A better way to live, work, and prosper?

In closing out my blog posts for this year, I’d once again like to share a vision for a truly kinder and gentler society, offered in 1981 by John Ohliger (1926-2004), a pioneering, iconoclastic adult educator, community activist, and writer (not to mention dear friend):

My picture is of a future where we live more relaxed and more modest lives with an abundance of unmeasurable and infinitely available non-material (or better, trans-material) resources. All the travail and pressure we’re going through right now may be paving the way for that future. This future could be one where we will have a choice of “goodies”; not ones requiring scarce energy, minerals, or dollars; or ones permitting some people to get rich while others go hungry, but choices that we create with our own hearts and heads and hands among people we know and care for.

Although John’s political views placed him squarely to the left of center, he was not one for ideological browbeating. Even his frequent use of the term “radical” suggested more a general distancing from mainstream technocratic and consumer culture than a rigid sociopolitical and economic worldview.

Now more than ever?

The society John envisioned becomes ever more compelling in the wake of this economic meltdown.  It is likely that many of us will have to moderate our buying and owning of “stuff” during the years to come. As the obscene term “jobless recovery” is shaping into a reality, we are knocking on the door of a long-term period of a difficult job market and lower pay and benefits.  Retirement, where possible for those in their later years, will require judicious spending.

In sum, the years ahead may require us to think about what makes for a good and fulfilling life.  John’s vision invites us to consider a potentially healthier and more satisfying way of living, even if material goods are in shorter supply.

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For more about John Ohliger, go here.

Let’s focus on the “largeness of our lives”

Tara Lohan, in a piece for Alternet (link here) searches for a silver lining in the wreckage of the economic meltdown and envisions a society where less is more:

As we pick up the pieces of our shattered economy, perhaps we can rebuild with a more enlightened idea of how much is enough and a more holistic view of wealth — one that does not merely reflect the size of our homes, but instead the largeness of our lives.

Lohan quotes E.F. Schumacher, humanistic economist and author of Small is Beautiful (1973), in envisioning an America less caught up with work, material goods, and McMansions: ”The less toil there is, the more time and strength is left for artistic creativity.”

Yes, we need more jobs to get people back to work and help them rebuild their battered finances. But we also should turn this into an opportunity to think about what kind of recovery we want. The Great Recession was fueled by decades of over-extended credit and consumer excess. Let’s not make the same mistakes. We have a chance to think about and create better ways to work and live.

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Barring important news developments, I’ll be devoting the remainder of my posts this year to pieces envisioning a healthier society.

APA’s latest on healthy workplaces and toxic managers

The current issue of Good Company, the e-newsletter of the American Psychological Association’s Psychology Healthy Workplace Program (phew, that’s a mouthful), includes several features of interest to readers of this blog.

Fact Sheet (It’s a keeper)

Folks, this is worth saving and printing out. It’s an updated Fact Sheet on psychologically healthy workplaces, loaded with bullet point summaries and sources on the following topics:

• Workplace stress
• Work demands
• Work-life balance & flexibility
• Employee health & healthcare costs
• Mental health issues
• Employee and organizational outcomes
• The recession

Toxic Bosses

In a piece linking healthy workplaces with how managers relate to workers, Wally Bock writes:

Bosses make a difference in individual well-being. Early in my career, I worked with a manager named Cliff who defined the phrase, “hard-nosed.” He was also rude and hard-charging. The day was not complete without him stomping around the office in a rage.

Once, during one of his tantrums, a colleague suggested he calm down. “You’ll have a heart attack,” he said.

“I don’t get heart attacks,” Cliff growled. “I give ‘em.”

Advice

In his article, Bock expounds upon this short cluster of recommendations toward improving organizational leadership:

• Improve your Boss Selection
• Improve your Training and Support for Bosses
• Train for and Evaluate Specific Stress-Reducing Behaviors

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Work, Stress, and Health Conference 2011

In addition, it’s worth flagging the dates for the next Work, Stress, and Health Conference, which the APA co-sponsors with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the Society for Occupational Health Psychology:

May 19-22, 2011 — Orlando, Florida — Doubletree Hotel

This is one of the best multidisciplinary conferences around, with presenters drawn from a wide variety of fields in addition to psychology. I have a learned a ton from the programs at this conference and recommend it highly to researchers, practitioners, and students in disciplines related to employment relations.

Will our avocations save us?

