Work-Life Symposium: Defining Your Boundaries
Tuck's seventh annual Work-Life Symposium focused on blending work with family and other interests and for the first time, included a workshop that guided attendees in mapping out ways to put the day's information into practice.
Dean Paul Danos led off the day by emphasizing that workers in every industry are working harder and longer and said achieving balance will not get easier for students when they leave Tuck.
Event co-chair Melanie Escopete T'05 said organizers designed the symposium to give participants a framework for defining success and also to stress that many companies are willing to offer some flexibility to hardworking and reliable employees.
Business coach Jeffrey Levine, a former marketing executive, described his vision of balancing the different areas of his life as weaving. He said the key to building a life that works on all levels is for individuals to understand their core personal values and to design a career compatible with those values. He cautioned that career success does not automatically translate to a successful personal life.
Levine, along with other speakers throughout the day, suggested that enjoying a fulfilling personal life may require passing up the occasional project or working fewer hours to make time for other priorities. He urged participants to craft personal mission statements to identify what motivates them and then to find a place to work that is compatible with their priorities.
After Levine's welcome address, participants split up to attend panels that addressed duel-career couples, alternative career paths, technology, and defining success.
During "Technology: Friend or Foe?" panelists agreed that business technologies have the potential to creep into every aspect of their personal lives. Panelist Peter Friedman, T'03, a consultant, joked that his wife calls his BlackBerry his mistress and said he has to make a concerted effort to balance his clients' demands with spending time with his family. The panelists said they deal with this challenge by carving out specific times to be responsive to work requests instead of being available 24 hours a day.
Panelists also said that the advent of more and better technology has raised expectations for the speed and quality of final products. Complex documents that used to be produced over the course of weeks are now churned out in hours, creating more stress by requiring workers to create near-final products in a first draft.
Keynote speaker Cali Williams Yost, author and founder of Work+Life, Inc., urged listeners to think about creative solutions to achieving work-life balance. She suggested that workers who come up with thoughtful, reasonable proposals will often be embraced by their employers. She urged participants to take advantage of options like telecommuting or working fewer hours if they need to also devote time to children or to caring for aging parents.
"Each one of us is the only one who knows what will work for us," Williams Yost said.
During a workshop at the end of the day, participants filled out a chart that asked them to identify what was going particularly well and what needed improvement in different areas of their lives. Then, armed with their individual assessments, participants moved into small groups to discuss how they planned to factor work and personal priorities into their career planning.
Symposium participant and Tuck partner Laura Turenne said the day gave her valuable insight.
"The main thing I took from it is that I have the power to get what I want from my job," Turenne said. "I can set my own boundaries and still have a productive career."
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