Making Work Meaningful
Co-written by Dave and Wendy Ulrich
This morning, you got out of bed and got ready for work. You may have found a sense of meaning, purpose, even abundance in your work today–or found world-weary tedium, frustration, and despair. Which was it for you, and for the people you lead?
Friedrich Nietzsche notes:
He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.
People who have a why to work can bear with almost any how. Organizations are primary settings not only for accomplishing assignments but also for finding an abiding sense of meaning in life. Work is a universal setting in which to pursue our universal search for meaning. Great leaders create a sense of abundance (meaning, purpose, hope, pleasure) that engages people and delivers value to stakeholders.
We encounter leaders who formulate great strategies, structures, and processes but overlook the heart and soul that make organizations meaningful places to work. The questions both leaders and followers wrestle with connect around the search for the why of work—the search for meaning, purpose. Finding that why infuses organizations with a sense of abundance—having enough and to spare of what matters most.
In life, meaning is tied less to belongings and more to emotional bonds, a sense of purpose, and using one’s skills to serve the needs of others. In organizations, meaning and abundance are more about what we do with what we have than about what we have to begin with or what we accumulate. They are more about finding the resources to deal with our challenges than about having unlimited resources to make work easy.
Work will always be work—sometimes monotonous or routine, sometimes stressful to the max—but we believe work can still contribute more than just money to our lives. Leaders can develop the resources to make employees work harder and to make work work for employees. There is a strong business case for helping people find meaning at work. As employees find meaning, they contribute to the broadest purposes for which organizations exist: creating value for customers, investors, and communities.
People find meaning not only in their personal lives but also through the organizations where they learn, worship, socialize, and play. Meaning can be discovered in friendships, families, neighborhoods, religious communities, schools, clubs, and work.
People find meaning in many places and activities. Meaning is the object of a nearly universal search, and work is a nearly universal setting for engaging in this quest. In our book The Why of Work, we explore how leaders are meaning makers to respond to the economic and psychological recession too many face.
Photos by h.koppdelaney and Philerooski. Licensed under CC.
Dave – first, welcome to MWM! We're big fans and it is great to have you as a contributor. I hope that this sparks meaningful dialog.
One question for you: many leaders “get” why meaning matters, and how it impacts business results. Others don't – they see this as a “soft” motivator, and also something that will not impact the bottom line. Do you have a few quick responses to help underline the value of meaning at work for the second category?
Thanks for your response. The discussion of meaning should not start with meaning, but with the outcomes of meaning. If your hard nosed executive is interested in employee productivity, customer share, investor (shareholder) value, or community reputation, the creation of meaning among employees will be a lead factor in makign these things happen. HR too often starts with their concerns, not those of their business leaders.
Dave – that's a great point. Framing the discussion around business challenges, with “meaning” as a *solution* vs. and end unto itself makes great sense. Something like – “create meaning to achieve business results”. Thanks!
What would be a suggested resource to demonstrate the link between those improved business outcomes and meaning at work. I assume your book, The Why of Work, includes some context on this, but is there anything that you suggest?
There is great research by Great Places to Work, Mark Huselid, Jeffrey Pfeffer.
We also talk about this in our Why of Work book … to show that there is a line of sight between meaning and making money.