Sabbaticals and the Bottom Line: Double Benefit for People and Business

As the days get shorter and we commute to the office in the dark, thoughts naturally turn to longer days in exotic locales. Turns out that a little R&R might be just the thing to recharge the batteries and create value for your business.

Margaret Shih, professor in management and organizations at UCLA Anderson, points to a 2010 study from the Journal of Applied Psychology that shows how seeking diverse cultural connections during international sabbaticals can increase creativity, making for more successful entrepreneurs. "They come back revitalized and rejuvenated, and their experience within a different culture allowed them to look at their work in a different way,” she says.

Professor Kevin McCardle, who used his time away from Anderson last year to learn from other educational institutions here and abroad, stresses the value that came from acting as a kind of exchange student between countries and institutions. "I think the going away part is important," he says. "You go and you see how other places and other people do things. I came back with new ideas, new ways of working."

Entrepreneur James Green ('88) knows the value of a sabbatical. After selling his latest venture, he also sold the family house and nearly all their belongings and bought the Ondine, a 55-foot catamaran. For the next year, with his wife, their 10-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son as his crew, Green sailed down to the Caribbean, across the Atlantic and throughout the Aegean Sea. When he flew back to the United States for job interviews, worried that his time away would be a ding to his resume, he found the opposite was true. "Everyone wanted to meet me, and getting meetings and trying to get new work was easier than it'd ever been," he says. "This made what I had done before look much more successful. It repositioned me."

Check out the Assets Digital story “Seven Year Itch” for more on the value of a good sabbatical.

Comments

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