Why 'bring your whole self to work' is the wrong advice
The question is no longer “how do I bring my whole self to work?”, but rather “how do I save my whole self from work?”
People are exhausted
“I’m cooked, and everyone I know is cooked,” said a participant in a recent zoom call, their voice heavy with fatigue. Heads nodded in weary recognition across the zoom gallery. We are cooked by constant demands. Cooked by technological acceleration. Cooked by the blurring of work and life.
Why are we all cooked?
I think it’s because the relentless demands for results have been compounded by technological acceleration. Technology promises time saved and leisure gained. Reality delivers something else entirely: an ever-rising tide of demands, drowning us in more and more work. Rather than saving time, it accelerates work.
Hence the question asked of me by a young woman during a recent leadership panel on ‘Technology and Humanity’: “Why are we not getting the promises of leisure, of work life balance?” She is not alone in her wonder.
AI is yet another in a long line of productivity accelerators, to which you cannot apply a brake. AI amplifies acceleration into a relentless race without respite. Productivity tools proliferate, yet personal time perishes. Advances in technology have not created more time for learning, for reflection, or leisure. Witness how personal development workshops—where you went away for a day or two with colleagues—have been steadily shortened, and now gamified on apps. Instead, technology has increased demands to work faster. Finishing tasks sooner has given your boss an excuse to give you more work, rather than time off work.
But why do organisations keep creating environments that burn us up, rather than those where we can grow and develop? It seems that they continue to raise the temperature on performance, driving ever harder to get more and more out of less and less, until ultimately people suffer.
The reason, uncomfortable as it is, is that your boss is also under pressure to perform, and their boss—the Board—is under pressure to deliver ubiquitous growth.
I recall a highly regarded global CEO who has delivered year-on-year share price growth, both by driving down costs and increasing revenue. If he was to take his foot off the accelerator for a heartbeat, if he was to look like not meeting aggressive revenue or cost-cutting targets, the market would call for his replacement, and the Board would have little option but to heed their call. While he is a truly human-centred leader, who cares deeply for his colleagues, and for pursuing the purpose of the company, market forces will ultimately choose profit over purpose. Can that CEO bring his whole self to work … and should he? Should you?
Why bring your whole self to work is no longer wise
Business does not want your whole self, they just want that part of you that delivers results. They just want you to bring your labour—whether that be emotional, intellectual or physical—and park your hopes and dreams as aspirations at the door. This is another reason you are cooked: because you are overworking parts of yourself, and getting out of sync.
Unfortunately, this cascades through the organisation. The reality is that business—the corporate entity—can be a hungry beast that does not have your best interests at heart. The business is not your mother, and not your friend. It is, by nature, focused on material outcomes. It takes a strong leader to tame that savage beast, and a strong person to resist its pressures.
What kind of environment do we want to create?
This raises a further question about the kind of environments we may want, or that may be being created, at work. Do we want an environment where people flourish? Where creativity thrives? Where the whole person is respected? Or will we settle for an environment where people are mere cogs, their spirits stifled, their potential untapped?
The flourishing environment is akin to a creative art studio, where people can bring their whole selves to work: their feelings and values, their hopes and dreams, while delivering results. These human-centric workplaces prioritise care and wellbeing, personal growth and development, initiative and innovation. Research has repeatedly shown that if you look after people, the profit will look after itself. But if you focus on profit, you will almost certainly damage people.
But when relentless demands and technological acceleration transform our studio into a production line, we risk losing our humanity. This creates a sterile factory, where everyone is a cog in the machine, their creativity stifled, their spirits dimmed, reduced to a source of revenue and a means to an end.
The question becomes: how do we create, in the 21st century, an environment in which people can truly flourish, when technology accelerates everything, invades every space, and eliminates the barrier between home and work? If we fail to do this, people will quit on the job, resign in order to refresh, and blame you for burnout. There are, of course, many companies who strive to foster wellbeing, work-life balance and human flourishing. What sets them apart is their intentionality. They work on it as a business priority, not an assumption.
The ultimate question
Perhaps the question that the young woman is asking about leisure and how the promises of leisure that were held out by advances in technology have proven to be an illusion, is not “how do I bring my whole self to work” but infers a deeper question: “how do I protect my whole self from work?” When ‘work from home’ has become ‘live at work’ and we are ‘always on’, our time, thoughts and feelings constantly interrupted by work, how do we create ‘often off’, and how do employers respect the division?
Know yourself deeply. Set boundaries boldly. Cultivate connections carefully.
Top Tips:
establish clear boundaries from the start
Strong boundaries build bastions against burnout. They create fortresses of personal time and space that work cannot breach. Someone else recently recounted how easy it was for them to ‘just stay a little longer at work’, because there was always more to do. One of the strongest points I make to new CEOs—and remind current CEOs—is that your todo list NEVER gets any shorter. People and events constantly add items to your list.
A mentor once told me “the way you start is the way you finish.” One CEO explained her commitment to being home for dinner with the family every night, and no more than 3 nights away each month. She established these boundaries in her own mind, and then with the Board, before taking on the role.
Understand your purpose and priorities
Those who manage to control their work, rather than having it control them, have done the work to understand their purpose—found an answer to the ‘why am I on this planet’ question—and established priorities in their life that support this purpose. Purpose. Priorities. These are the North Star and compass for navigating the difficult waters of work-life integration. Without them, we drift with the currents of constant demands.
One client came to me because she was working extraordinarily long hours, often through the night, because of the demands placed on her by the firm. She had fallen into the trap of thinking being asked to do something by her boss meant that she had to do that thing. However, as we worked on her ability to say no, to set boundaries, and to help your boss understand both her and his priorities, she was able to restore order to her life and become much more effective as she could focus on what truly matters.
Cultivate a strong support network: inside and outside the organisation.
Having colleagues who understand you, and what matters to you, can make a significant difference when you need a break, are unavailable for something, or need to reassess your priorities. It helps when your boss backs you up. And if you manage other people, take the initiative to understand them, their values and their priorities so you can support them. A strong social network outside work also helps. Not only will this create obligations and opportunities—“sorry, I have a family commitment at that time”—they can also provide perspective on maintaining healthy boundaries and be a circuit breaker for managing stress and overload
No magic formula
Most leaders with whom I work are trying to turn the temperature down at work, so people do not become burnt out and exhausted. They truly care for their people. Unfortunately there's no magic formula to avoid being consumed by work in this accelerated, always-on world.
Know yourself deeply. Set boundaries boldly. Cultivate connections carefully. These are the keys to protecting your whole self from work's relentless demands. And if you're in a position to influence your workplace, strive to create an environment where people can truly flourish—not just produce. In doing so, we might just find a way to bring our whole selves to work without losing ourselves in the process. After all, it's you who goes to work, engages with others, and builds meaningful relationships. So take control, set boundaries, and remember: don’t live in order to work. You work in order to live.