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Last Friday, I was fortunate enought to work with a women’s mentoring group at Coco-Cola.

In a pro-active measure Coke have established a group to help women progress in their company. The mentoring program uses internal role models like Sally Loane and external experts to help educate the ladies on how to lead better, manage better and even run their lives better. A super initiative!

My role was to share some secrets on creating work-life balance.

My two greatest insights were:

#1 Insight - We can train the Team as much as we like in creating balance but if it is not part of the culture there is an incongruence.

Often in the work place the view of ‘quantity’ of work hours over ‘quality’ of work hours is seen in a more favourable light. In reality, if you can achieve more in less time that shows much greater skill. My deep insight was that if you want your Team to truely believe in creating balance, then it has to be articulated in the core values of the company. There is no other way to ensure ALL the Team understand the importance of balance.

Here is a great parody of my insight from Budweiser . . .

#2 Insight – creating work life balance is the same as loosing weight or giving up smoking for individuals. You have to want to do it!

Which means it is a change in behaviour and therefore Prochaska’s Behaviour Change Model is relevent. Last week I saw some women in the stage of ‘Action’ and others in ‘Pre-contemplation.’ The body language gives away what stage people are in! Also the questions and then the interaction at the end. I think about 80% of the women there were ready to change and set implementation plans.

The great thing is that to creat change we need to be educated. I am hoping with last week and some on-going facts sheets I can help influence many of the women present to begin the process of creating that balance!

It was a great opportunity to work with the women and I hope that I am invited back again.

Related articles

• Work Life Balance (socyberty.com)
• Getting the work-life balance right (dimorphism.wordpress.com)
• Achieving Work-Life Balance: Flexible Work Options Benefit Both Employees and Employers (customerthink.com)
• Where do you Start to get Healthier (JustinTamsett.com)