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A PRECIOUS TOOL
Allocating efforts in self-knowledge represents such a challenge.
However, it is one of the central processes in the development
of a professional career. Going beyond unknown dimensions,
even the interior ones, generates great anxiety. Many times,
in the name of tranquillity, we impose limits on our movement
towards ourselves. Such limits end up reinforcing some paradigms
that tangle us and don't let us see clearly new prospects.
That's why I consider the sabbatical a good tool to identify
our strength and power, to evaluate the conditions in which
we respond in a better way, in which circumstances we react
badly. Coming into a sabbatical period involves looking at
our competence, mapping the already dominated know-how, discovering
ways, measuring our deepest resources.
Sabbatical is the removal from work inspired by an intimate
motivaton. Its aim is the reviewing of the personal or professional
life. It doesn't matter the duration, if it's of months or
years, neither the format. It can be a sightseeing trip, a
course abroad, volunteer work, reclusion at home. What characterizes
a sabbatical period is the removal from the routine to check
courses. The term comes from the Hebrew shabbath and it means
rest. It's the weekly retiring day of the Jewish. On the Old
Testament there is reference to the sabbatical year: one year,
in each six, when the earth is not cultivated in order to
be iniciated afterwards a new cycle of fertility.
At the American universities the sabbatical is already age-old.
Teachers or graduate employees who have worked for six years
running at the same school acquire the right to retire for
one year to take care of their own recycling, in general linked
to the compulsory study of any theme.
Retiring from the everyday life to recycle is obviously a
very ancient practice, but just on the mid-20th century the
concept of sabbatical started, in the United States of America,
to migrate from the universities to the corporative life.
By the end of the century, some iniciatives were already happening
in Brazil.
I normally "really" stop on my vacations, public
holidays and weekends. But there was a moment when I needed
more time. I had the necessity of a drastic rupture with the
routine. Leaving in sabbatical seemed to me the great solution.
It was really a mark in my life. The format of my sabbatical
was covering on foot the Way to Santiago, in Spain, on the
European summer of 1999.
Leaving in sabbatical was the opportunity
to rethink about the external acts from the detailed revision
of the internal attitudes and to put both professional and
personal lives on the same table. This site is one of the
results of my sabbatical period. As a human being and as an
executive, I want to share with you some reflections about
of the world we create at work:
Herbert Steinberg
STOP AND THINK
On the research which preceded the accomplishment of the
book "Sabático - Um Tempo para Crescer" (Sabbatical,
a time to grow) I found lots of reflection material. One of
the most moving was "A Essencial Arte de Parar"
(The essential art of stopping), by the American psychotherapist
David Kundtz. He says that only with stoppages, short or long
ones, we can get totally awaken and remember who we are. Stopping,
even not to know what to do, encourages and helps us to go
ahead. It is, according to him, a spiritual process, in the
sense of searching for our meanings, values and deepest desires.
The sabbatical, as a long pause, is a renewal platform for
the one who does it and for the enterprise it is a competitive
advantage. If the enterprises live on talents, they need to
invest on having healthy colaborators. In Brazil, few enterprises
have the sabbatical policy, but many of them already invest
on brief stoppages, disposing places for informality, teachers
to advise on meditation, gymnastics, lengthening, or masseurs
for the fast consultation during the working hours. The corporations
have been noticing that the tension of the daily routine reduces
the productivity. They are seeing that their future depends
on the good health of their colaborators.
For the worker himself the apeals to the non-stop production
are lots, some irresistible. However, the gain of the stoppages
in reflecting about their own courses are priceless.
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THE IMPORTANCE OF LIVING FULLY
Along my career I've come across executives, men and women,
who only invested on reflecting a little by the time of any
break -- in the marriage or at the corporation -- or even
worse, when they are admitted to hospital in one intensive
care unit. It's only in a dramatic moment of a limit-situation
that they have allowed themselves to rethink about life, career,
along with their past and future. Some saw the forced interruption
as a kind of blessing. They used to say "If this hadn't
happened, I would never think of changing my life style".
