A number of years ago I did my doctoral research on the balance between professional achievement and successful family life, using academic physicians as my study group. Not surprisingly, the most successful medical professors in my sample group -- those with tenure, extensive research, and national awards -- also tended to have the most instances of divorce and estrangement from children. Naturally, none of these highly successful people had consciously chosen to sacrifice their families in order to advance their careers. Instead, they had made hundreds of small tradeoffs over the years -- such as staying in the lab instead of attending a child's school concert. It was the accumulation of these small choices that seemed to gradually tip their lives one way or the other.
I was reminded of this subject when I heard last week that Jeff Kindler had suddenly resigned as CEO of Pfizer, at least partly because the stresses of the job were affecting his family life. (I admit that there may have been other reasons for Kindler's resignation, although we may never know for sure. For this discussion, let's just assume that job stress was a factor.) By all reports -- and gathered from some personal experience -- Kindler is very devoted to his family, but also worked hard to achieve the success of becoming a CEO. And after spending more than four years working almost non-stop at the top of Pfizer, Kindler seems to have realized that it is very difficult to have both.
More...
0 comments
Post a Comment