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Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Rethinking Work-Life Balance with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 10-15-25
00:13:18
In this episode, Amber Walsh, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP, joins Scott Becker to explore the evolving concept of work-life balance, how professionals can sustain long-term success through flexibility and moderation,
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- [00:00]
A
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Business and the Becker Private Equity Podcast. I am thrilled today to be joined by Amber Walsh. Amber joins us regularly. She's a lawyer, a leader. She serves on the executive committee at McGuire Woods. She's just done a tremendous job of building the firm and building the healthcare practice. She works at the intersection of private equity and business and healthcare. We're going to talk to her today about this concept of work life balance and how this concept of thoughts are evolving around this as the world evolves and so forth. Amber, take it away. Give us your thoughts. What are you seeing out there in terms of thoughts on work life balance?
- [00:40]
B
Yeah, thanks, Scott. This is a really interesting concept to me. And you know, sometimes we overemphasize precise words that are used. And really what's important is the thought behind the words. But it's very interesting, this phrase work life balance and how it has shifted over time. It's actually started to be used frequently in the 80s, and it goes all the way back to the UK to some early official programs that were done in the UK that were work life balance programs. And it came out of kind of the labor movement, but it moved over to become very popular in the U.S. and when I was coming out of law school and starting to look for my first jobs, and then as I elevated and came into recruiting myself in the early 2000s for the firm, it became a very important phrase. It was a lot of the nomenclature about what young lawyers and not just law firms, but this concept of work life balance certainly transcends industries, was an important goal that many professionals or those looking for their perfect career were seeking. This idea of a balance, a job that allowed you to be more human, that you were beyond just what you were as a worker or a lawyer in our cases. But what became really interesting is the shift towards viewing that with a recognition of the limiting nature of the phrase work life balance. And one of the first people I ever heard speak about this, and this was more than 10 years ago, was Indira Newy, who you sure know and many of your listeners know, was the longtime female CEO of PepsiCo. And I remember hearing her speak about how she thought that phrase was so limiting and put an excessive kind of emphasis on perfection and a static state of balance that did not reflect her reality as a working mother, which she felt was more of a juggle. And so you see this people kind of poking holes in the phrase work life balance and it's kind of gone out of style a little bit for a variety of reasons. But it is very interesting because I think the whole idea is that you are using that phrase as a goal to help people often as they are coming into parenthood or balancing other things in their lives. There I did it. I just used the word balance unintentionally. The goal is to have some kind of, you know, assistance to people, to recognize and to give guidance to your colleagues, the people that you are managing, as to how you can have a happy and fruitful career despite all these other things in your life beyond what you are as a career professional. But it's been very interesting on how that phrase in particular has kind of gone out of style a little bit in favor of some other phrases.
- [04:20]
A
No, I think it's a fascinating topic when you look at going back 10, 20 years ago and even longer being in these big jobs, whether as a lawyer, a resident, a young doctor, so many different jobs, young investment banker, it was just a complete grind and people were working hours that were not sustainable. And thus you got this whole movement, particularly as the world got more gender balanced, of you can't possibly do both, work 80 hours a week and have a good family life or, or raise children and so many other things. And it became much more part of the discussion on everything, of how do we find the right balance between work and life and everything else. And then what I think has happened, and I love your take on this, what's happened over the last 10, 15 years with the evolution of the. The cell phone being omnipresent in everything you do and life and business often being combined on one phone, where, where you almost are constantly trying to manage, not work, life, balance, balance, but manage work and life, manage professional goals and family goals, manage professional goals and outside goals. And so it becomes more things do blend together, being a perfect balance. And I love the concept from the CEO of Pepsi, former CEO of Pepsi, who had a great, great run as a leader there of it. It's really juggling both in a constant assessment versus an absolute quote, unquote, balance. The other thing that I think comes out of the discussion is what we find is that most people still have to work quite hard at a certain level to be really successful. It doesn't mean they have to be 80 hours a week. They do have to guard against burnout for sure. But there is a certain mental and personal commitment to excelling at whatever you do. And what I see is I often see tremendous high energy people excelling at both work and with their families and with their children. And it's not easy. It's not easy, but it's hard to do, to excel at a lot of different things without a tremendous amount of energy. And I think it's trying to understand how do you create that energy, how to maintain that energy that allows you to be great at home and great with work and to do both, as opposed to this perfect balance. I'm willing to work this many hours, only do this much stuff and do that much stuff, but how do you blend things together? And I think it's become much more that blend. Amber, correct me on what I've said here. Tell me how you view it differently.
