and performance in your life. When only one batsman, Work, is responsible for scoring all the runs, he carries undue pressure to give you satisfaction. If you can give other batsmen an opportunity to score a few runs and give you satisfaction, it usually releases the pressure on the main batsman, leaving him to score freely, maybe come up with a few innovative techniques, improve his own batting skills, and score even more runs than before. 

Remember what the commentators keep saying, in cricket you have to build partnerships, where all the batsman who walk to the pitch have to rotate the strike to keep the scoreboard of your life satisfaction ticking.

By giving the other domains of your own life the independence to express, they can use a little creativity to adapt and develop new practices. 

Now this is your opportunity to be a leader and to make a difference; take over the responsibility of leadership for your own life. 

It's funny how you go through the year day by day but nothing changes, then when you look back, everything's different. —​Ritu Ghatourey

The author is the Founder of The Positivity Company. This is part of a series called 'Positive Mondays' which describes how positivity has a multiplicative effect, simultaneously impacting all work and life outcomes. Birender can be reached on birender.ahluwalia@gmail.com.