Ivan Glasenberg, the CEO of newly merged commodities trading giant Glencore Xstrata, doesn’t do work-life balance, and neither do his staff.
“I tell investors, come meet [my employees], and tell me who you think is going to lie at the beach,” he told The Wall Street Journal. “There [are] no beaches.”
Asked whether anyone at the company had a work-life balance, Glasenberg was blunt. “No. We work.”
“You don’t come here to take life easy. And we all got rich from it.”
Glasenberg, worth nearly $6 billion dollars, is one of the world’s most successful business leaders. But you don’t have to speak to the titans of international business to find a persistent scepticism around the whole ‘work-life-balance’ concept.
For example, Boost Juice founder Janine Allis recently told Women’s Agenda sister publication SmartCompany to forget the work-life balance.
“Understand that there is a time in your business life that to be successful you need to throw the idea of ‘work-life balance’ out the window and commit everything to the success of your venture,” she said.
This scepticism is well understood by Bruce Anderson, the Australia/New Zealand managing director of global career management firm Lee Hecht Harrison. He’s reluctant to draw broad generalisations about the ideal balance, saying it differs for different people, and depends on what they achieve.
“Ultimately, work-life balance is about not having your whole life consumed by work,” he says. “Most people accept that means some balance between work, family and outside interests. The exact ratios will depend on the person.”
For many executives, work is their passion. But that doesn’t mean letting other parts of their lives lapse is wise.
“My particular view is if CEOs are going to be effective in the long-term, they need to be involved and committed to things outside their jobs,” Anderson says.
“It can be seductive and incredibly demanding, the life of a CEO. There is a potential to say, ‘I can just do this for three years, and then I’ll get it sorted out and it’ll get better’.
“That works for some people for some time, but not in the long term.”
In his work, Anderson sees plenty of executives who find they’re suddenly no longer able to rely on work to fulfil all their needs.
Some are laid off, and while they’re looking for a job, find they’ve lost their purpose, family and responsibility.
Others come to the realisation that work isn’t enough when they achieve what they’ve set out to do.
“Some people, while they’re at the pinnacle of their career, will look around and say, ‘well, what’s next?’ They start thinking about their legacy, and that can lead them to re-evaluate their life.”
Others are forced to this realisation by illness, either their own, or that of people close to them.
Sometimes, the realisation that things aren’t working can come painfully.
“Some CEOs just burn out,” says Dr Simon Kinsella, a psychologist who specialises in dealing with executives.
“Executives can live their whole lives feeling like they have to compete. They work hard to get the job, and then to keep the job. They feel like they can’t relax.
“After a while they can start to experience stress indicators. Like not being able to sleep, or waking up early, or feeling agitated. Sometimes people find they can’t remember things – they start to lose bits of conversation because their mind is so overwhelmed. Or they experience high blood pressure, or irritability.
“And through it all they feel disconnected from their loved ones and friends. And that can create more stress.”
When executives hit a wall, they can try to regain control of their lives. But it’s easier said than done.
“If you’re driven to be a CEO of a very large company, you make the decisions necessary to do that,” Anderson says. “Having a balanced life is difficult to achieve because these are highly sought-after positions. It’s very competitive, and you certainly need to be very effective to be successful.
“I worked in a company where the managing directors did very long hours. So he would go to the gym early every single morning. It was a diary appointment – we knew we couldn’t touch it.
“And recently, I dealt with a senior manager who’d recently developed a back problem. The doctor prescribed pilates. When this was put in his diary, others would override it. So he started putting it in as a medical appointment twice a week and that got through.”
Executives can have work-life balance, but they have to be very disciplined about it, he says. It needs to be a priority, in the same way as their work commitments are. Some executives commit to an afternoon with their family every week, or to a morning session at the gym. The key is consistency and discipline, so that these things don’t get overwhelmed by the commitments of the business.
There can be costs to doing this. But Anderson says having a work-life balance can be a competitive advantage.
“If you spend long periods of time at work, but carve out time for your family, you’ll still be seen as hard-working, but also as human,” he says. “That can be a good thing to reflect back into your business.
“As an executive, there’ll be birthdays and the like that you’ll miss. But the key thing is what you want to be remembered for. It requires planning and commitment to have a successful life, whether that’s in your job or through your family. And in the long term, it’s worth it.”