They spent so many years tied to the routine and obligations
of work that they didn't have time to think if they were really
doing the best for themselves, for their relatives and even
for their companies. It was just at the difficult times that
they realized they had left behind some personal projects.
Many lost their jobs exactly because they hadn't stopped in
time to evaluate their courses.
When I decided to leave on sabbatical, there was specially
one thing that worried me: the great number of well-prepared
people who didn't have any project. They simply led their
lives as automatons. This was a film I didn't want to repeat.
I didn't want to let myself fascinated by the career and abandon
my personal life at some corner. I felt the necessity of stopping
and reflecting about my own condition in the world, confirming
or modifying courses.
The first steps were very hard: negotiating cession of time
with my partners, acquiring support and enthusiasm of family
and friends. But the hardest step was, certainly, the intimate
negotiation, the one which demanded to give up established
patterns and moved with comfort zones. Why is it so difficult
to notice what is latent? What is so frightening about looking
at yourself, asking what makes you satisfied and disatisfied,
examining slowlier your own baggage, trying to envisage opportunities
to, eventually, redirect the career or the personal life?
The answer is: because the new scares.
In this beginning of millennium, we are thrown into a new
world, whether we get frightened or not. With the globalization
and internet, the Earth has turned into a village, with demands
and perspectives never imagined before. The new economic order
has made the competition for quality something tough. The
enterprises need, more than ever, to unlock the criativity
of their colaborators. As they invest on the creation of new
products and new markets, you also need to invest on making
your dreams come true.
Create your ideal model of work. Look for a friend or mentor
to help you prioritize efforts and develop criterion. Check
if you are qualified for your dream. Try to direct the career
from the pleasure and reenergizing. Make a self-evaluation
and try to see the reality of the market. Listen to your emotions
and feelings, don't let yourself go by the conveniences, don't
wait until you are shaken by a great shock. Establish what
success is for you. After all, the definition of success is
different for each one.
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PAST, FUTURE, PRESENT
The Italian sociologist Domenico De Masi supports the idea
that we are coming into a post-industrial period, in which
it doesn't make sense any more to see the production as in
a factory of one century ago. On the other hand, he defends
that it is utopic the idea of win over the unemployment. For
him the solution would be transforming the lack of work into
release of work, increasing the individual time for the leisure.
For this, it would be necessary a deep inner, individual and
collective transformation. He argues that the technological
advance created a new economy and this economy surpassed the
bareers of time and space, making it unnecessary to carry
out, in a massive way, tasks in standard periods of time.
The social time, it is said, shoud respect the biological
rythms and the psychological time. The silent lever of the
industrial society, seen by the sociologist, is the desire
of earning more. Of the post-industrial one, the desire of
happiness.
You and I, who live in both the industrial period and in
the post-industrial one, live a phase of changes and conflicts.
Even being conditioned by the state of the economy, it's up
to us a critical attitude. We have already seen the wonders
and the horrors of human artifacts and we already know that
nature isn't inexhaustible. We are awaking for the search
of the happiness exempt of the power of shopping. The creative
leisure, flag inaugurated by De Masi, can really be a platform
of changing for better.
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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
People usually make me these questions:
1- How long must a sabbatical period last?
A- The necessary time to produce changes. The duration will
depend on each specific project. Traditionally the sabbatical
policies at the universities offer a whole year in each six
worked years. In the business environment there's no point
in keeping to these terms.
2- Does the sabbatical disturb the career?
A- No. On the contrary, after a sabbatical the professional
knows better what he wants and he's busier with what he does
(he or she). This interests the companies with the future
vision.
3- Can one leave on sabbatical with the family?
A- Of course one can. Sabbatical doesn't involve isolation.
The coexistence with the family can be an essential part of
it and even one of its reasons of being. It's the case of
the person who's feeling the pressure of requalifying the
contact with the children.
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