Book review of The 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen R. Covey: Winning ( Chapter 19 ) Work – Life Balance

In this chapter, Jack Welch indicates that your career and your family life are both important values in your life time. A stable income which can help you to build up your personal family, you can support your family members with stable income such as houses, household expenses, tax and insurance etc. On the other hand, you need to spend time with you family members and friends. It is a chance for you to relax and share your love towards your family. Then you can sufficient energy to due with your career on working days.

In the reality, your boss’s decision will be the competitiveness of the company. Usually, they won’t care about your personal life and they would believe that work – life balance is your personal problem to solve. In fact, everyone manage work - life balance with their own type. It is the way to manage the time and sorting through priorities between work and home. Jack Welch shares 3 best practices in this chapter.

1) Keep your head in whatever game you are not.

2) Have the mettle to say no to requests and demands outside your chosen work life balance plan.

3) Make sure your work life balance plan doesn’t leave you out.

Before, I explain the 3 practices in detail. Let me introduce the Chief Operating Officer of facebook, Sheryl Sandberg. She is married to David Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, and has two children. She is named to the board of Walt Disney Company and she also joins the board of Directors of Starbucks. She placed 16th on Forbes' list of the 50 most powerful women in business in recent rankings. And she has a five-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter. A well educated woman and a working mom who drinks coffee.

In Dec 2010, she has a speech which is talking about “Why we have too few women leaders?”. Most of her friends at her same age would tend to stay at home with their children. Traditionally, men tend to earn much month than women. Besides, women need to do the house work 3 times more than men. As a result, women would like to stay at home with their children rather than chasing their career. She suggests 3 practices.

Sit at the table: She explains that women systematically underestimate their abilites. You should own your own success which is the first practise from Jack Welch. If you are at work, keep your head in the work. If you are at home or play, keep your mind only there.

Make your partner a real partner: She explains that you should separate the household work load and taking care of children with equal amount between men and women. Traditonaly, parents would like to put more effort on boys rather than girls. She points out that office work and household work load are the same important duty for all parents. Parents should share the work load with the same gender. Jack Welch indicates that if you find some work load which can pass to your lower level in order to join your family activitates. Please do so and say no to your senior level with that office work. He reminds that family and office are both important in your life.

Don’t leave before you leave: She explains that if a woman would like to raise a child. Please stay in your field and keep moving forward. You can raise a child with your career at the same time. Once you are pregant, please don’t leave your job at once, make your decisions with your child and your career. Jack Welchs indicates that there are so many people are proceeding their work – life balance plan for their family members or officers in the office. They don’t gain any happyiness in the whole plan. If you cannot gain any fun in the plan, you won’t sustain it. You should make sure your work – life balance plan fulfills your dreams and passions. You should consider yourself, family members and officers in your plan.

Sheryl Sandberg belives that if everyone can full fill her practices, leaders can be equal amount of gender which can build a better world. Jack Welch wishes all the empolyees can make an arrangement for each other to work out work – life balance. You can gain better experience and obersevation in your life. Two great persons’ point of view about work – life balance are very similar to each other. You should start to think about it.

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