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Stew Friedman: So thinking about
what matters to you,
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who matters to you, why
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they matter to you, and what you
can do to be continually
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experimenting with different
ways of getting things done that
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serve both your values and your
vision of a better tomorrow,
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your vision of a better future,
in a way that serves the
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interests of the people around
you, trying out new ways of
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getting things done that allow
you to learn more about how you
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can continue to create change,
continue to be pursuing a life
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that's sustainable because it
works not just for your personal
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life, not just for your family
life, not just for your
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community life, not just for
whatever your professional
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identity is in whatever phase of
life you're in, but for all
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those different parts.
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- Welcome to <i>The Ripple Effect</i>,
the podcast that takes you on a
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journey through the minds of
Wharton faculty. I'm your host,
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Dan Loney, and in each episode,
we'll be diving deep into the
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inspiration behind the
groundbreaking research that
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Wharton professors have
conducted and exploring how
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their findings resonate with the
world today.
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Well, we talk a lot
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about work/life balance when
we're going along in our
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careers, but should we talk
about it even in respect to when
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we're thinking about retirement?
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Pleasure to be joined here by
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Stewart Friedman, who's Director
of the Wharton Work/Life
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integration Project, and he's
Emeritus Professor of Management
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here at the Wharton School.
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It's been a while.
Good to see you.
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- Great to be here, Dan.
thanks for having me.
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I think it is interesting,
because you have talked
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so much about work/life
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balance. But how much do we
consider the concept of work/
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life balance when we're thinking
about retirement?
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Yeah, I think most people
underestimate the shift that
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occurs in your life as you move
from working to not working,
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although for many people today,
it's a— it's a much smoother, not as
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radical a shift as it had been
in the past, as people are
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staying more engaged in various
kinds of professional or close
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to professional kinds of
activities, even as they age and
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get into retirement— and
formal retirement of really
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doing nothing at all. But the
parts that are under-attended-to
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are important to focus on,
because you still have to figure
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out, what does it mean for you
to be a leader in the different
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parts of your life and to create
harmony among the different
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parts? That doesn't go away.
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So then, when you're thinking
about retirement moving forward,
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there still is a level of
balance that you need to have.
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Yeah. I prefer to think of
harmony or integration, because
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balance implies the necessity of
trade off. You know, the scales
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and balance means that to be
successful in one part, you have
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to forsake the other parts. And
what— what I've been focusing on
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for most of my career is set of
tools and concepts that are
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based on the idea that looking
for harmony or mutual value
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among the different parts of
your life, your work, your home,
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your community and your private
self, you can find ways of
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breaking past the notion of
balance and towards the idea of,
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where are there opportunities
for me to bring the different
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parts of my life together in a
way that are mutually
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reinforcing, so that what I do
in the community enriches my
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professional life? What I do for
myself, personally, my mind,
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body and spirit. How does that
enrich my— my family and my
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career and my community? And
that's, I think, a healthier way
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to go about it, as we have found
from our research and practice
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for now over 30 years.
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But going back to something you
said a moment ago. That dynamic
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of people— you know, maybe having
that 40- or 50-year career, but
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still having some component of
work even after they quote,
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unquote, "retire." - Yeah.
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That's a dynamic that
I guess you're
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carrying a set of learned
experiences from over that
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period of time into that next
phase of your life.
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Yeah, it's good way to put it.
Those don't go away. It's a
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matter of how you're going to
apply what you care about and
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the skills and knowledge that
you've accumulated over the
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course of your life and career.
How are you going to bring that
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into this new phase where you're
not as fully engaged in
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professional pursuits, if you're
involved in them at all. So
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thinking about what matters to
you, who matters to you, why
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they matter to you, and what you
can do to be continually
00:04:34
experimenting with different
ways of getting things done that
00:04:37
serve both your values and your
vision of a better tomorrow,
00:04:41
your vision of a better future
in a way that serves the
00:04:47
interests of the people around
you, trying out new ways of
00:04:50
getting things done that allow
you to learn more about how you
00:04:54
can continue to create change.
continue to be pursuing a life
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that's sustainable, because
it works not just for your
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personal life, not just for your
family life, not just for your
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community life, not just for
whatever your professional
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identity is in whatever phase of
life you're in, but for all
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those different parts. And I
think that that same set of
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principles holds true no matter
what life stage, including and
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perhaps especially in
retirement. Especially speaking
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from my own personal experience—
I'm kind of there now.
