The key is to have debates and analysis and discussions that are fact-based. And for everyone to have access to that raw data, the raw facts. I would go back to 1776 and the model of the public square. Democratizing data enables comparative analysis of the services the government provides and the investments it makes, leading to a better government….

By democratizing data, the American people will be able to hold their government accountable, based on evidence rather than talk.

That’s essentially the argument of the next step in my model: to bring about change, you have to make the issue visible — and do it with evidence you can measure.

Why is visibility so important? Let’s go back to the issue of worklife balance. Suppose there was an easy way to tell how seriously every organization took worklife balance. With that info, we’d have several carrots & sticks we could use to push for change:

• Stack the Deck in favor of worklife-friendly organizations, such as giving them tax breaks, a leg up in bidding for government contracts, etc. The higher the score, the bigger the bennies.
• Create a movement to hold organizations accountable. If a company’s branding is all about how much they care about your family, why isn’t this “family-friendly” company helping its staff take care of their families? If their ads say, women should buy our soap/shoes/magazine because it’ll help them feel empowered, what about empowering the mothers who work for them so they can have a career and take care of their family without being a nervous, exhausted wreck?
• Create competition between organizations — for bragging rights with customers, for competing to hire the best employees, etc.
• Make it easier for workers to negotiate for more worklife balance, either through their union if they have one or through lobbying inside their organization if they don’t.

Here’s the catch: first we have to figure out how we are going to measure worklife balance. And that’s no easy task. It’s something I plan to work on over the next year or so. It’s worth putting the time in, because visibility pays off.

Visibility alone won’t solve most problems. But to solve most problems, you need to make them visible.

A side note:

When Kundra was asked, “Do you worry that all this data will come out and benefit only the few elite or tech-savvy groups that know how to use it?” he dodged the question. But even though this issue is near and dear to my heart, I think we ought to give him a break on this one. His real answer was probably something like, “Are you out of your freakin’ mind? Do you have any idea how insanely hard it’s going to be to wrestle all this data out of the claws of every bureaucrat who’s terrified of what will happen when everyone can see what they do? Not to mention all the corporations and everybody else who’s data we collect? You really think hospitals, insurance companies, and drug companies want any of their shared out in public? This is trench war, baby. Yes, eventually we want to make the data truly accessible to everybody, but first we’ve got to make it accessible at all.”

Not the kids of computer programmers. The market’s done a truly terrible job so far at creating computer programming jobs with worklife balance. But as our population ages, the number of people who absolutely have to have worklife balance — to take care of their elderly parents and their kids — will grow so large that people with more market power will get real worklife balance. When researchers talk about how companies will be forced to use worklife balance to assist in hiring and retention, these are the folks the researchers are thinking about. Their kids will be okay (eventually).

But janitors’ kids? Even if the market eventually provides work life balance for janitors — and that includes creating janitor jobs that pay enough so janitors don’t have to work two or more jobs & insanely long hours to just put food on the table — it’s going to be a very, very, very, very long time coming.

So if we just choose by ourselves, here’s how it’ll play out. If you’re clever enough to be born into a family where your parents are professionals, your parents will have the time and flexibility to go to your soccer games, to help you with homework, to really spend time with you. And if you’re born into a family where your parents have low-wage jobs, they won’t.

In other words, choosing by ourselves means we’re stacking the deck even further against kids on the bottom.

This is why the first step in the model — figuring out what are our values — is so crucial. If you focus on the value of worklife balance without also focusing on the value of equal opportunity, you’re gonna leave janitors’ kids behind. It’s scary how many good people who write about worklife balance miss this.

(It could also be that they are so elitist that they don’t give a crap about low-wage workers and their kids. But they seem like good folks, so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt)

Bottom line: if we value work life balance and we also value giving everyone a fair shot, we’ve got to Choose Together.

• 63% of us believe we don’t have enough time for our spouses or partners
• 74% of us say we don’t have enough time for our children
• 35% of adults are putting significant time toward caring for an elder relative.

Bottom line?
• Half of us want fewer hours
• Half of us would change our schedules
• More than half would trade money for a day off
• Three-quarters of us want flexible work options

And because more women are choosing jobs with worklife balance, and more companies are choosing to create those kinds of jobs:

But the most important component driving the change is that women are finally understood to be good for business…. And what’s remarkable about the process is that the change is coming as individual women everywhere negotiate to work the way it works best for them. And it’s coming in major waves, as companies start to open up their minds and company policies.

Oh, to live in the fantasy world of business gurus. Can I move there? And can I bring my friends — the ones who, forget about worklife balance, would be grateful just to work less than 50 hours a week? The world we seem to be stuck in is more like one Fortune Magazine described a few years ago, before the recession:

[Today,] declaring your interest in a human-sized job is like announcing a disease….

Either you’re a maniacal workaholic who runs the world–or you’re a Dilbert, punching a clock with little power and authority. Too many businesspeople think that’s just the way of the world. “You can’t have it all,” they say. But let’s be very clear on what “all” is. People want to work at the level they’re capable of and still have time for things outside work that nourish them…. To say this is “wanting it all” is like saying people should have to choose between food and water.

Even at the top of the corporate food chain, Fortune found a desire for work life balance but little room for it. Fortune’s 2005 survey of senior FORTUNE500 male executives found that

84% say they’d like job options that let them realize their professional aspirations while having more time for things outside work; 55% say they’re willing to sacrifice income… In addition, 73% believe it’s possible to restructure senior management jobs in ways that would both increase productivity and make more time available for life outside the office.

Of course there’s a roadblock to reform: fear. FORTUNE’s survey found that even though most senior-level men want better options, nearly half believe that for an executive to take up the matter with his boss will hurt his career.

And that’s the folks who have the best options in the market for individual choices. For the rest of us? Even Womenomics admits that “Almost half of working parents believe their jobs might be in jeopardy if they work flexibly.”

Step 1 of the model asks two questions: “What Are Our Values?” And if we choose to realize these values, “Are These Choices We’ve Got to Choose Together?” If most of us value worklife balance, the answer to the second question is pretty clear — we’re going to have to choose together.