I am beginning to believe that our avocations will save us, personally in terms of enriching our lives, and publicly in terms of contributing to the greater community.

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines an avocation as “a subordinate occupation pursued in addition to one’s vocation especially for enjoyment.”  That’s a good start, but I want to add a few other qualities that separate avocation from a pure hobby, such as a sense of accomplishment and contribution to the broader community.

For example…

In 2008 I wrote about professional storm chasers who lead groups of weather enthusiasts around America’s heartland in search of tornadoes and other severe storms.  Tour guests are the beneficiaries of this shared expertise, exploring places and experiencing vistas that would be hard to discover on their own.

Recently I wrote about two long-time friends who have nurtured their creative passions for writing and music.  Their work not only provides personal artistic rewards, but also enriches those who are enjoying the fruits of their labors.

For many years I have taken a weekly singing class at a local adult education center.  The instructor is a Juilliard-trained vocalist who created the class for adult students who wanted to learn how to sing better, regardless of previous music experience.  Her “day job” is working in a university library.

Civic activism is a very satisfying way to contribute to the well being of our communities.  The causes fueling that activism are often grounded in personal experience.  For example, many of the folks who are advocating for legal protections against workplace bullying found this cause after personally dealing with abusive treatment on the job.

More than a hobby…

Hobbies are great.  They allow us to engage in an enjoyable pastime that captures our attention.

But avocations can be even better.  Like hobbies, they are satisfying and engaging, but often they also provide a deeper sense of accomplishment and contribution.

After all, there’s a difference between writing poetry solely for one’s personal journals and, say, sharing that work by publishing it and participating in readings.  The latter gives us a chance to interact with others and enrich the culture of our communities.

Compared to work…

In the best of worlds, our jobs would provide us with the best qualities of our avocations, topped off with a livable income.  Indeed, one of the goals of this blog is to explore how we can create better work and workplaces that move us closer toward that ideal.

But transforming the experience of work is a long, hard slog.  For many, work is largely a means to an end.  Especially in the midst of this recession, higher aspirations for work may have to go on the shelf, at least temporarily.

Likewise, the work of raising a family or caring for loved ones is demanding and sometimes thankless, even if the underlying devotions are the stuff of strong bonds.  Many other forms of personal expression may be sacrificed to the demands of caregiving.

Avocations, however, free us from some of those inherent limitations and obligations.  They can be remarkably liberating, a chance to pursue dreams and passions even within the inevitable confines of everyday life.

Let’s stoke this idea…

So why don’t avocations get more attention in our society?  Why aren’t we thinking more creatively about that third place between work and leisure?

No answers here.  I went to the Amazon website and did a search for “avocation.”  I was surprised by how the topic has been so neglected by observers of the human condition.

Nevertheless, we don’t need scholarly studies to teach us how avocations can make a difference in our lives and those of others.  In seeking to discover and create meaning in our lives, we can take it upon ourselves to put the idea of avocation high on our lists.

The good vacation and why it matters

What makes for a terrific vacation?  How can we maximize our use of precious vacation time?  Are long sojourns better than short trips?

Many of us have personal responses to those questions, likely based on our own experiences.  One especially memorable vacation (good or bad) can fix our opinion about the ideal break. And if money and/or time happen to be in short supply, any vacation may look like paradise.

Researchers weigh in

Drake Bennett, writing for the Boston Globe, assembled advice from psychologists and economists about what makes for a good vacation:

For example, how long we take off probably counts for less than we think, and in the aggregate, taking more short trips leaves us happier than taking a few long ones. We’re often happier planning a trip than actually taking it. And interrupting a vacation — far from being a nuisance — can make us enjoy it more. How a trip ends matters more than how it begins, who you’re with matters as much as where you go, and if you want to remember a vacation vividly, do something during it that you’ve never done before.

Anticipation and memory

For many, the best parts of a vacation may be in anticipating and remembering it, while the vacation itself poses frustrations and glitches.  Bennett reported on a study of vacationers who were asked to record ”emotional inventories” of their trips:

…(T)he respondents were least happy about the vacation while they were taking it. Beforehand, they looked forward to it with eager anticipation, and within a few days of returning, they remembered it fondly. But while on it, they found themselves bogged down by the disappointments and logistical headaches of actually going somewhere and doing something, and the pressure they felt to be enjoying themselves.