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Well, I was gonna say, you're in that
emeritus— - Yes.
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age at this point.
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So how have you seen it play directly
as an impact on your life and your career?
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In so many interesting ways. I
don't want this to be all about,
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you know, my story, but I've
certainly been paying attention
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to what's happening in my own
evolution. I became emeritus in
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2019, and that was the end of my
teaching in the— full time in the
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MBA— full time MBA and
undergraduate programs here at
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Wharton. I continued to teach in
the Executive MBA Program for
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the last five years, and then
last year was my last year of
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doing that. So I am no longer
teaching here. I do have a
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consulting company where we do
training and management
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consulting to help people use
these principles that we
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developed in Total Leadership,
which was the course I'd been
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teaching here for a few decades,
based on what we've been
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learning about how to integrate
the different parts of life as
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a leader in all of them. I
continue to teach those, bringing
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those to companies, but no
longer teaching. And I thought,
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you know, when I got into this
game, when I decided I wanted to
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be a college professor 45 years
ago, it was because I loved
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teaching. I had a chance to do
some teaching when I was young,
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and I thought, "I want to continue
to do that." And I anticipated
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the end of my formal teaching
career as something that I would
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be, you know, anxious about and
maybe even depressed about, as
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many people are when they stop
working and that's their whole
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identity. And it was a big part
of how I saw, you know, my value
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in the world. I don't miss it.
[Laughter]
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And I think that's an important
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point for people to keep in
mind. As you're anticipating
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retirement, the things that you
think are going to matter, you
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got to keep your mind open to what —
what changes in your— in
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your consciousness as you think
about what really matters to
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you, because those things have
shifted
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for me and for many
other people.
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So there is a noticeable difference
between what is probably the
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majority of our career to that
period of time as we're
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preparing to make that shift.
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Yes. Yes, for sure. Now, I'm very
fortunate because I've been able
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to gradually scale down. You
know, I’ve reduced my teaching step
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by step by step, not in a
planful way. It just kind of
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happened that way.
- You didn't do it cold turkey.
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No. No. And—
and that was really
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helpful.
- Yeah.
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And I've been
scaling up, you know, in doing
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things that matter to me that
are still a part of my
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professional identity. So I
spend a lot of time now
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mentoring former students,
coaching people in the next
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generation. That's very
fulfilling for me, and it's
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still sort of professional work,
but it's pro Bono, it's fun, and
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it— it keeps me
feeling relevant.
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Is that in part why we see
people maybe make a shift in
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their career later on in that
career, they— because they know
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they're preparing for that next
phase of life, but they want to
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find that connection, that
something that really, you know,
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is going to lead them in that
right path for that next five
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years, 10 years, whatever it
might be?
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I— I think that's it. You've
hit the nail, in the sense that
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the most important feature of
finding harmony among the
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different parts of life as a
leader in all of them is to— is
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to be grounded in your values,
your sense of purpose, your— you
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know, the meaning of your life.
- Yeah. - Which is— you know, it's
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the age old question. But the
answers to those questions
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change as you grow, as
new opportunities emerge, as
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others, you know, disappear. So
looking for something that
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creates for you a sense of
purpose, a sense of meaning,
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value, like you're doing
something that matters, is the
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most important aspect of
anticipating and then working
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through the phase of— you know,
from full-time work to— to retirement.
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So you talked about, you know,
having a kind of— slowly shift
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and— and change with your career.
But I think the perception is,
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amongst most people, when you
get to that— that time where
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you're going to leave your work
or you're going to retire— - Yeah.
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— that it kind of falls off the cliff.
- Well,
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for some people, it does. You
know, as a good friend of mine
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who's— who's a radiologist, and
he just retired. And, you know,
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one day he was working, and the
next day he was not. Boom,
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nothing. - Yeah.
- That's it. - Yeah.
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He's not going to conferences,
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he's not writing papers. He's
not— he's not consulting to, you
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know, the junior people in his
world. And that, for him, I
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think it was just a lot harder
when it is, you know, so sudden,
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to make adjustments. And my
experience both personally and
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also just, you know,
professionally, as I coach other
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people, as— you know, as they're
asking new and important
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questions about, how do they
find harmony in the different
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parts of their lives— to be
looking at, well, what is it
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that's going to make my life
meaningful? How can I use what
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I've— what I've gathered? How can
I harvest what— what I've grown,
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and use it in a way that is
helpful to other people. - Right.
