Business is Child's Play

It’s Not Personal, Just Business; But Can It Be Both?

This afternoon, in the heat of a tantrum, my 3-year old son told me he wanted me to leave and never come back. I can’t pinpoint the exact cause of our argument. He was tired and probably wanted something, a cookie maybe. I told him that what he said hurt my feelings and asked if he meant it. He told me yes, and that he didn’t like me. I know he needed a nap and was mad at the situation, not me. But I can’t lie, it really hurt. He took an everyday circumstance and made it personal.

One of the most commonly used phrases is “It’s just business, not personal”. You hear people say “Outside of the office I really like her, but not in a business environment”. When counseling, or even terminating, an employee a manager will say “This isn’t a personal decision. We’re doing what’s best for the company”. I’m starting to think it’s all a load of BS. How can I not take business decisions personally, especially when they affect me personally. Business is my life and my life is my business.

I find it very difficult to believe that you can have lives that are so delineated. There is no black and white in the workplace. Everything is grey and your business and personal life are constantly colliding. Our business and personal lives are very tightly woven together. I was inspired to start this blog for that very reason. At work I felt guilty that I wasn’t spending time with my children. When I was with my children my mind was consumed with project deadlines. This blog is cathartic. It allows me to merge these two very important worlds together.

And why wouldn’t we want our business and personal lives to meet? They explain a lot about who we are. In business we need to think about the personal ramifications are decision making has. We may discover that we become more empathetic, cooperative, and frugal. In our personal life we’re typically willing to work with others, reach out to our neighbor, and control our finances. If we worked on bringing some of our business savvy into our personal life we may find that we become decisive, organized, and risk adverse. We’d be last apt to forget a bill payment and would plan out meals, and grocery shopping, a month in advance.

This isn’t to say that all of our decisions will change. Many outcomes will remain as they should, but we owe it to our “counter universe” to consult from time to time. Have you noticed positive outcomes from combining your business and personal life?

Post By Marilyn Cox (75 Posts)

Marilyn Cox is the Director of Marketing Communications at Cincom Systems. She is responsible for the marketing communication and content strategy as well as sales enablement. She manages technical writing, education development, translation services, copywriting, and graphic design resources. She also manages large scale marketing campaigns, website initiatives, and the Eloqua strategy. Marilyn is a PMP certified project manager responsible for the development of project management processes, integration management, scope management, time management, cost management, quality management, human resource management, communication management, risk management, and procurement management. Marilyn received her degree in Political Science from The Ohio State University and is the author of BusinessisChildsPlay.com. She classifies herself as a left brain mind living in a right brain world. Her focus is content development to enable and align marketing and sales strategies. While not geeking out over marketing analytics she enjoys Ironman training in solitude and Ironmom conditioning with her two children.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, March 4th, 2012 at 1:48 pm. It is filed under Employee Development, Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.