Americans and vacations

Should we be taking the topic of vacations this, well, seriously?  At least for Americans, the answer is yes.  We take much less vacation time than our counterparts in Europe and other parts of the world.  In some nations, paid vacation time is a legal right.  Our workaholic culture is regarded by many as unhealthy and misguided.  It’s the less attractive flipside of our willingness to dig into work and get the job done.  Google the phrase Americans vacation time and you’ll get countless hits to surveys, studies, and analyses on this phenomenon.

Recession effects

The Great Recession has only made things worse.  Obviously for those who have lost their jobs, “free” time may be in greater supply, but accompanied by the stress of unemployment and much less disposable cash.  For those fortunate to have jobs, the pressures to do more with less and to demonstrate one’s value to the organization are making it harder to get away.  (For a related observation, see my post, “The Masochism Tango” at Work.)

Bigger picture

Overall, Americans are not too good at the work-life balance thing.  Economist Juliet Schor’s seminal work, The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure (1991) documented and analyzed how Americans are spending a lot of time at work. It triggered a wave of research and commentary that continues to this day.

Embracing Creative Dreams at Midlife

Avocation — a subordinate occupation pursued in addition to one’s vocation especially for enjoyment
-from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary

Dreams die hard is something of an old chestnut, but having entered the heart of midlife, I am thankful that this often is true.  I think especially of creative energies waiting to be tapped and unleashed, perhaps after some of life’s other priorities and responsibilities have been addressed, and pursued with the benefit of experience and maturity.

Two long-time friends come to mind when I ponder this.  Hilda Demuth-Lutze is a friend from college days at Valparaiso University (Indiana) who is the author of historical novels for young adults.  Mark Mybeck is a friend going back to grade school in Hammond, Indiana, whose band, Nomad Planets, is creating a niche for itself in the Greater Chicagoland indie rock scene.

Hilda Demuth-Lutze, Novelist

Hilda’s desire to write novels was evident in college, but getting married, raising a family in Valparaiso, and becoming a high school English teacher would come first.  However, she never let go of the idea of a writing life, and over the years she would exchange ideas, essays, and chapter drafts with assorted friends and family.

Her dreams of authorship started to become a reality when she and her sister Emily secured a grant to do historical research for a novel they conceptualized about two Wisconsin girls during the 1850s whose lives would intersect with the Underground Railroad.  Their collaboration led to the publication of their 2009 novel for young readers, Plank Road Summer.

Hilda then set out to write a second novel — also for young readers — featuring a village boy in 14th century Germany who is summoned away for a year of service at Wartburg Castle.  Kingdom of the Birds, published this year, interweaves encounters with Martin Luther and the history of Reformation Germany.

Pursuing creative aspirations in midlife sometimes requires superhuman stamina and juggling.  This interview with Hilda in an online literary magazine sheds some light on how a busy parent and educator makes time to write.

Mark Mybeck, Nomad Planets rock band, vocalist, guitarist, song writer

Mark has been into music for as long as I can remember — and those memories go back to the 3rd grade!  When we were kids, he had a great record collection and knew what radio stations were playing the best music.  (Thanks to Mark, his nerdy friend Dave was introduced to rock music and FM radio.)  Though details have faded, I also recall that he put together a group that played at our high school battle of the band nights.

Mark went to college, got married, and took jobs in the graphic arts and (currently) real estate fields.  Throughout this time, he never lost his desire to write and perform music.

Eventually Mark helped to put together Nomad Planets,  a 4-person band, which has evolved into the vehicle for his musical expression.  Nomad Planets have released three albums, the latest of which, You’re Never Lost Until You Panic, also happens to have an awesome cover!  After several years of plugging away at their craft, their perseverance is paying off: Nomad Planets are getting more gigs, earning some love from reviewers of the Chicagoland music scene, and building a core of devoted fans.

Check out Nomad Planets at their website, as well as visit their MySpace and Facebook pages, where you can sample their music.

Dreams Maturing

I’ve never formally interviewed my two friends about their creative avocations, but watching them pursue these aspirations later in life has been a joy.

My long-held homespun theory has been that many of us who belong to the “Tweener generation,” i.e., tail-end Baby Boomers who came along too late to experience the heart of the 1960s, are taking a bit longer to find ourselves and realize the full meanings of our lives.  (I can’t fully explain the reasoning behind this belief, but I trace some of it back to the weirdness and lack of definition of the 1970s, our formative years!)

