have you ever thought about why CEOs get
divorced I have I think about this stuff
every semester have several CEOs come
and speak to my MBA students at
cu-boulder
in the Colorado State University the
CEOs typically focused on their
commitment to work and the students ask
questions about how the CEOs achieved
financial success
last semester the questions took a
different turn at the end of each
presentation the students asked a
personal question they asked are you
still married unfortunately every CEO
responded by saying they’ve had at least
one divorce and they attributed their
divorce to their work or their company
impacting the relationship with their
spouse and their children
I wondered given that why don’t CEO
spent more time creating environment at
work that positively impacts employees
personal lives so that they can they can
engage at work at home and in their
communities
since my CEOs were baby boomers and the
students were millenials it made me
realize the different generational
impacts and generational conflicts that
exist at work and play out in every
aspect of our lives and then it hit home
literally I recently had to renew my
passport and my wife she was answering
the passport renewal renewal questions
she was grinning as she asked what color
is your hair well I confidently
responded that it’s brown like it’s
always been
she then grabbed her cell phone and
began texting my daughter and she asked
her she said what color is dad’s hair
as if to build some unified support in
the family for some other color than
brown right you know I was completely
surprised when they collectively
responded that my hair was gray we you
look as surprised as I was to hear their
response up to this point I bet you were
thinking I was a millennial speaker
right it may surprise you
I’m a gen Xer you know the Forgotten
generation the generation that brought
you Nirvana slackers we’re not worthy
from Wayne’s World all right or the
generation that suffers from the middle
actually or the bridge generation or the
generation responsible for blending
together the baby boomers those that are
in their 50s and 60s and the Millennials
those that are in their 20s and early
30s think about it
Gen X is the solution to the baby
boomers and the Millennials conflicts
and it’s all happening at work and it
all started with this thing called
work-life balance
you remember that work-life balance
however it’s no longer about balance
it’s about blending together work in
home life
technological economic and social
factors have substantially changed the
way we live with over 60 million
multi-generational households in the
u.s. that’s 60 million homes with at
least three generations living under one
roof just in the u.s. there’s work from
home days at virtually every company and
there’s access to work 24/7 so what
happens at work has a much more
significant impact on our personal lives
and how we show up in our communities
than at any other point in history we
used to look at work in life like they
were separate kind of like a divided
plate of food with different parts for
each food group and serving but
technologies change that with technology
there’s less separation between work
home life and our community life
it’s crazy that it’s taken us this long
to figure it out we’ve known we’ve known
forever that people that we we seek
connection and inclusion rather than
work in life being separate like a
divided plate of food it’s more like a
veggie fruit smoothie all blended
together making something healthy and
sweet but when we look at a typical day
you know we spend more than half of our
waking time and work or work related
activities given that how do you think
work impacts our personal lives and how
we show up in our communities in today’s
modern multi-generational family work
impacts all kinds of relationships
relationships between spouses our
significant others relationships between
parents and children and what about our
friends outside of work
this Blenda fication impacts virtually
every relationship that we have and at
the core of this is work because that’s
where we spend most of our time so
workplace environments are the platform
to positively impact employees personal
lives so that they in turn positively
impact their communities this connection
this connection between work and life it
made me think about when I was growing
up every night at dinner my mom would
talk about her workday and it wasn’t
always nice even now I remember her boss
gene and how gene unknowingly played a
role in raising me if gene was happy at
work that day my mom was happy at dinner
if on the other hand gene was in a bad
mood guess what right my mom was in a
bad mood too this impacted much more
than a sporadic dinner conversation it
impacted my relationship with my mom and
how I viewed this this thing called work
and I had three other siblings that gene
unknowingly influenced at a young age my
mom’s work played a significant role in
how I was raised and today it makes me
think about the
I have a dinner with my family you know
there’s a lot of research out there
supporting how how moods impact
relationships and interactions there was
a study by roy baumeister of Case
