Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards
As a guy who has run the gamut in his career from entry level to management to business owner I'll take a stab at this one.
Interesting. And perhaps another fundamental disagreement. It's not my job to be popular at work; it's my job to deliver results and help instill less experienced colleagues with the skills and mentality to succeed in what is considered to be a fairly competitive field.
It may not be your job to be popular but if you answer to HR it MAY be your job not to make your underlings so miserable that they feel compelled to report you.
We'll see who gets further in his or her career, D1 Rower or BCC HR. If you don't think career success is relevant to long term happiness and security or if you define career success differently, well, to each his own.
We'll also see who burns out faster and who is a better future manager of people. There's this wonderful touchy feelie concept of emotional intelligence, that I happen to believe in. I don't want to bash the person you perceive as more ambitious, I can even admire that she is willing to go the extra mile, but you're judging by your yardstick only and that's a lack of perspective that isn't productive.
Perhaps there will come a day when you can get promoted and paid well while perfectly protecting your work life balance. But I don't think that day is ever coming, at least not in competitive fields in a capitalist society.
Simply put, you're wrong. That day is here. people who DO protect their work life balance are actually more productive during their work time because they don't resent the intrusion on their life. If you are going to ask people to do things on personal time then where is the incentive for them to finish their work in a timely fashion during normal hours? When I have a kick ass employee who blasts through tons of work during the regular work day I DON'T reward them with an intrusion on their personal time, and in turn they DO reward me with continued excellence. An occasional emergency notwithstanding I am incredibly respectful of my employees time, which in turn makes them respectful of mine (meaning their time at work.)
To bring it back to baseball, how much would you pay to watch MLB baseball players whose time on the clock in a traditional corporate sense (training, travel, physio, weights, film, batting practice, etc.) were limited, by statute, to 40 hours per week?
These are grown men playing a children's game with no real life consequences, and we are fine if they have no work life balance for at least 6 months out of the year and probably for many years before that when they are trying to just make the big leagues.
Why should our more pedestrian industries be treated any differently? Isn't it a good thing if doctors, lawyers, accountants, financial advisers, money managers, car mechanics, and carpenters also strive to be the very best in their fields? Happy to be challenged on this, but I don't think there is any field where you can be the best while putting in the minimum 40, especially when you're just starting out and learning the ropes.
Yes but the teams aren't forcing them to train extra, hire a nutritionist, work out etc, it's a choice. LeBron James is probably the most fanatical athlete in history about his prep, conditioning etc, which is why he has excelled years past a time when the vast majority of players have declined and hung it up. No team called him in the off season to MAKE him do this.
And how do you know the employees in question AREN'T working to improve themselves on their own time. Whether it's reading, formal education, or any one of a thousand other things that they might be doing to improve their knowledge and/or performance that you know nothing about.
Again you seem only able to judge people from your own perspective which is a pretty narrow view of things. I don't think you're a bad guy, or even a bad boss, but I do think you need to broaden your view of the world some. There's more than one way to skin a cat, not just the way you learned or prefer.
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