In any event, seeing folks like Mark and Hilda do some of their most creative work in the heart of midlife not only allows me to validate my own theory (hey, I’m a professor…), but also sends a message to all of us that maybe, just maybe, some of life’s best stuff is waiting for us to embrace.

By contrast

We’re seeing a lot of self-help books for maturing Boomers in search of fulfillment on bookstore shelves these days.  One example is Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot’s The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk, and Adventure in the 25 Years After 50 (New York: Sarah Crichton, 2009).  Lawrence-Lightfoot is a Harvard sociologist who collected stories of people in their 50s and beyond who made dramatic life changes.

The Third Chapter features stories of people who reached a point in their lives where they felt the need for a major transformation.  Their stories are interesting, but frankly, many of them are in, uh, privileged positions.  They’re well-placed subjects of a well-placed author.  They may have quit their jobs and chased their dreams, seemingly throwing caution to the wind, but in reality many had abundant connections and back-up options in case the fairy tale crashed and burned.

By contrast, the stories of my friends are more typical, realistic, and accessible, embracing determination and pushing beyond one’s comfort zone.  But make no mistake: They also are stories about life’s adventure, and in that sense they are inspiring tales for the rest of us.

What are some of your creative aspirations?  Might they be the stuff of a new hobby, an avocation, or perhaps a later-in-life career shift?  Here’s to their discovery and realization!

APA announces 2010 Psychologically Healthy Workplace Awards

From a recent post by Dr. David Ballard at the American Psychological Association:

2010 Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award Program Winners

The APA has announced the winners of its 2010 Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award Program, recognizing North American employers who excel in these five categories:

• “Employee involvement”
• “Work-life balance”
• “Employee growth & development”
• “Health & safety”
• “Employee recognition”

The winners are:

American Cast Iron Pipe Company (ACIPCO), Alabama
Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare (TMH), Florida
Advanced Solutions (HP Company), British Columbia
Toronto Police Service (TPS), Ontario
Leaders Bank, Illinois

2010 Best Practices Awards

The APA also has recognized 10 companies ”for a single workplace program or policy that stands out for its facilitation of a psychologically healthy workplace.”

For complete information and links, see the APA’s Good Company blog.

NPR on work-life balance and shift work: Not bad, but what about unions?

National Public Radio’s Jennifer Ludden just concluded her very good three-part series on work-life balance with a segment on shift work.  Ludden’s piece opens with the story of Vickie Underwood, who had a stellar 22-year work record for an Atlanta-area printing plant until problems erupted when, at the end of her shift, she was asked to work overtime:

When she got off at 3 that afternoon, Underwood needed to hurry home to register her kids at two different schools and sign up the youngest for aftercare. The county was holding a one time all-day registration, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., to accommodate working parents — which is ironic, considering what happened at 2, with an hour to go in Underwood’s shift.

“I was asked to work three hours mandatory overtime. I mentioned to them that I had to register my kids for school, and they told me that I couldn’t leave,” Underwood says.

Underwood had worked last-minute overtime dozens of times before, but on this day she said no. Since school registration is mandatory, she didn’t really think she’d get in trouble. In fact, her bosses skipped right over any disciplinary measure and fired her.

Benefits of Family-Friendly Scheduling

The segment goes on to examine the benefits of providing lower wage shift workers with family-friendly scheduling support, referencing an ongoing study by the National Institutes of Health:

The NIH wanted to know whether this kind of flexibility at work can improve employee health, so they matched manager flexibility against various measures of employee well-being. [Study co-leader Ellen Kossek] says those with the most accommodating managers “had better physical health reports, better sleep quality, higher job satisfaction, and less stress over work-life conflicts.”

What about Unions?

Too many examinations of work-life balance concentrate on professional and executive workers, so kudos to NPR and Ludden for devoting a segment to shift workers.  However, in examining possible responses to the challenges workers face in navigating work and family, it would have been good to focus on the role of unions in negotiating family-friendly working arrangements for their members, rather than centering almost solely on management discretion.

By leaving it up to managers to offer such arrangements, workers are at the mercy of their employers.  Fortunately, Vickie Underwood was not in such a position:

Underwood fought a year without pay before finally getting her job back, and she was lucky to have a union backing her up.

Maybe the real message behind the story should’ve been the central roles that unions can play in negotiating working conditions for their members and supporting them when things go wrong.

