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Unfinished Business

Unfinished Business: Book-club joy

unfinished businessI love my book-club!  It’s a work book-club, where we read work books.  It really helps me to see a book from different perspectives, relative to my fellow book clubbers’ lives and work.  We each read the book in relation to our own lives, so we each take something different out of it; and discussing that gives us all more learning.

I already wrote about Wilful Blindness, one of the best books we’ve read this year.  And about Being Mortal, another of our joint favourites.  Now it’s the turn of Unfinished Business.

Unfinished Business

Unfinished Business is about women in the workplace.

Except it’s not!

It starts with the premise that we have come a long way with getting equality for women in the workplace, but that this is still unfinished business.

But then the argument changes – it’s not women’s business; it’s actually the business of care-giving.

The Unfinished Business of Care-giving

Men just as much as women want to spend time with their families, or time with their elderly relatives – caring.  Men just as much as women have a hard time leaving the office on time (let alone early) to provide care.  Men just as much as women feel that they will be frowned upon for doing so, passed over for promotion, not trusted with a challenging project; all because they are seen to be “not committed”.

That’s rubbish.

They are committed to their work; AND they are committed to their families.

The Unfinished Business of Systems

Organisations make it hard – sometimes impossible – for men and women to provide the care for their families that they would like to, and that our societies need.  The system perpetuates a long hours culture.  So it’s the system that needs to be put right, so that both men AND women can leave on time (or early) to care for their families.  It’s not the women who need to be changed, or the men who need to be changed – it’s the system.

It’s a great read; I highly recommend it.

Want to work on your Unfinished Business? Call me for a chat about how coaching can support you.

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