What does it mean to be successful? How do we
measure it? I recently visited a high-security prison. Some of the people
incarcerated within such institutions have, in some ways, been very
successful. One man had accumulated more money than most people will see in a
lifetime. Moreover, if the rumors were true, he still had it — somewhere
—waiting for him when the fifteen-year stretch was over His wife and family
lived in a mansion, his kids went to the best schools and his Lexus was still
in the garage. But the price he had paid was just too great.Now come with
me to the City of London and to a major law practice. Here the newly qualified
make at least £50,000 a year plus bonuses, and the partners stopped counting
in thousands long ago. One of the lawyers said to me recently, ‘We often have
to work into the early hours of the morning and at weekends, but it’s not too
bad; you can send out for any meal you want and there’s a room with a
television and a Sony Playstation so you can have a break. There are showers
and bedrooms too if we need them.
Of course there are vast differences in the lives of the two men — one in
prison and the other in the law practice — but the main one is that although
the lawyer gets let out into the exercise yard a little more often, he is in
for forty years, not fifteen.
Some years ago i was attending an international law conference in New York.
A senior partner of a large US practice was outlining his strategy for budding
a thriving business. ‘We like our young lawyers to produce 2,500 chargeable
hours a year,’ he said. ‘We put living accommodation in the offices because we
find that going home spoils their rhythm.’
The chairman turned and said, ‘But, Sam, what about
burn-out?’ He answered
without missing a beat: ‘No problem, Larry. If they burn out, we don’t want
them.’
That’s old-hat management thinking. It tells you to take somebody in their
early twenties and burn them out by the time they are in their late thirties.
They’ll have their first heart attack at forty. They’ll be off work for four
months, come back, have their second heart attack at fifty, retire on grounds
of ill health, and then you’ll start all over again with a new batch of
graduates.
Working Life’, a report by the Institute of Management,’ said, ‘The results
underline the business case for reducing working hours. Stress and burn-out
may be brushed aside as "personal problems" but the inefficient use of working
hours must be a central concern for any business.’2
And even if some of the professionals are missing the point, it appears
that their clients are not. In this new millennium the Bass company surprised
the London legal world by declaring that in future they would insert into
their contracts for legal services a requirement that the lawyers they engaged
worked no more than a fifty-hour week. They were prepared to pay £300 an hour,
but not for jet-lagged, life-lagged drones.
Every business needs men and women who will sometimes work long hours. The
really disconcerting aspect is that the ‘long-hours drone’ does it
irrespective of the need. This character works long hours as a lifestyle. They
have got in early, got home late, and taken work home for as long as they can
remember In other words, their effort bears no relation to times of pressure.
They just live that way. They would counter by saying, ‘But life is always
pressurized in this office.’ Of course it is. And for several reasons.
First, many offices simply have a jacket over the chair’ culture. One
London executive told me that in her office you dare not go home at six even
if all the work is done. She said, ‘There’s a macho image that makes you hang
around until about nine and go home looking weary.’ She went on, ‘And if
anybody asks you how you are, you never say "Oh, fine!" You say, "Shattered!"
I know a financial institution where the two directors both get in at 6 a.m. —
unless one is on holiday and then the other gets in at half past eight!’
What many people fail to realise is that the leaders of many departments,
firms and organizaions are
desperately insecure. That’s hard to understand because they seem so
successful. But these men and women have spent their lives asking the
question, ‘What do people think of me?’ It has driven them to prove themselves
in just about every area of their lives. Some of them had it inculcated into
them by a parent, probably a father, who constantly judged them on
achievement. Some of these people are now the heads of organizations and you
would think the proving would be over But ifs only just begun. They now feel
they must show that they work harder than anybody else. Mark that well —
harder. Not necessarily more effectively, or better, and certainly not smarter
— but harder. And so often harder means longer.
If they just did this to themselves it wouldn’t be so much of a problem but
often they create organizaions where everybody judges each other on the
appearance of hard work. In such offices men and women who achieve higher
targets, sell more insurance or have higher client billing than their
colleagues but who refuse to play the long-hours game are often perceived as
being uncommitted. People adamantly refuse to believe their success is put
down to the fact that their sector is just easier.
Too many "successful" people are cash rich, time poor. Time poverty is hard
to spot because often every other part of the life in question seems to be
going so very well. The ‘time pauper’ has a high standard of living, and those
they love have every material need provided. The kids get expensive presents
at birthdays and Christmas, and attend the best schools. What makes time
poverty even harder to spot is that there is often a high level of provision
for recreation or leisure activities. The family may go on several holidays a
year, there may be a second home in the country, and a family membership of a
health and fitness club.
But alongside all this is a hurried, hassled lifestyle that in spite of
massive help — au-pairs, fast food, day-care facilities and a myriad of other
services —means that the time pauper never quite manages to stay in front. He
convinces himself that what he needs is better back-up, and so one of the
fastest growing areas for busy executives is companies providing ‘concierge
services’. These will organize your children’s birthday parties or arrange
your family photograph album for you. They will provide greeting cards that
read, ‘Sorry I can’t be there to tuck you in tonight.’
Services now exist that will provide you with stress-relieving massage at
your desk to save you the trip to their consulting rooms. Right behind them is
the dentist, willing to replace that lost crown without your moving an inch
from your work station. And best of all, the humble shoeshine boy will now
come to your office to make sure that even if your head’s a little fuzzy, at
least your feet look good. Hey, why not have all three services at once? Think
of the time that would save! Just relax your shoulders, open your mouth wide
and stick your feet out. You’re successful!
The latest ‘perk’ in some of the large London City institutions is a
‘lifestyle manager’. According to the publicity they ‘cater for high-powered
executives who are too busy to organize their lives outside work’. They
promise to tend to every need from walking the dog to organising a wedding.