Link to NPR story

Work on TV: Prime Suspect

Okay, so it’s not quite “Work on TV” — it’s more in the way of a rental or a boxed-set DVD purchase, but however you get it, the British detective series “Prime Suspect” is a simply brilliant portrayal of work life in a metropolitan London police department.

“Prime Suspect” stars the remarkable Helen Mirren in the lead role as Jane Tennison, who takes over a detective squad in Season 1 and serves in a variety of positions during the roughly 16-year life of the series. Tennison is tough, resilient, vulnerable, and imperfect, and over the years we become witness to her personal and professional successes and struggles.  

“Prime Suspect” addresses gender, race, and class issues with a gritty realism.  There’s plenty of intramural posturing, conniving, bullying, thuggery, and politicking within the department, one of the things I love most about good cop shows.  Tennison is not unique among her co-workers in sacrificing her personal life to the demands and obsessions of her job.

The episodes are rich in character and plot.  This is emotionally intelligent television, miles ahead of comparable fare on network and cable stations. HBO’s “The Wire,” also praised by this blog, is the only American counterpart that reaches this level of excellence.

For American viewers, “Prime Suspect” was originally a gift from public television.  It premiered here in 1992, and finished in 2008.

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Here’s the Wikipedia entry about “Prime Suspect”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Suspect

Book Review: “The 4-Hour Workweek”

Talk about smart product placement: Prominently displayed on many an airport bookstall are copies of Timothy Ferriss’s bestselling The 4-Hour Workweek (revised and expanded edition, 2009).  What better place to hawk a book of that title than an airport, where weary travelers are wondering how many more business trips they can endure before they go bonkers?

Yes, I bought a copy, at an airport bookstall no less.  I know what you’re thinking: What does a professor need with a book about a 4-hour workweek?  He’s got that already! Hah hah! Okay, I’m not about to whine about a career I enjoy very much, though I will say after the 7th or 8th work-related trip of the semester, I was feeling a bit pooped out.

Golden Product + Offload Work = Miller Time

But I digress.  What you really want to know is whether The 4-Hour Workweek is for real.  Well, yes and no.  The key here is the concept of “Income Autopilot.”  If you’re an entrepreneurial type who develops or identifies a super duper product, then offloads the production, marketing, and distribution work to others while still reaping in the profits, the remaining 164 hours of the week await you.

It helps if you have reliable minions, avail the latest Internet technologies, and resist the temptation to read your e-mail too many times a day.  It also helps if you’re ruthless about cost cutting and not hung up on notions such as socially responsible business practices.  As Ferriss notes, this isn’t about trying to change the world.  So go ahead and contract with that call center in the latest developing nation.

Once you have these pieces in place, you can leave the rat race and join the blessed world of the New Rich.  Take that global cruise, learn how to sky dive, or even tackle world hunger (maybe by serving meals at that call center you hired).

That, in a very boiled down nutshell, is what The 4-Hour Workweek is about.

(Conditionally) Recommended for Non-Profit Workers

Yup, I’m rough on overall tone of The 4-Hour Workweek.  However, in what may sound like a humongous flip-flop, I’m going to say it’s worth a quick read by those who work in the non-profit sector.  You see, we do-gooders, educators, and change-the-world types might actually learn some valuable things from it.  Here’s why:

First, many who spend a big share of their working lives in non-profits tend to undervalue their knowledge, insights, and skills. To put it bluntly, we sometimes give away even what others can reasonably afford.  No, I’m not suggesting that we start charging the homeless for their meals.  However, there are some who can afford our services and expertise.  The 4-Hour Workweek may inspire a few ideas in that regard.

Second, the book isn’t all about teaching aspirants to the Leisure Class how to exploit the Worker Bees. It makes you think about all the crummy, time-intensive tasks you do at work that add up to a pile of nothin’.  Take e-mail, for example.  Even if you don’t have a personal assistant to read and sort your e-mail (Ferriss’s easy-baked solution!), you can get some good ideas about how to better manage it.

Finally, Ferriss scores legit points by questioning standard brand ideas about retirement and career path.  By choice or circumstance, some may want or need options to traditional retirement. Folks in the non-profit sector are especially susceptible to burnout and overwork and sometimes see it as an obligatory condition that proves one’s devotion to the cause. Ferriss imaginatively envisions careers that weave more and less intense periods of work with genuine breaks and sabbaticals.

In sum while parts of The 4-Hour Workweek bug the daylights out of me, there’s stuff here that fuels the imagination about rethinking work and careers, including possibly your own.