Job + meaning = purpose
Posted on | May 15, 2012 | No Comments
The late American poet, Robert Frost, was not afraid of hard labour. After a short stint at Harvard University in the late 1890s, he moved to a farm his grandfather had purchased in New Hampshire and worked it for nine years, spending the wee hours writing many of the poems that brought him fame. Frost often chronicled the actions of ordinary men and later, teaching at some of America’s most elite schools, observed of white-collar life: “The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.” For Frost, honest toil and teaching enabled him to pursue his real work: writing the poetry that won him four Pulitzer Prizes. His wry observation presaged a modern cri de coeur. London Business School professor, Lynda Gratton, has written widely on the changing work paradigm and our quest for meaning. “The formula for the traditional deal at work is: I work… to earn money… which I use… to consume stuff… which makes me happy,” Gratton says. “I suggested that this deal is not a sufficient description of what work can and should be.” Gratton proposes an alternative deal, where individuals work to gain productive experiences that form the basis of their happiness. In The Shift: The future of work is already here, she provides 10 questions designed to help define a productive experience and what ‘meaningful’ really means. In a new book published this month, How Will You Measure Your Life?, Harvard professor Clayton Christensen picks up the meaningful work theme, distinguishing between ‘hygiene’ factors – status, compensation, job security, work conditions and the like – and motivation factors – challenging work, recognition, responsibility, and personal growth. “As we were all considering our post-graduation plans, we’d try to keep ourselves honest,” Christensen reflects on his early years. “‘What about doing something you really love?’ ‘Don’t worry,’ came back the answer. ‘This is just for a couple of years. I’ll pay off my loans, get myself in a good financial position. Then I’ll chase my real dreams.’” One of the world’s most highly regarded innovation researchers, Christensen has written of his battle with cancer and the challenge of balancing hygiene and motivation factors to achieve work with deep meaning. “Once you get this right,” he says, “the more measureable aspects of your job will fade in importance. As the saying goes; find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
Embrace the future – it’s here
Posted on | May 14, 2012 | 1 Comment
Mindfulness – the art of conscious living – is the new black, and not only in the overworked corporate world. “Mindfulness helps you to build what I call ‘mind strength’, ” according to therapist and meditation teacher, Ron Alexander. “Your awareness and consciousness become really toned. This is an excellent strategy for becoming successful in your profession, as well as the bigger game of transforming yourself and the people who work with and for you.” Alexander and his ilk advocate what Buddhists have believed for millennia: that the universe exists only at this time and at this place. A challenging concept for many, it might prove to be a critical technique for dealing with increasing levels of volatility and ambiguity. “When we believe in a continuing line of time from past to present to future, it becomes very easy for us to construct mental pictures of the world, to construct theories about how the world works,” says the UK-based Dogen Sangha Buddhist group. “And because those theories, the theories of Newton and Darwin, seem to describe our real situations very well, we believe that they are true. We believe in the religion of science.” Unfortunately, many such unshakeable truths become debunked as society, and scientific knowledge, progress. How, then, to prepare for a future that threatens more upheaval and polarity than we’ve seen in generations? Perhaps by taking a leaf out of the book of science fiction author, William Gibson, who announced in 1993 that “the future is already here – it’s just not very evenly distributed”. In a seminal piece on Generation Flux in Fast Company in January, writer Robert Safian notes the futility of searching for the ‘right’ forecast – the road map and model that will define the next era. “The next decade or two will be defined more by fluidity than by any new, settled paradigm,” Safian says. “If there is a pattern to all this, it is that there is no pattern. The most valuable insight is that we are, in a critical sense, in a time of chaos.”
Take a weirdo to lunch
Posted on | May 11, 2012 | No Comments
History, it’s often said, is written by the victors. If so, they’re likely to be members of a Deviant’s Hall of Fame, says management thinker Tom Peters, since “history’s progress – from the dawn of civilisation until today – is measured and marked by the assaults of non-conformists”. To mark his 60th birthday, Peters penned a short manifesto, This I Believe, encapsulating decades’ worth of learnings. One of his top tips: embrace the marginalised. “I have an abiding passion for the Weird Ones,” says Peters, famous for extolling the value of taking a “weirdo” to lunch. “I love the 26-year-old who interrupts her boss. I love the heckler at a political event…Hecklers alone (with incredible energy, persistence, and luck) change the dimensions of the playing field.” Successful companies such as Pixar and Apple have made it part of their corporate credo to “welcome ideas from misfits and malcontents”, add Idea Hunter authors, Andy Boynton and Bill Fischer. “They’re the people who are on their way out the door because their weird, wild or just plain different ideas aren’t being given an opportunity to grow.” Trouble is, such people are often challenging to work for or to manage, which means organisations shy away from hiring or trying to retain them. And that’s costly in innovation terms. “Neither (Steve) Jobs’ management style nor the sort of unconventional processes he used at Apple… would survive long in most organisations today,” says Simon Rucker, of London design and innovation consultancy, Seymourpowell. “Collegiality may make the process more pleasant and more fun, but that’s a recipe for becoming an innovation also-ran.” Rucker cites the example of prolific innovator, Thomas Edison, who regularly drove his Menlo Park employees to breaking point. “The real challenge for organisations trying to innovate transformationally is not finding better insights or developing better intellectual property,” he says. It’s “providing the type of structure, resources, governance, and culture that actually enable the abrasive, original Steve Jobses of the world to do what they’re great at.”
