March 2012, Volume 27
Finding Balance in Work & Relationships
Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance
to succeed.
~Václav Havel
In our sojourn as people of the academy we manage a bundle of identities:
Teacher, scholar, friend, colleague, child and possibly spouse and parent as
well. Inevitably we drop some roles as others take prominence whether by
choice or the sheer demands of others. In the end we probably cannot thrive in
every role, but we try. The trick is finding balance, avoiding burn out, and not
cheating those who deserve better.
In Choosing to Cheat: Who Wins when Family and Work Collide, Andy Stanley
observes that broadly speaking all cheating is about trading one thing we value
for something we don’t, and this normally entails trading an intangible virtue
for some tangible reward.1 For example, a student may trade her integrity to
get an “A” on a paper by plagiarizing, or we, in April, may exchange our
honesty in order to pay fewer taxes. Similarly, in the career-home equation, we
often exchange relational intimacy and warmth for status and financial gain.
In the worse cases, we gain the world, but lose people close to us.
It’s worth considering how many hours per week we invest in our career.
Research states-side indicates that about half of adults work 35-40 hours per
week, with most right at forty hours. Another ten percent work 40-49 hours,
another ten percent work 50-59 hours, and about seven percent 60-70 hours.2
If numbers in Canada comport, about 1.4 million people work over 60 hours
per week (not including work around the home or relational work with others).
Of course degree of paid hours does not define workaholism, but workaholics
do work about ten hours more per week than the norm.3 What distinguishes a
long day’s work from a pattern of unhealthy addiction appears to be
psychological.
Leading researcher Bryan Robinson defines workaholism as “a compulsive and
progressive, potentially fatal disorder characterized by self-imposed demands,
compulsive overworking, inability to regulate work habits, and overindulgence
in work to the exclusion and detriment of intimate relationships and major life
activities.”4 Robinson and colleagues have developed the Work Addiction Risk
Test (WART) that measures addictive work patterns. It consists of five
subscales reflective of his definition. In a robust academic environment like
our own, some of us might identify with these symptoms:
1. Compulsive tendencies: feeling rushed, busy, and multi-tasked;
working late, working more than socializing, finding it hard to relax;
putting self under timelines and feeling guilty when not working on
something.
2. Controlling behavior: feeling impatient when not in control, feeling
irritated when interrupted in the middle of something, feeling like things
do not move fast enough, losing one’s temper when things don’t go as
planned, getting angry when other people’s standards don’t measure up,
and being a perfectionist.
3. Impaired communication due to self-absorption: missing someone’s
answer the first time, so asking a question a second time; jumping into
projects before having all the facts, and getting ahead on projects before
all phases are finalized; putting more thought, time and energy into work
than friendships and marriage, and tending to forget, ignore, or minimize
birthdays, reunions, anniversaries or holidays.
4. Inability to delegate: a strong preference to do a task oneself when it
could be given to others; an inability to ask for help.
5. Self-worth based on outcomes: placing a high value on seeing the
concrete results of one’s work; being more interested in the results of
work than the process.5
If you wish to complete the Work Addiction Risk Test, it is available here:
http://www.thecounselingteam.com/interactive/tests/WorkAddiction%20Risk%20Test.pdf
While we might think of workaholics as company champions, there is as likely
a chance that they do poorly on the job. Overly industrious people are more
prone to depression, anxiety, and anger6 as well as irritability, absenteeism,
withdrawal, low productivity, mistakes, and workplace accidents than their
non-workaholic counterparts.7 The relational fallout of the workaholic lifestyle
becomes especially evident within the marriage and family context. As
Robinson writes, “The structure of the workaholic family system is such that
spouses and children become extensions of work and career and the
workaholic’s ego, molding their lives around interests and values of the
workaholic, thus inevitably leading to family conflict.”8
In short, families of workaholics talk and connect less than more functional
families.9 Key to this dynamic is that workaholics are not attentively present,
but their influence is great. They tend to be aloof and disconnected around
family which leads family members to feel isolated, lonely, unloved, and
emotionally abandoned.10
While the antidote to workaholic tendencies may require serious discussion
with people close to us, and a trusted counselor, the ideal to which we might
direct ourselves is finding purpose and presence through margin. Margin is
traditionally defined as the difference between that which we can offer and that
which is required. When our resources are high, and demands on us are low,
we enjoy margin. Conversely, when demands are high, but resources are low,
we erase margin, and flounder. Perhaps the start of finding margin is to ask
what is the larger purpose of our work and relationships? And, how might I be
present—be all there—for both?
Please send your Teaching Tips ideas to Gordon Chutter
(GordonC@twu.ca) or Bill Strom (strom@twu.ca).
1
Andy Stanley, Choosing to Cheat: Who Wins when Family and Work Collide, (Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah Books,
2003): 10.
2 These figures are for 2007. See U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, January 2008 issue, “Table 582: Persons at Work by Hours:
2007”. Accessed May 15, 2009, from http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/09s0582.xls.
3 Bryan Robinson, Claudia Flowers, Kok-Mun Ng, “The Relationship Between Workaholism and Marital Disaffection:
Husbands’ Perspective,” The Family Journal: Counseling and Therapy for Couples and Families, 14 (2006): 213-220.
4 Robinson, Flowers, Ng (2006), p. 213.
5 These descriptions taken from the items in the Work Addiction Risk Test (WART) as reported in Claudia P. Flowers and Bryan
Robinson, “A Structural and Discriminant Analysis of the Work Addiction Risk Test,” Educational and Psychological
Measurement 62 (2002): 517-526.
6 Steven Haymon, “The Relationship of Work Addiction and Depression, Anxiety, and Anger in College Males (Ed.D. diss.,
Florida State University, 1992).
7 Tetsunojo Uehata, Karoshi-no kenkyu [Research on Karoshi], (Toko, Japan: Nihon Planning Center, 1993).
8 Bryan E. Robinson, “Workaholism and Family Functioning,” Contemporary Family Therapy 23 (2001): 126.
9 See Bryan E. Robinson and Phyllis Post, “Work Addiction as a Function of Family Origin and its Influence on Current Family
Functioning,” The Family Journal 3 (1995): 200-206 and Bryan E. Robinson, B. E. and Phyllis Post, “Risk of Work Addiction to
Family Functioning,” Psychological Reports 8 (1997): 91-95.
10 Bryan E. Robinson, “Spouses of Workaholics: Clinical Implications for Psychotherapy,” Psychotherapy 35 (1998): 260-268
and Bryan E. Robinson, “The Workaholic Family: A Clinical Perspective,” The American Journal of Family Therapy 26 (1998):
65-75.