Western Reserve in the study he placed
the researchers placed a plate of
freshly baked warm steaming hot
chocolate chip cookies next to a bowl of
radishes and they asked half of the
subjects to eat the radishes and ignore
the cookies and the other half just to
eat the cookies at the end of that they
asked all of the subjects to solve an
impossible puzzle the researchers then
step behind and watch through one of
those looking glass mirrors and they sat
there and observed and you know what
they saw they saw the cookie eaters they
looked relaxed one of them tried a
straightforward approach she hit a
roadblock and tried again and again and
again the cookie eaters they just kept
trying the radish eaters on the other
hand they looked completely different
they muttered as they worked they barked
at the researchers some of them got
frustrated and just put their heads down
on the table and simply gave up on
average the radish eaters gave up 60%
sooner than the cookie eaters
essentially what this means is that the
radish eaters had some pent-up
frustration from avoiding the cookies
that impacted their ability to stay
patient and positive in something
completely unrelated like solving a
puzzle of course the unofficial results
of this are that we should all eat
cookies all the time right that’s my
interpretation anyway seriously when
connected to the workplace and home life
the study indicates that a stressful
unfulfilled work environment affects our
ability to remain patient and positive
and other unrelated situations like our
home life remember what the CEO said to
my students remember what they said they
said that their work life for their
company negatively impacted their
relationships with their spouse and
their children
of course the opposite of this is true
to an engaging fulfilling work
environment has the power to impact much
more than the company’s bottom line
since we spend most of our time at work
the workplace culture is the spark that
kicks off a complimentary cycle of
positive community impacts this takes me
back to a conversation I had a
conversation with a CEO he told me that
he read a book a book about employee
engagement and he said that if he
improved his company’s employee
engagement he would improve his
company’s culture and then he set out on
a mission to improve his company’s
employee engagement as I spoke with him
I realized that he was only focused on
what happens at work I recommended that
he look at engagement as if it were a
muscle that needs to be exercised
constantly at work and at home
the Blenda fication of these two areas
would actually create more repetitions
turning a workplace skill into a 24/7
habit I mentioned that there’s this
process a process I call great it’s a
process where employees at every level
of the organization can participate they
can take what they learn as far as
engagement and actually use those skills
to help build communities I told them
that if he started taking this on he
could watch his greatness spread
throughout the company and into the
community but that was really just my
way of catering to his ego you have to
do that sometimes right actually the
word great is an acronym it’s an acronym
for the following five steps first
greatness we need to look at people
differently we need to view everyone is
if they have a spark of greatness inside
something positive inside that’s waiting
for us to find and then we need to take
responsibility it’s my responsibility to
not only find their spark of greatness
but to ignite it in virtually every
communication that we have and then we
need to avoid extinguishing the spark
and we extinguish sparks through
negative
oceans and criticisms that will surely
put out someone’s spark
next we need to apply fuel to the spark
and we do that by providing
encouragement empowerment and direction
that will make sure that it takes off
and then finally we need to teach
ourselves we need to teach ourselves not
others how to sit back watch listen and
learn as their success spreads like a
wildfire throughout the company into
their home life and throughout the
communities as he personally adopted
these steps others followed the company
began to experience lower turnover
higher loyalty and stronger financial
success but there was a greater impact
as others followed his lead not only did
they become more engaged employees they
became more engaged husbands and wives
moms and dads and they became more
active in their communities the growth
extended far beyond the walls of this
company in this case the Blenda fication
and work in life was the path for one
small company to make a significant
impact on its community so we need to
embrace embrace this Blenda fication of
work in life since we spend most of our
time at work workplace companies are the
greatest platform for improving
communication enhancing relationships
and strengthening marriages and also
enriching childhood engagement and
workplace companies can accomplish the
almost impossible task of blending
together in uniting baby boomers and
Millennials now that would be worth it
wouldn’t it so in today’s
technology-driven multi-generational
world the Blenda fication of work in
life is the spark that will build our community