- [07:04]
B
No, I completely agree. And I really think the whole idea of the work life balance, to go back to that phrase and really what it's intended to do, I think in its. In its purest and best form, is to allow people to have that kind of harmonious, happy existence where they feel like they can sustain what they are doing for the long haul. That's what the idea is really intended for. And like most things, you know that I'm a moderation person. Like most things, I think when people are giving advice on how to achieve that work life balance, if that's your goal, to balance, but you also incorporate in these ideas of the juggle, right? Because the juggle is more of a dynamic kind of shifting concept where balance is a little bit more static with kind of micro adjustments. If you're going to take all the pieces of advice that you can get and have that balance with the ability to juggle be your goal. It's all about moderation. It's all about having some kind of rules of the road for yourself and for your life and how you're going to incorporate all these different aspects of your own personal needs and your family needs into your given day, but also to recognize, to your point, that to be successful, you are still part of a team. And the rules that you've set for yourself can't be rigid and inflexible every single day of every month of every year of your career. And to be successful, to be a part of a team, you have to sometimes let one of those balls drop from the air. One of the bouncy balls. You know, people talk about the glass balls that break versus the bouncy balls that you can let go, you have to have that flexibility and that moderation. And if you can take all of those ideas, not to kind of overplay this analogy, take all those ideas of finding the balance that you create for yourself, learning to juggle the different things, but also Recognize that you have to have some flexibility and be able to shift based on what your team, in our case, our clients, our colleagues need at a given time. That's, I think, kind of the perfect recipe to being able to be successful and happy and to do what we do for a very long time.
- [09:48]
A
I think that's right. I just love that take. It's this concept of you have to thrive personally while you're thriving professionally and having that overlap of what thrives for you and what thrives for the team and for clients. And you also know, as you talk about moderation, you have clients that are 24, 7, demanding, and they could be so for a period of time. But at the end of the day, if they're like that every single day, it's very hard to work with them for a very long time without totally burning out and missing this. This concept of balancing your professional life and one's personal life and your other goals and one's other life goals. And I think this. This concept of looking at it is, where is that overlap between where you can thrive and where the business can thrive. You can thrive professionally and personally. Is it. But it's also. I love the idea of having a set of sort of guidelines and rules. You know, like when I was a younger lawyer, it was, I could leave the house early, but I got to be home for dinner with the kids. And with different ways I tried to balance rules in life, rules at different times in life, and just a billion different things like that. I work every day, but I would always take Sunday off just to make sure I could recuperate, whatever those rules might be. And there might be times that you bend those rules, but you can't bend them too much without losing yourself as well. No, I think it's a great and ongoing and evolving topic. And I think your point on, if you want to do this for the long run, you better find a way to hit that right, blend that right, balance, whatever you want to call it, to make it work. So you could thrive personally, thrive professionally, and contribute at the level you want to professionally, too.
- [11:22]
B
Absolutely. And to take tips from your colleagues, including your colleagues that are younger than you. I learned so much from our younger colleagues on how they achieve that balance or are at least making little modifications, little adjustments that allow them to, you know, be happier and therefore be more productive. You know, those tips that we all get from each other and then kind of put it together on the way that works for us. I think that's what you do, since this is the goal. This is the goal to be able to sustain your career.
- [12:01]
A
And we've also seen people that are so yes. Oriented and such terrific people, but they have such a hard time setting those boundaries that they can't stand a job on a profession, even though they do so well. And they're so good at it because they can't sort of control themselves and stop themselves from taking on one more project, one more thing, that level of perfectionism which is so important. And it's fascinating to watch those people as well. And then they have to find spots themselves where the natural blend works for them without them overwhelming themselves, like almost overheating themselves, their engine.
- [12:36]
B
Absolutely.
- [12:38]
A
I find it fascinating to watch because we've seen so many cows that are so great that just can't find that way to set boundaries or say no. And thus they do great professionally for a period of time, but they end up having to, ultimately, they can't figure out a way to sustain it, so end up leaving whatever they're doing and doing something different where they maybe could find a better balance. But it's something that if you could police yourself and govern yourself and you end up far better for the long run and knowing yourself. Anyways. Amber Walsh, tremendous leader. I always love your leadership thoughts and how you're looking at things. It's really a great pleasure. Thank you for joining us in the Becker business and the Becker Private Equity podcast. Just fantastic. Thank you.
- [13:16]
B
Thank you, Scott.