Rush Hour of Life

Rush Hour of Life

Managing the Clash between Family and Career

von Walter Schmidt

There is an increasing demand for practical solutions to solve the conflict between the modern business world and family life. This is especially important for young working couples in their „rush hour of life“ when both of them have a career and are needed in the upbringing of their children. Walter Schmidt has discovered the reasons for the apparent incompatibility of the values and attitudes. He has developed a new model to achieve a healthy work-family-balance by transferring the concept of Salutogenesis, introduced by Aaron Antonovsky, and that of Servant Leadership, coined by Robert K. Greenleaf, to the reconciliation of family and career. He believes that the key to the solution lies in a fundamental change of behaviour of the persons involved. The most important factor is the Sense of Coherence: The belief that we live in a world that is generally comprehensible, offers resources to solve problems, and rewards efforts. This sense can be developed and fostered by consciously dealing with one’s own emotions and relationships as well as through exercises introduced by the author, such as the “partner maps”.