Did Jim Anderson Even Know His Kids?

The Boston College Center for Work & Family studied nearly 1,000 American fathers with the results showing that these fathers care deeply about their work and their families, but struggle to be active, engaged parents while investing significant energy in successful careers. Overcoming these struggles requires give and take and almost always sacrifices, but there are proven benefits.

I recently left my full time job at a Fortune 500 company. This decision was prompted by the need to stop the train, take a look around and determine my next career direction. I'll preface the remainder of this entry to say that no joke, it is not easy to stay at home with three children full time, I understand why my wife's alternate personality "Margaret" would greet me at the door (at times pulling a cork out of a wine bottle with her teeth), I didn't get it then, I completely get it now. Never underestimate the amount of work it takes to operate a home and care for the children, never.

Call it a form of "Freaky Friday" but the transition of sole breadwinner to my wife was a major switch for both of us and at times challenging for many reasons. I took "working from home" to a whole new level. Initially my homecare activities would be rewarded with 6-7 hours of free time, certainly well worth the craze at the start and end of the day. However, once summer came, and school released all the children, the free time dwindled to almost nil. Now this is an entirely different story. Still, I am grateful for this experience and certainly thank my lovely wife for her support and understanding.

Even while working full time, I always made it a priority to be part of my children's activities. In my case, in order to do so, I know I sacrificed career opportunities; this was however, a conscious decision. I believe that the formative years is the time to be involved in the children and their activities. This involvement early on in life will have tremendous positive effects on the child's future socially and developmentally. Now that the children have a solid base, I can apply clear focus on my career.

In accordance with a key finding in the BCCWF study, not only does this interaction benefit the children, my participation in activities involving coaching sports, or educational activities all contribute to personal skill development that can transfer to the workplace, skill development does not only happen in the workplace.

Another key finding in the Boston College study states fathers reported that work caused more conflict with family life than family life caused conflict with work. The key contributor is the lack of full acceptance of flexible work arrangements (FWA); flex time, work from home, compressed work week. The continual evolution and acceptance of FWA, will reduce the amount of this conflict between family life and work. A catalyst to this change will certainly be the increased development and advancement of networking and productivity tools and the fact that future generations, for example Gen Y, will continue to join the work force, altering the traditional workplace as we know it.

The reduction in the struggle between family and work is possible, but will require give and take and almost always sacrifices but will pay off with proven benefits.

Are Managers Becoming Individual Contributors with Direct Reports? The Importance of Coaching

Managers are responsible for overseeing a team, yet they are also being given responsibility to own projects or special assignments, much like an individual contributor. With these additional responsibilities, the core management duties can take on less focus. Coaching is fundamentally one of the most important aspects of management, and unfortunately can be one of the first management responsibilities to be reduced due to time constraints.

Employees need encouragement and empowerment. Coaching takes time and energy, coaching means putting yourself out there, coaching means setting aside time to make it happen. Coaching will empower your employees, giving you even more resources at your disposal to distribute the large volumes of work.

This link contains a list of excuses often used for not meeting the commitment to coach. Do any of these sound familiar? What advice can you provide other managers to reduce these excuses?

Are Cynics the Secret to Success?

Dictionary.com says "a cynic has an attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others". In other words, a person who is constantly complaining, but not doing anything to resolve the problems. Here's where the positive side of a cynic comes in…... can a cynic be used for innovation and idea generation? Let's face it, if there are no complaints or objections, then there is no indication that a change needs to be made. Change can come in the form of a ground breaking idea, product, service, you name it.

Could these negative thoughts be used by positive change masters? Can we pick up new ideas and innovations from the cynics? Next time someone is complaining or ridiculing something, take a minute to detect whether there is an idea or innovation to be found in the situation that you, as the positive change master can take and run with.

For more information on the history of cynicism, check out this fun link hosted by Rick Bayan.

Positive Attitude

A positive attitude in the office is critical to keeping the morale up; however, the opposite typically takes place around the water cooler. Instead of joining forces and approaching the problems in a positive light, negativity breeds. I’ll be the first to admit it, the conversation can be pretty entertaining resulting in a few laughs, but this only creates a false sense of acceptance over the situation, the problems are still there, just humorous.

People want to be around positive attitudes; it really does create a much more productive environment. Attached are a few links to some sites with best practices to review and put into action. One of these actions includes taking the negative thoughts, writing them down, and then re-writing with a positive perspective. Go ahead and try this, then respond to this post with the results.

The Powers of a Positive Attitude

How to Keep a Positive Attitude

Utilize the Frontlines

Your front-line employees have a wealth of knowledge that can only be found at the lower levels of an organization. Utilize this information to your advantage - you'll be surprised by what you find out. Often, valuable information, does not always float upwards to top management. Take a walk down the hall, pop into someone's office and ask a few questions. Read this article by Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo! The key takeaway is the directive to listen to your workforce, really listen. By tapping into these employees, you will find a wealth of ideas that are not just found at higher levels of an organization, but at times from the most unlikeliest of candidates.