divorced I have I think about this stuff
every semester have several CEOs come
and speak to my MBA students at
cu-boulder
in the Colorado State University the
CEOs typically focused on their
commitment to work and the students ask
questions about how the CEOs achieved
financial success
last semester the questions took a
different turn at the end of each
presentation the students asked a
personal question they asked are you
still married unfortunately every CEO
responded by saying they’ve had at least
one divorce and they attributed their
divorce to their work or their company
impacting the relationship with their
spouse and their children
I wondered given that why don’t CEO
spent more time creating environment at
work that positively impacts employees
personal lives so that they can they can
engage at work at home and in their
communities
since my CEOs were baby boomers and the
students were millenials it made me
realize the different generational
impacts and generational conflicts that
exist at work and play out in every
aspect of our lives and then it hit home
literally I recently had to renew my
passport and my wife she was answering
the passport renewal renewal questions
she was grinning as she asked what color
is your hair well I confidently
responded that it’s brown like it’s
always been
she then grabbed her cell phone and
began texting my daughter and she asked
her she said what color is dad’s hair
as if to build some unified support in
the family for some other color than
brown right you know I was completely
surprised when they collectively
responded that my hair was gray we you
look as surprised as I was to hear their
response up to this point I bet you were
thinking I was a millennial speaker
right it may surprise you
I’m a gen Xer you know the Forgotten
generation the generation that brought
you Nirvana slackers we’re not worthy
from Wayne’s World all right or the
generation that suffers from the middle
actually or the bridge generation or the
generation responsible for blending
together the baby boomers those that are
in their 50s and 60s and the Millennials
those that are in their 20s and early
30s think about it
Gen X is the solution to the baby
boomers and the Millennials conflicts
and it’s all happening at work and it
all started with this thing called
work-life balance
you remember that work-life balance
however it’s no longer about balance
it’s about blending together work in
home life
technological economic and social
factors have substantially changed the
way we live with over 60 million
multi-generational households in the
u.s. that’s 60 million homes with at
least three generations living under one
roof just in the u.s. there’s work from
home days at virtually every company and
there’s access to work 24/7 so what
happens at work has a much more
significant impact on our personal lives
and how we show up in our communities
than at any other point in history we
used to look at work in life like they
were separate kind of like a divided
plate of food with different parts for
each food group and serving but
technologies change that with technology
there’s less separation between work
home life and our community life
it’s crazy that it’s taken us this long
to figure it out we’ve known we’ve known
forever that people that we we seek
connection and inclusion rather than
work in life being separate like a
divided plate of food it’s more like a
veggie fruit smoothie all blended
together making something healthy and
sweet but when we look at a typical day
you know we spend more than half of our
waking time and work or work related
activities given that how do you think
work impacts our personal lives and how
we show up in our communities in today’s
modern multi-generational family work
impacts all kinds of relationships
relationships between spouses our
significant others relationships between
parents and children and what about our
friends outside of work
this Blenda fication impacts virtually
every relationship that we have and at
the core of this is work because that’s
where we spend most of our time so
workplace environments are the platform
to positively impact employees personal
lives so that they in turn positively
impact their communities this connection
this connection between work and life it
made me think about when I was growing
up every night at dinner my mom would
talk about her workday and it wasn’t
always nice even now I remember her boss
gene and how gene unknowingly played a
role in raising me if gene was happy at
work that day my mom was happy at dinner
if on the other hand gene was in a bad
mood guess what right my mom was in a
bad mood too this impacted much more
than a sporadic dinner conversation it
impacted my relationship with my mom and
how I viewed this this thing called work
and I had three other siblings that gene
unknowingly influenced at a young age my
mom’s work played a significant role in
how I was raised and today it makes me
think about the
I have a dinner with my family you know
there’s a lot of research out there
supporting how how moods impact
relationships and interactions there was
a study by roy baumeister of Case
Western Reserve in the study he placed
the researchers placed a plate of
