CEO of Me, by Ellen E. Kossek and Brenda A. Lautsch
Do you feel OK about how you manage your work and private life? Probably, a lot of people will agree while on second thought we might realise – and admit – that a number of aspects could be improved. We feel good about the lives we live, because it’s the result of choices that we have made in regards employer, family, location, technology etc. The awareness for possible improvement requires prompting from the external. This is the key asset of Ellen Kossek’s most recent book, ‘CEO of Me’. As the title suggests, a big part deals with management, strategy, setting expectations, influencing people and being in control. Applying these approaches in the area of work/life balance will be as unusual for many as much needed it is in times of mobility, distributed communication and complex organisations and processes.
Together with Brenda Lautsch, Kossek has been researching flexibility, or the lack thereof, in various organisations and with many employees. In their book, they have used the research in two important ways: Clustering and describing existing flexstyles (as they call it), and sharing a number of real life stories. They use these cornerstones to help readers analyse their own situation and understand what it takes to change it. The reviewer has – ironically and typically – read the book on planes, trains and on park benches across Europe. In this or similar situations, CEO of Me provides a wealth of eye-opening insights and leads to an instant desire to change something, how small this might be.
Flexibility is without a doubt becoming a key characteristic of future work – just as much as change. Both present challenges to ‘traditional’ organisations, where process thinking, task orientation, structures and control (all male domains) rule. However, the younger generations, especially the Millenials, are perfectly aligned with what the new era brings. Kossek & Lautsch present three main flexstyles: Integrators, Seperators or Volleyers. The sub-categories within each type relate to the book of the title as they are split according to the level of control a person has over his or her arrangement. For those who integrate work and private life, they might be fusion lovers (in control) or reactors (out of control) while separators are divided into firsters (work firster or family firsters) and captives (overwhelmed). The authors describe tradeoffs for each style, which reveals that there is no perfect solution. Consequently, they propose a multi-step process for everyone to improve his or her situation, and they specify possible solutions for each of the different flexstyles. They then map out the stakeholders for flexibility-related change and how to deal with each of them. Finally, they take a wider look at how to introduce fresh thinking in organisations. As this summary in a nutshell already shows, the book is practical, consistent, entails multiple perspectives and it is so very relevant to anyone who is not bound to shifts. It’s one of the very few books of which you think that they should have been written much earlier, and that many people, especially managers, should read it. From a Diversity perspective, it’s important that the book contains many stories from men and also makes references to private lives that are not traditional families. However, issues around children and issues of women dominate (by thematic default?). Diversity managers might miss a few more hints about how to implement work/life programmes or about corporate practices in this area. Fortunately, this book focuses on the individual, and how everyone can navigate work and life more effectively. Therefore, Diversity practitioners must read it – for their own sake – and recommend it for the sake of their colleagues, friends and organisations. (ms)
