Using Technology to make Work/Life a Reality

In today’s always “on” world, how do we balance work, family and personal life?

Around six months ago I had an interesting lunch with two other CEO’s. While we are all of a similar age, we each have completely different backgrounds, outside interests and businesses. I run a professional services firm concentrating in IT managed care for small businesses, another ran a hedge fund, and the third was in the building industry. The topics we discussed initially focused on business, and we discovered, probably to no one’s surprise, that despite the differences in our businesses, the majority of our challenges were the same. However, around 15 minutes into the conversation, the conversation took what I considered to be a surprising turn, and the rest of the lunch focused on an issue we all shared: in today’s always “on” world, how did we balance work, family and personal?

Over the past several years I’ve attended a program for Entrepreneurs up at MIT. Aside from professors and various area experts, each year several ultra-successful businesspeople come to speak with us. They range from the founders of major public companies to professional CEO’s whose names grace the headlines of the business pages. In asking them about their success, almost to an individual they start with their families. One entrepreneur worth more than $1 billion told us that he considered himself to be a success because his children in their 30s still want to spend time with him. Another spoke of his lack of relationship with his adult children because he gave so much time to his career, and how much he regretted that time.

A few years ago, when our first child was 18 months old, my wife and I made the choice to move out of Manhattan. This was a tough decision, made even more difficult because we settled on the Princeton area, which means that we have a commute of approximately 1½ hours door-to-door. As the CEO of a growing business, whose days often start before 7AM and end after 10PM, I wondered what kind of toll the commute would take on our growing family. Thankfully, because of our commitment to family, and the freedom offered by technology that did not exist even five years ago, the move has had very little impact.

I want to share some examples of how I and others use technology to achieve well-balanced lives in an “always on” world.

Recently my daughter was in a play at her school. It started at 2PM, not a particularly convenient time. I had a conference call at 1PM, and a dinner in New York City at 6PM. Thanks to technology my entire day was productive. I began that morning with several meetings, all done remotely, with no impact to the quality of the meetings. The 1PM meeting I took from my car, in the parking lot of my daughters school.

I’ve used a Tablet PC for years. Thanks to built-in wireless and Verizon’s new high speed Rev A services, it’s almost always connected to the Internet. On that tablet I use a program called OneNote to take all of my notes, keep track of responsibilities, and integrate with Outlook to manage my day. Because of OneNote I have no paper to deal with. Everything is on my tablet PC, available to me on or off-line and safely synchronized with my server.

I also run a program called Groove, which allows me to create shared workspaces with my colleagues, clients, vendors or partners. Within Groove we are able to share documents, spreadsheets, presentations, agendas, calendar, to-do lists, project plans, images, and many other tools. The really nice thing about Groove is that it makes all of this available to you whether you are connected, or on a plane. You can work on a shared document at 30,000 feet, land, and it will automatically synchronize the workspace with the other people you are working with. Their changes additions, synchronize in the background and are available for you to work on at your convenience. It cuts down on email and attachments, and provides a secure way to share information inside and outside your organization.

Rounding out the tools I use are WebEx, a Voice over IP Soft Phone that runs on my tablet, emulating my desktop phone and making my number completely mobile, and Outlook configured to work both on and offline.

That meeting I needed to take from my car? I doubt anyone could tell I wasn’t sitting at my desk. I was connected to the Internet, Bluetooth headset in my ear, webcam at the ready, viewing the same documents they were viewing via WebEx, and able to access any information that I need to for the meeting.

The result? At 2pm I was in the theatre. As I walked in the smile on my daughters face as she saw me made anything else I’d accomplished that day pale in comparison. And I made my dinner in the city, productive the entire way.

And it is not just me. Recently one of our clients began using a tablet PC, working the way I do. He’s now cut down on the paperwork he has to bring on his frequent travels, increased his efficiency, and created time to spend with his family. A good friend of mine, a successful executive at a major public company, whose office is in San Jose lives in Honolulu and goes into the office around once a month. I’ve been on calls with him where you cannot tell if he’s in his office, or sitting at the beachside café by his house, surfboard by his side.