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That's the simple way of
thinking about where to find
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meaning and purpose in your
work, in your life, even as
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you're no longer working full
time. And there's lots and lots
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of ways to do that, of course.
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How relatively new, then, is
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this concept of thinking
about work/life
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harmony as we head towards
retirement? I mean, it feels
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like— like a lot of things, it's
a relatively new kind of look
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and understanding, maybe within
the last decade or two.
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That's a great point.
Because, you know, the whole
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notion of thinking about who you
are in all the different parts
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of your life, and how to find
ways of bringing them together
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in a meaningful way. It was not
normal to be thinking in those
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terms when I first started
teaching here in 1984.
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- Right.
- You know, there was this
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kind of strict segmentation
between your work life and the
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rest of your life. Indeed, when
I started talking about work and
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life in the late '80s here in my
classes, there are a lot of
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people who thought that that was
not just weird, but
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inappropriate. Like, what are
you talking about? This is the
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Wharton School. We don't care
about children and families. I
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mean, I'm paraphrasing. I'm
caricaturing, you know, the— the
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extreme reaction. But it was
not— was not normal. Now, thank
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goodness, we have progressed to
the point where it's— it's
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standard now. And it's— it's
legitimate and it's healthy and
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useful to be thinking about, how
do the different parts affect
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each other? - Yeah.
- And— and once you start asking
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those questions, they don't stop,
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and they continue throughout
your life and career.
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And in some cases, then there are
the external factors that come
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into play as well. When you
think about, you know, what
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we've seen play out in the last
15 years, the financial crisis,
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which obviously had people— you
know, if they lost a percentage
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of their 401(k), thinking about
going back into work. - Yeah.
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We've had the pandemic.
- Yes.
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You know—
we're seeing, you know, an
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impact from the level of
inflation that we've seen the
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last couple years. So take us
through kind of that component
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of outside factors and how they
can play a role in this process
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of thinking about retirement.
- Well,
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I think the pandemic, as you
point out, has had a major
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shift, along with the advent of
new means of
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communication and the ability to
work anywhere, anytime. - Right.
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Which— you know, that didn't
exist when we were kids, when—
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well, speaking for myself, when
we were first starting out. Now,
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of course, that's— that is
normal. And so the need to
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create meaningful boundaries
among and between the different
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parts of your life, which you—
you have to do. Otherwise, you
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know, one interferes with the
other and you can't get anything
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done. That has become much more
a matter of psychology, rather
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than, you know, the— the physical
nature of separating work and
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the rest of life. Now, it's
something that you've got to
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figure out, and then have the
skill to be able to negotiate
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those boundaries with the people
with whom you're interdependent.
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And so that aspect of how we
sort of organize our time and
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our lives is something that
people are learning rapidly, and
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I think that's a healthy
adjustment. But it is— it is—
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it's not something that you, you
know— that you're born with as a
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skill set. You've got to learn
it and develop it, and cultivate it,
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take it seriously.
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Is it something that companies
even think about when they're
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thinking about what their
employees— like, companies have
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taken a larger focus coming out
of the pandemic on mental
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health. - Yeah.
- Well, is— is
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the element of
retirement something
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that they consider as they're,
you know, working with their
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employees, and their employees
are starting to make these
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decisions or, or at least, start
to put those plans in place?
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I don't think it's the first thing that
they're worried about, but it
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is— you know, as— as it's become
more normal, more kind of
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expected to be asking the
questions of, well, how are you
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going to stay healthy throughout
your life as an employee, it's
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natural that you start to then
extend those questions for older
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people to what happens after
they're gone. Especially to the
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extent that it affects your— if
you're just thinking in economic
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terms, you know, medical expenses,
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and how they carry forward for—
for employers.
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Stew, great to see you, as always.
Thanks very much for your time.
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Appreciate being here. Thanks,
Dan.
00:15:14
You got it. Stew Friedman,
00:15:15
who talks all about work/life
harmony. As we mentioned, he is
00:15:21
Emeritus Professor of Management
here at the Wharton School.
00:15:24
- Thank you for listening to <i>The
Ripple Effect</i>. We hope you found
00:15:26
this episode informative and
engaging. Don't forget to
00:15:29
subscribe and leave us a review
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00:15:33
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