People’s perception of work is changing and the barriers between family life, social life and work life are blurring. Work is no longer something we do elsewhere between fixed times of day. Working from home, from hotels, in airports and cafés at all times of the day is the norm and ubiquitous voice and data communication keep us online wherever we may be. Vital creative ideas arise in non-work situations, when we relax and allow ourselves to dream, to make random connections and think laterally.

Jack Welch had his vision of what he called a boundaryless General Electric sitting on a beach in Barbados with his wife. The boundaryless organization would obsess him and drive the growth of GE for over a decade (Jack Welch, Jack, Headline, 2001). Such insights happen to us all, if we let them, and inspire us to change some part of our world – albeit perhaps on a slightly smaller scale than that of Jack Welch, although….who knows?

Work is an integral part of life; it is not something strange and external governed by different rules of behaviour to those that apply to the other parts of our lives. People are striving to find greater happiness across life’s broad spectrum of possibilities and opportunities and there is a pressure to have it all: to have a successful career, be a loving spouse, be a great parent, have a fulfilling social calendar, keep a healthy mind and body and achieve material and spiritual fulfilment!

Getting the work/life balance right is a challenge for us all. Yet the expression work/life balance is really an inappropriate misnomer. It suggests that work and life are two different things; that there is a set of scales with work on one side and life on the other; that work is fundamentally not to be enjoyed and life is what living is really all about. This is clearly nonsense. It makes neither good business sense nor good life sense. Business cannot be a ritual chore between weekends; it needs to be fun and to allow people to strive to be happy and to achieve their own ambitions as well as those of the organization.

Unfortunately, too many people experience work as something far from being fulfilling and fun, and more as something that has to be done to pay for non-work ‘life’. Of those that do experience work as an acceptable pastime, or maybe even as worthwhile and fun, a very small number are actually inspired by their leadership to go the extra mile when needed, to give that bit extra and to really excel. The challenge is there to be picked up by business leaders. Motivating and inspiring people in our changing world is not only critical to success, it is critical to survival.

This leadership challenge can be summarised as creating an organization that is in harmony both within itself and with its environment – harmony not in the sense of being a fully orchestrated, prearranged, melodious score, but as an exciting blend of innovative and creative frequencies. The quest starts with the leader himself, who needs to be himself in his role, to be in balance and to be an enormous positive force in the organization.

More on motivation at work can be found in Leadership Recharged!