Overworked? A People Pleaser’s Guide to Saying No
This post first appeared on Forbes.com “I have more work than I can possibly do, my team is stretched to the breaking point, and the requests keep coming,” said an executive coaching client in a large tech company, her eyes welling with tears. She was not the only one to whom I gave a tissue this week. Overwork is widespread in the U.S., and research indicates that it is bad for people’s health and productivity. An excessive workload can be caused by many different factors—a demanding organizational culture, poor planning, failure to delegate or a lack of adequate...
Read MoreScary Schedule? How to Regain Control Of Your Calendar
This post first appeared on Forbes.com. “My calendar is out of control! I have so many meetings that I can’t get my work done.” This sentiment has become increasingly common among managers and leaders. The need to work collaboratively and cross-functionally has led to a proliferation of meetings, and in many organizations, where calendars are visible to all, colleagues feel free to schedule meetings at any open time. People wind up with chopped up days, back-to-back meetings and, oftentimes, no idea as to why they have been invited. The result? Participants are often late, unprepared...
Read MoreRe-Defining Having It All
I feel the need to explain myself. My last two posts on the topic of Having It All — both which might be interpreted as discouraging — are probably not very good marketing for someone in my profession. After all, my job as a coach is to help people dream big and achieve their goals. So where do I get off telling women and men that they can’t have it all and asserting that the very notion of “having it all” is not even desirable? What happened to following your dreams, overcoming obstacles, not settling for less? To clarify: my critique of having it all is not...
Read MoreHaving It All Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be
What do we mean by “having it all,” anyway? What ever happened to “enough”? Anne-Marie Slaughter’s Atlantic Monthly article, which I already blogged about earlier this week, asserts that we are lying to young women when we tell them that they can have it all. Instead of blaming women’s lack of ambition, Slaughter, former Director of Policy Planning at the State Department, recommends sensible and forward-thinking changes in workplace policy and culture that would improve the potential for women (and men) to achieve professional success without sacrificing family. I...
Read MoreHow You Slice It
What are your priorities? Are you living them? There’s a group called NotMyPriorities.org that hands out postcards depicting a pie chart of the United States’ budget. The Pentagon’s slice is well over half the pie, with each of the other categories (education, health, environment, justice, housing, etc.) occupying just a tiny wedge. My older daughter picked up this postcard from a sidewalk protester and asked us about the chart. Next thing you know my husband had us all (including our preschooler) drawing our own pies and dividing them up as we saw fit. “Imagine...
Read MoreChildcare – Who Pays?
“I’d love to work, but I’d barely make enough to pay for childcare,” says my friend, a mother of three. And I’ve heard this explanation from many stay-at-home-moms, heck, it was my reasoning for a long time as well. But assessing the cost of childcare solely to the mother’s income doesn’t make sense, says Joan Williams, author of Re-Shaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter. Instead, couples should view the cost of childcare as a cost of “protecting the economic future of the entire family, and specifically the children”...
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