freshly baked warm steaming hot
chocolate chip cookies next to a bowl of
radishes and they asked half of the
subjects to eat the radishes and ignore
the cookies and the other half just to
eat the cookies at the end of that they
asked all of the subjects to solve an
impossible puzzle the researchers then
step behind and watch through one of
those looking glass mirrors and they sat
there and observed and you know what
they saw they saw the cookie eaters they
looked relaxed one of them tried a
straightforward approach she hit a
roadblock and tried again and again and
again the cookie eaters they just kept
trying the radish eaters on the other
hand they looked completely different
they muttered as they worked they barked
at the researchers some of them got
frustrated and just put their heads down
on the table and simply gave up on
average the radish eaters gave up 60%
sooner than the cookie eaters
essentially what this means is that the
radish eaters had some pent-up
frustration from avoiding the cookies
that impacted their ability to stay
patient and positive in something
completely unrelated like solving a
puzzle of course the unofficial results
of this are that we should all eat
cookies all the time right that’s my
interpretation anyway seriously when
connected to the workplace and home life
the study indicates that a stressful
unfulfilled work environment affects our
ability to remain patient and positive
and other unrelated situations like our
home life remember what the CEO said to
my students remember what they said they
said that their work life for their
company negatively impacted their
relationships with their spouse and
their children
of course the opposite of this is true
to an engaging fulfilling work
environment has the power to impact much
more than the company’s bottom line
since we spend most of our time at work
the workplace culture is the spark that
kicks off a complimentary cycle of
positive community impacts this takes me
back to a conversation I had a
conversation with a CEO he told me that
he read a book a book about employee
engagement and he said that if he
improved his company’s employee
engagement he would improve his
company’s culture and then he set out on
a mission to improve his company’s
employee engagement as I spoke with him
I realized that he was only focused on
what happens at work I recommended that
he look at engagement as if it were a
muscle that needs to be exercised
constantly at work and at home
the Blenda fication of these two areas
would actually create more repetitions
turning a workplace skill into a 24/7
habit I mentioned that there’s this
process a process I call great it’s a
process where employees at every level
of the organization can participate they
can take what they learn as far as
engagement and actually use those skills
to help build communities I told them
that if he started taking this on he
could watch his greatness spread
throughout the company and into the
community but that was really just my
way of catering to his ego you have to
do that sometimes right actually the
word great is an acronym it’s an acronym
for the following five steps first
greatness we need to look at people
differently we need to view everyone is
if they have a spark of greatness inside
something positive inside that’s waiting
for us to find and then we need to take
responsibility it’s my responsibility to
not only find their spark of greatness
but to ignite it in virtually every
communication that we have and then we
need to avoid extinguishing the spark
and we extinguish sparks through
negative
oceans and criticisms that will surely
put out someone’s spark
next we need to apply fuel to the spark
and we do that by providing
encouragement empowerment and direction
that will make sure that it takes off
and then finally we need to teach
ourselves we need to teach ourselves not
others how to sit back watch listen and
learn as their success spreads like a
wildfire throughout the company into
their home life and throughout the
communities as he personally adopted
these steps others followed the company
began to experience lower turnover
higher loyalty and stronger financial
success but there was a greater impact
as others followed his lead not only did
they become more engaged employees they
became more engaged husbands and wives
moms and dads and they became more
active in their communities the growth
extended far beyond the walls of this
company in this case the Blenda fication
and work in life was the path for one
small company to make a significant
impact on its community so we need to
embrace embrace this Blenda fication of
work in life since we spend most of our
time at work workplace companies are the
greatest platform for improving
communication enhancing relationships
and strengthening marriages and also
enriching childhood engagement and
workplace companies can accomplish the
almost impossible task of blending
together in uniting baby boomers and
Millennials now that would be worth it
wouldn’t it so in today’s
technology-driven multi-generational
world the Blenda fication of work in
life is the spark that will build our community
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