This course is about Family Life Management. By talking about Family, Life and Management separately, we will begin to understand why those three need to be integrated in order to live life to the fullest. In this class we will talk about ways to better ‘manage’ our life.
Life can either happen all by itself, or it can be managed. The aim
is to stop existing and start living.
If life is a dark, foggy highway with many potholes and dangers, applying
management principles to life is like turning on the headlights, slowing
down a little, being careful. ... and learning from one's mistakes!
This is going to be increasingly important as we live and grow and bring up our children in a bewildering society, where there is nothing definite, and the person who does not organize and change will get left behind. It is like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, who has to keep running to keep still in the same place..it is the treadmill phenomenon. Those who do not step to the beat will get thrown off course!
In Erikson's Epigenetic Principle, the last stage of life - Late Life
- is when a person looks back
on the record of events and is either filled with Integrity that things
were managed well,
or is filled with Remorse and Regret that important things weren't
completed.
You want to be the person with Integrity.
MANAGEMENT
Generally speaking, management involves using resources to achieve goals,
that is, management means using the means to an end in a planned fashion.
Definition - Peter Drucker, a famous management guru, thinks that management’s
“task is to make people capable of joint performance, to make their strengths
effective and their weaknesses irrelevant” (1989, p.229). This definition
stresses the interpersonal aspect as well as skills aspect of management.
Most people would agree that management somehow involves using our abilities/strengths
to make the best of our resources and relationships.
Why manage? Elizabeth Goldsmith asserts that there is no other way –
people had better learn to manage their lives! In fact, management is applicable
at every stage and part of our lives, though most people would associate
it with the workplace, which is, of course, important seeing that 90% of
us will end up in “managed organizations” (Drucker, 1986).
By learning about management, we gain insight into processes such as
decision making, problem solving, economic and social challenges, teamwork
and planning.
Who manages? And how? Following from the previous point, it is obvious
that everybody must manage. The best managers may be the ones that have
had training, or alternatively, have learned the hard way to manage. Perhaps
they stopped running and the treadmill threw them off!
How people manages – their management style – depends on their history,
biology, culture, personality and the technology available.
Management Process Though how different people manage may differ, the overall pattern is kind of consistent, and involves the following steps, in a feedback loop:
PROBLEMS, NEEDS, WANTS OR GOALS
This is the beginning..by identifying that there is something we lack,
or want, or if there is a problem to be solved, or something to be fixed,
we have started the process off.
To differentiate between the things that might start off the process, remember:
Of course, the tool we all think of first is money.
Money means success, freedom, and power to control our own destiny
to some extent.
Folks who live beyond their means worry more, experience more stress
and illness, have less security, more tension and more conflict inside
and outside the family. The term “DINKS” got famous a few years back –
it stands for “Double Income No Kids”. It is something many young and ambitious
couples embrace, but often in old age, regret. For money is a fickle resource.
It may make more sense investing in a more dependable resource like your
hobby, or loving your spouse.
Put another way - money problems cause a lot of other problems and
tend to get in the way of assessing our real progress toward our goals.
However, used well, and invested carefully, money can assure a comfortable
life that you can then spend doing things you love with people you love.
Time is a resource that is probably more precious than money.
How many of you would like to have one hour a day that is completely
and totally yours?
Many movies are made that tell the story of the man or woman who works
very hard, all the time, and one day finds their children are grown and
their life is almost over - and they have few memories of it.
I will never understand those people who can't wait to have children,
only to (almost immediately) start looking for someone to take care of
their children so they can pursue other things. This lack of understanding
on my part is the center of my feelings about children and family life.
Time spent with children (yours or someone else's) is truly well spent
time. AS is: Time spent thinking .. Time spent creating ... Time spent
talking ... Time spent kissing!
Information - In an increasingly complex world, one of the best
things you can do is learn how to learn. Information is the biggest tool
you can acquire and pass on to the next generation. We get information
from people, books, television, the World Wide Web, newspapers etc. the
trick lies in sifting through the mountains of facts, to find the information
you desire.
Our Work or Job is a resource. My idea is to find a job you
like, and one that you can do well, and that is rewarding and challenging.
(like being a college professor) - Get really good at it - so you can do
it fast and well and get home to
the people you love. Our culture is one that urges everyone to
work (work ethic - dual earner families that make $40,000 combined working
over 40 hours a week, teenagers work before/after school and on the weekends).
A radical idea here:
We might be able to work less if we thought we needed less stuff.
People are resources - Family, friends, co-workers, even the bank clerk and the grocery store guy are resources for various things in your life. The focus in the class is on family, but others certainly are important to us. The Census Bureau defines family as a group of two or more persons related by birth, marriage or adoption and residing together in a household. Really old family members may have less energy and acuity than younger ones, but they have enormous experience on which to draw.
For Family Life Management, family composition and dynamics are changing rapidly all over the world, and this calls for special care to see that this valued institution does not rot away. As Goldsmith puts it, “Life Management encompasses all the decisions a person or family will make and the way their values, goals and resource use affect their decision making.”
Our own Skills and Interests are resources.
Learn about your special talents and make time to follow up on these.
What you can do that’s unique and special will often make you indispensable
at work as well as at home! Not to mention give you a sense of fulfillment
and satisfaction that you are using your gifts!
In conclusion, we need to use all our resources in a way that we live
a life of well-being and satisfaction, with enough challenge to keep us
interested, and enough organization to keep us comfortable.
We want to learn to achieve a balance between work and family and ourselves.
So Management is the process of using what we have to get what we want.
Using resources to achieve goals.
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Next up:
Thursday Tips: Three Inexpensive Meals
Thursday: 1st take home
assignment due in class
Back to Syllabus
Forward to Chapter 2