Beyond Work-Family Balance: Advancing Gender Equity and Workplace Performance

As a coach and consultant to attorneys struggling to makethe business case for effective and usable work-life practices, I found this book to be an invaluable tool and resource.Law firms are bastions of gendered assumptions about idealworkers. The insatiable demand for ever-increasing billable hours makes developing and maintaining a normal life outside of work an extraordinary challenge, particularly for women attorneys. "Beyond Work-Family Balance" clearly articulates the tacit gendered assumptions underlying current law firm work practices and effectively establishes the connection between gender equity and workplace performance.I wish the managing partners of every law firm would read this.I'll refer all of my coaching clients to it. At least it willconfirm that it's the system - not them - that has the problem.

The long-awaited, "Beyond Work-Family Balance," is finally out! Many of us have been waiting forthe better part of a decade for a full treatment of the worklifeintegration experiments at Xerox and elsewhere, and this is it! If you arelooking for a book to get you charged up about the business case forwork/life programs, go elsewhere. If you want the most honest, detailedaccount of attempts to make the business case successful in practice, thisis the book for you. The basic argument starts with integration: we cannotimprove things unless and until we are willing to bring the public sphereof employment and the private sphere of home together, a process that canrange from embarrassing to painful. The second ingredient is the dualagenda of improving business performance and gender equity. The tightropeinvolved in carrying this dual agenda into the workplace is what makes thebook interesting, powerful, and realistic. The authors argue that aninteractive research approach is required to make the dual agenda work,with the researchers listening and learning almost as much as theparticipants in the business world, a process that requires constantfeedback, reflection, and communication. Indeed, an entire chapter isdevoted to lessons for research teams wishing to pursue research whileapplying a dual agenda to themselves. Sometimes the dual agenda succeeds,and employees and managers learn how to improve the functioning ofworkplaces for all participants (yes, stockholders even benefit). But thefundamental honesty of the authors leaves us wondering: is it worth it?Fortunately, I think the answer is yes, but the authors leave us in nodoubt as to the incredible amount of work required. The one question left hanging concerns unions, since the parallelsbetween many labor-management cooperation initiatives and the integrationapproach are multiple (if not perfect), but unions are not mentioned.Well, that leaves something for the next book. Incredibly well-written,brutally honest, and extremely insightful! A must-read for academics andpractitioners alike.

This is a book we have all been waiting for. After decades of reflection and debate about how best to develop innovative, high performance organisations, on the one hand, and how to enhance gender equity and work-personal life integration on the other hand, this book tells us that the two are not only compatible, but mutually dependent. Written in a non technical and thoroughly engaging style, the book argues that work practices and norms which are inequitable are also ineffective. The authors have the rare knack of presenting a deep and thoughtful analysis in such a clear way that their argument seems simple and obvious.The heart of the problem lies in the gendered assumptions that underpin many everyday working practices . The authors point out that assumptions based on traditional masculine values and life situations include the defining of commitment in terms of long working hours that preclude time for family or personal life, and the valuing of stereotypical male competencies, such as heroic action and firefighting, above interpersonal and other competencies regarded as more "feminine". Drawing on action research in a range of organisations they demonstrate how these assumptions and the practices that follow from them, undermine effective performance, but are so taken-for-granted that we rarely question them.What really distinguishes this book is that the authors go beyond identifying problems to provide a well tried method for bringing about meaningful change It does not offer one size fits all solutions but does provide a process for reaching tailor made solutions. Their method of Collaborative Interactive Action Research (CIAR) includes examining working practice and the assumptions that sustain ineffective practices and gender inequity and then thinking collaboratively with work teams to come up with innovative solutions to what they call the "dual agenda". The case studies used throughout the book are based on experience in a wide range of organisations so that everybody should be able to identify with at least some of the situations described. This should leave limited room for the traditional cry of "it won’t work here".For all those readers who are interested in organisational performance and change and in gender equity, whether or not they have already made the connections between the two, this book will make compulsive reading. Even the most cynical will find it difficult to totally disregard the central message that gender equity and effective performance go hand in hand.

This book provides a powerful example that thinking out of the boxcan open up a new perspective on a conflict that had seemed to beunsolvable. And this book is an example that academic research canlead to applicable and practical results. The conflict between work life and family life is as old as theindustrial age. We all know it and we all experience it in our dailylife. The four authors, all of them experienced researchers, havefor most of their lives tried to better understand this conflict andits underlying story. But with this book they went a step beyondtraditional approaches. Based on case studies they unveil a numberof assumptions on which this conflict is based. They challengenorms and traditional thinking. Career choices, life opportunities,values and reward structures are based on a specific western type ofthinking that historically has been shaped by white, married,middle-class men. The result is a system that dominates most of ourwork-life and effects our private life, that of men and women. Theauthors question this system from two angles. First, they analyzethe often painful struggle between having a life and a career, andhow individuals are trying to balance the two. Second, they show thatthe widely believed assumption: "this system is bad for us but goodfor the organization" does not hold true. Organizations and workprocesses are often inefficient and the individual behavior that isbased on these norms don't move the whole organization forward.This book does not make the mistake of ending up with an easy answer.The authors identify leverage points for significant change inorganizations. The book has helped me to rethink basic assumptionsabout work and organizations in the industrialized world and to seenew potential for change.

This book provides a powerful example that thinking out of the box can open up a new perspective on a conflict that had seemed to be unsolvable. And this book is an example that academic research can lead to applicable and practical results. The conflict between work life and family life is as old as the industrial age. We all know it and we all experience it in our daily life. The four authors, all of them experienced researchers, have or most of their lives tried to better understand this conflict and its underlying story. But with this book they went a step beyond traditional approaches. Based on case studies they unveil a number of assumptions on which this conflict is based. They challenge norms and traditional thinking. Career choices, life opportunities, values and reward structures are based on a specific western type of thinking that historically has been shaped by white, married, middle-class men. The result is a system that dominates most of our work-life and effects our private life, that of men and women. The authors question this system from two angles. First, they analyze the often painful struggle between having a life and a career, and how individuals are trying to balance the two. Second, they show that the widely believed assumption: "this system is bad for us but good for the organization" does not hold true. Organizations and work processes are often inefficient and the individual behavior that is based on these norms don't move the whole organization forward.This book does not make the mistake of ending up with an easy answer. The authors identify leverage points for significant change in organizations. The book has helped me to rethink basic assumptions about work and organizations in the industrialized world and to see new potential for change.