by Alexis Spier
“I have ten minutes,” Melvin Sudbeck replied when I asked about his work-life balance. He may have been anticipating another call, arriving at his next job site, or just getting home from work. Possibly, his mind is only able to sway from work for a short period of time. Luckily, work is precisely what I wanted to ask him about. After talking with Sudbeck, I was surprised. Not because he showed many characteristics of a workaholic, but because he seems like a healthy workaholic.
What is Workaholism?
Some people wouldn’t hesitate to call Sudbeck a workaholic. He works ten hours a day and many times longer than that. When he gets home, he’s still working. Often, he is on the phone talking to employees, other companies, bidders, and clients.
“Communication is 60-70 percent of my day,” Sudbeck said. “I have about ten people that directly report to me and roughly eighty employees.”
However, a workaholic isn’t simply defined as someone who works a lot of hours. It is their inability to stop thinking about work. Malissa Clark wrote an article published in Harvard Business Review, saying, “Work dominates your thoughts and your activities, to the detriment of other aspects of your life, relationships, and health.”
Sudbeck has a wife and four kids. His two oldest boys are twins in their mid twenties. His middle son is in college and his youngest is in middle school. Sudbeck is the owner of Sudbeck Homes. His company has been building homes in the Omaha area for three decades. It is clear that Sudbeck exhibits workaholic tendencies. He is also a very giving person. He donates to the church, and he donates his time to help construct things for the high school his children attended. Sudbeck can be summed up in two words: generous and hard working.
Workaholism or Passion?
Over Easter break, Sudbeck vacationed in Winter Park, Colorado. He, his family, and a few of his friends hit the slopes for a couple days. A workaholic would struggle to enjoy this leisure time away from work. He/she might forfeit a family activity to focus on work. For example, Clark described how a workaholic ruined her family’s vacation. She was picking up a cake when she decided she had to make a phone call. The cake melted while her husband and kids waited in the car. Sudbeck’s vacation story is similar, but he didn’t ruin his family’s vacation.
I mentioned earlier how workaholics cannot separate their work from their personal life. Sudbeck can intertwine them. He could ski and answer phone calls at the same time. I mean this literally. As he was skiing down the mountain, he had an earpiece in, so when he received a call, he didn’t have to stop. Many workaholics would not be able to enjoy such an activity with work flooding their minds. Sudbeck was happy to do both.
A family friend who was with Sudbeck on the slopes recalled his time with him on the mountain. “He would start talking. I thought he was talking to me, but he was on a call.”
How could Sudbeck enjoy skiing when he kept getting phone calls? The answer is simple and another tendency of a workaholic: He’s passionate about what he does. At the core of workaholism is something that’s a positive — a passion for something. It’s the inability to throttle that passion, to turn it off, that becomes the issue. When I asked Sudbeck if he thinks he works too much, his answer was what I expected.
“Never,” he said. “I love what I do and I enjoy what I’m doing.”
I asked his wife the same question: “Yeah, probably,” she said. “Although, he’s very good when he comes home from work.”
Because they need to get things done, workaholics will often settle for mediocrity. They would rather get things done than do their best work. Sudbeck can’t afford to do that. His company builds homes. If he doesn’t demand perfection, things collapse.
Because of this, Sudbeck differs from other workaholics. He isn’t obsessed with checking things off a to-do list, even if the work isn’t sufficient. In fact, a lot of his day is unpredictable. His phone is ringing most of the day, and he’s moving from site to site. He can’t build and fix everything, so he has to delegate.
Clark notes workaholics tend to be poor delegators. Their drive to always have work to do means they’d rather take it on themselves than give it to someone else. However, Sudbeck said he has to delegate.
“A tough thing I have to tell people is they have to talk to their supervisor,” he said. “They call the shots.”
Workaholism is considered detrimental to both people who may experience it and the organizations they work for. While Sudbeck thinks he does a pretty good job delegating, employee Bill Starnes says differently.
“He has a terrible time delegating,” Starnes said. “He has his thumb on everything. At the end of the day, yes, I believe it’s detrimental. For example, I just hired a guy and he’s doing a great job. He had things lined up for today, and Melvin called him and blew up everything that he had planned. So, this morning it was chaos, because not everyone was informed on the new plan.”
His poor delegation skills pour into his regular life. On vacation, he was the one going out to buy food. When someone lost a glove, he immediately volunteered to look for it. He was happy to clean up. His generosity could have to do with the fact that he cannot take a break. To the workaholic, a break is a signal that something’s wrong.
“I can’t sit at home,” Sudbeck said. “I go crazy.”
Sudbeck is the boss, so he doesn’t have to work every minute. However, he has people to “report” to. Insurance companies are a big part of this. Making sure there is enough work for every one of his employees is a daily responsibility.
“I have to work on the business not in the business,” Sudbeck said. “People think I carry the big stick, but my job is keeping people happy.”
Work is a Hobby
Many workaholics find it impossible to disengage from work. They go to sleep thinking about work, but many people who aren’t workaholics think about work throughout the day. The difference is non workaholics want to detach from work. Their free time is important to them. I asked Sudbeck what he does when he isn’t working. To sum up his answer: When he’s not working, he’s working.
“Quite a bit of my day is going over projects,” Sudbeck said. “There’s a lot of unforeseen things I have to help my employees get through. Other things I do include bidding projects, talking to clients, and paperwork. I’m often thinking, what are the pieces I need to consider?”
Sudbeck is in his mid-fifties, and has been working on his business since he graduated high school. He loves his business and hates sitting around. I asked him if he plans on retiring soon.
“No, I don’t plan on retiring,” he said. “I’m in good shape, and I enjoy what I do. I may back off a little later in life and hand off some things. But, I have no plan on retiring.”
Sudbeck added, “I know a lot of people that retire and don’t have hobbies and nothing to stimulate themselves. They fall apart. I don’t want to be one of those people. I want to keep my mind active and challenge it. An active mind is part of physical health.”
Workaholics don’t have hobbies. They have things they enjoy doing but make little time for them. When they do make time for a hobby, they are distracted by work and would prefer doing a work project over that activity. Sudbeck does not have many hobbies. He sometimes enjoys fishing and skiing. As his kids grow up, they’ve done more travelling. However, none of these things excite him like his work does. I asked him if he considers work a hobby.
“Heck, yes,” Sudbeck said. “You might think that’s sick, but I love it.”
Workaholism is known to be a negative tendency. These people prioritize work over everything else. They struggle to delegate. They can’t sit still, and they are constantly working or thinking about work. Sudbeck has some of these tendencies, but he is also the very best of a workaholic. He is extremely passionate about what he does. He builds reliable homes for people. He has a friend group who understands him, and they travel together every year. When you are this passionate about work and health, it’s hard to call his workaholism a detrimental thing.