The time pauper has a growing sense as the years go by that they have
‘missed it’ — that somehow they have been cheated or fooled. They have spent
the best part of twenty years rushing around fulfilling the demands of others;
they have built up a fair stock of material possessions; but they have a
gnawing at their very soul that they have had little time to develop close
relationships with those they love, to foster deeper personal development.
Time poverty is tragic because while we strive for ‘success’ it
simultaneously attacks those we care about most.
We need new heroes leading our firms and organizations who say, ‘Don’t tell
me how long you work — tell me what you get done.’ When engineering boss Vicky
King was asked to comment on the long-hours culture she cut straight to the
chase, insisting that a fresh, rested dynamo ‘could cut through a pile of work
like a sushi chef fan-chopping mushrooms’. In her opinion, why reward the guy
who takes the longest time to do the job?4 We need business leaders
who will demonstrate that successful people have lives outside the office;
that really bright people are those who manage to make their success liberate
them, not imprison them in some oak-panelled cell.
The second reason the long-hours culture is so prevalent is a lack of maths
ability. Let’s go back for a moment to those young lawyers earning £50,000 a
year. It seems a lot of money, but is it? Many of those young people are
working a fourteen-hour day, six days a week, say for forty weeks a year,
which puts their hourly rate at £12.40. A lawyer week is getting in at 8 a.m.,
going home at 6 p.m., having weekends off and is achieving the same hourly
rate. I quite understand that the first characters have more disposable income
— the only problem is they’ve got no time to spend it! When are we going to
wake up to the fact that the person who balances income with a lifestyle that
allows a little living is the bright one?
I have spent much of my life helping businesses to expand but I have come
to believe there is little point in doing so if a higher standard of living
brings with it a poorer quality of life. In 1999 the legal recruitment agency
Bygott Biggs and the solicitors’ healthcare charity, Solcare, commissioned a
survey of lawyers’ working lives. It didn’t make comfortable reading:
· 70 per cent were completely exhausted;
· 70 per cent are worried about the amount of
work they have to do;
· 67 per cent work long hours to get the job
done;
· 30 per cent of male and 20 per cent of female
lawyers are drinking to excess;
· Alcohol-related deaths in the legal profession
are twice the national average.
On one occasion I asked a company director to describe his lifestyle to me.
He said, ‘1 get into the office at 7.30 a.m. and get home about 9 p.m.’ I
asked if he worked on Saturdays and he told me he did. ‘What about Sundays?’ I
enquired. He said, ‘I sometimes go in on Sundays so I can clear the decks for
Monday.’
I asked him how long he had been living that way and he replied, ‘Almost
twenty-seven years.’ Twenty-seven years! And I have no doubt for every week of
that time, perhaps every day, he was saying to himself, ‘This is just a busy
period — life will get a little quieter soon.’ But his health is gone, his
kids are grown, and somehow he feels cheated.
On another occasion I was involved in advising five business partners; they
were each in their early thirties. Again I asked them to describe their
lifestyle.
‘We start at 7 a.m., finish at 9 p.m. and do that six days a week,’ one of
them explained.
‘And how can I help you?’ I asked.
She replied quickly, ‘We want to expand.’
‘Oh’, I said, ‘that’s easy. You must start at 6 a.m., finish at 10 p.m. and
do it seven days a week.’
Another in the group looked up accusingly and said,’You’re laughing at us.’
‘Forgive me’, I said, ‘but my great fear for you all is that when you are
forty you will be even wealthier than you are now but will have lived those
years as paupers.
It may be that you have to work very long hours at the beginning of your
career — you are trying to earn your spurs, to impress a little, to get
noticed. But try not to make a vocation out of it. I believe we are seeing the
beginning of a sea change in this area. Young people especially are declaring
that they do not want the ‘sell us your soul’ philosophy in an employer. Some
companies, who want to make themselves more attractive, are beginning to look
at things a little differently. They are realizing that a decision to opt out
of a long-hours culture is a positive advantage in recruitment and are stating
their commitment to reasonable hours in their adverts.
I have some sympathy for the small boy who said to his mother, ‘Why does my
father come home later than all the other kids’ dads?’
His mother said, ‘Well, because he can’t finish all his work in the normal
time.’ The child paused for a moment and said, ‘Why don’t they put him in a
slower class?’
There are only 6,575 days in the first 18 years of your children’s lives.
No amount of success, money or prestige can buy us one day more. If you child
is ten years old now, you have 2,922 left. These days of your children’s lives
are irreplaceable. The future is very short: the time when they don’t want to
spend time with you will hit you in the face before you know it. To remind
yourself of this regularly, take a large glass bottle. Fill it with marbles.
Let every one of them represent the number of Saturdays you have before your
kids reach 18. Take out one marble every week.
What makes us forsake time with family or friends or entertainment? Why do
we live such a stressful lifestyle? What amount of money or power would lure
us into an existence where we have an incredible standard of living but such a
low quality of life? The answer is unpalatable. What drives us is the illusion
of the "race". We run and run for forty years. Forty years of sacrificing time
to work, forty years of dedication to the goal. But at the very last moment,
in real life, an official comes and says, "There is no prize. There is no
medal. The winner’s rostrum was an illusion."
Unfortunately, too many successful executive and professionals will be
prepared to listen to this, and believe it, only when they’re sixty-five and
at the very top of the pile. And suddenly they look around and ask themselves:
"Is this all there is? Is this what I have given forty years of my life for?"
They’ve missed their kids growing up, they have no real friends to speak of,
and their body is shot. Then they’ll believe this.
Don’t settle for success: make a difference – strive for SIGNIFICANCE.
with thanks to "The Heart of Success" by Rob Parsons