None of this would have been possible just a few short years ago. All of it is available today, making our lives and businesses better.

The CEO's Dilemna

I was recently out to dinner with a friend of mine, the founder and leader of a growing and highly successful firm. We were discussing management styles. He felt that his role, based on his personality, was to limit the distractions generated by members of his team, and to keep them focused on what was most important, the growth and profitability of their practice. As an example, he presented the situation of PDA’s. BlackBerry’s, Treo’s, iPhones. They have become pervasive, necessary, and a distraction.

His firm uses Treo’s. Old Treo’s. I hate to say it, but sitting across from him at dinner, and looking at his Treo, he kind of reminded me of the scene in Wall Street with Gordon Gecko’s huge brick phone.

Yet his Treo had value. It still worked, it fulfilled the functionality he was looking for and after years of patches it was reliable. His Management Team wanted to upgrade to Blackberries. My friend, perhaps alone among his management, believed that there was no need to upgrade. He viewed the change as a distraction of money time, and mindshare. How would this help drive their goals of growth and profitability? Of adding clients and revenue?

At that dinner I found myself amazed, for no other reason than I had a hard time disagreeing with him. I was surprised by this, not just because my firm and my job revolve around bringing the benefits of technology to firms like his, but because I have the exact opposite style of leadership. If I was being kind to myself I’d say that I was a visionary, the type of CEO who drives change.

The truth is sometimes I’m just driving distraction, which I like to confuse for vision.

My style is similar to that of another friend, who by coincidence is also the Leader of a growing and successful firm in the same industry as my first friend. While (let’s call him friend 2) does drive growth and profitability, he also drives change. From the moment I met him, almost seven years ago, his goal has been to anticipate the needs of his clients and the market. He’s always wanted to have the latest technology in place, to drive the impression (and fact) that his firm could compete with the larger firms on all levels. During the term of our relationship, the only times I can recall him being disappointed in me is when he would meet with a new prospective client and they asked him for some capability we did not anticipate, that he did not have. He would never accept his Partners walking into a client’s office with anything but the latest technology. He would not accept a young summer intern experiencing anything less than the technology they were used to personally, or at school.

As a CEO, I find the challenge is that neither of my friends is wrong. In my experience neither is right either. Both personalities can lead to the growth of successful organizations, so long as the leader recognizes their traits, strengths and adopts a style that both embraces and compensates for them.

If neither is right, if it is both important and necessary to drive both vision and focus, what are the keys to being successful? I’ve given this some thought, and have started to develop a set of guidelines I intend to follow:

If you are the visionary (or a new, Colbert-like term, “distractionary”), surround yourself with:

1. A management team that will (a) filter these distractions, (b) stand up to you, and (c) execute on the ones that you both decide make sense and can be executed on without sacrificing your other goals, and/or, the ones that you decide to push anyway (and limit these).

2. Advisors who have practical experience with either the tactical items in your vision, or your competitors and market.

If you aren’t the visionary, they are similar but opposite:

1. Your management team should have members with vision, who like to drive change both within their individual areas and the company overall.

2. Be more controlling of your management team. The irony here is that the personalities required on your management team will balk at control, where they need more, yet the personalities on the visionaries management team will look for control, yet should be providing more.

3. Advisors who have practical experience with either the tactical items in your vision, or your competitors and market.

In the above scenarios, a strong Board could and should supplement the management team. But I don’t believe that they replace the team as they are often not as aware of the impact of your vision on the day-to-day requirements of your business.

As one of those advisors whose clients trust him to not only advise on technology, I need to ensure that the recommendations I make are not only driven by vision and a passion for technology, but by the realities of their business, their personal goals, and the culture of their organization. It is critical that I take into account their leadership style (and complement and challenge that style, if necessary), how they go to market, and what their clients and personnel are asking for.

In summary, for two firms in the same business, the right answer may be very different. It all depends on their focus.