Speaker 1: Hey, this is Christ with Hacking your Leadership. Today's discussion
Speaker 1: on employee engagement. I want to talk about an article
Speaker 1: that I found on the Fast Company website from last
Speaker 1: year by Stephanie Vosa. It's called the Job Hater's Guide
Speaker 1: to Finding More Meaning in your Work. And I like
Speaker 1: this because you know, I've known a lot of job
Speaker 1: haters in my life, and you know there there are
Speaker 1: two different types of job haters. And I want to
Speaker 1: be clear on who this is for. If you know
Speaker 1: people in your life who who don't just hate their job,
Speaker 1: they hate jobs like they just don't want to work
Speaker 1: at all, this is not who this is about. This
Speaker 1: is this is about people who are having difficulty finding
Speaker 1: meaning or love of their job and trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how to find that or to discover whether or
Speaker 1: not you should move on from that. And and but
Speaker 1: it has to start with this, this concept, or this
Speaker 1: at least the pretext of that. You you want it
Speaker 1: to work if it's possible to work, and if it's
Speaker 1: not possible to work, then you know you go a different,
Speaker 1: different route. But you have to you have to go
Speaker 1: into it with good faith and hopefully you have a
Speaker 1: boss or a leadership team that also goes and meets
Speaker 1: you halfway in that good faith. So the job Hater's
Speaker 1: Guide to fining more meaning in your work. I like
Speaker 1: this article because it talks about how, first of all,
Speaker 1: it's every person's responsibility to decide whether or not they
Speaker 1: can love their job or not. And I like that
Speaker 1: element of it because I've never it's never sat well
Speaker 1: with me that someone that it's someone else's responsibility to
Speaker 1: make me happy at my job. Do I hope they
Speaker 1: feel a sense of responsibility to do it? Absolutely? As
Speaker 1: a leader, should they feel a sense of responsibility. Sure,
Speaker 1: But as an individual person, I know that if I
Speaker 1: if I put all of my eggs in the basket
Speaker 1: of my happiness rises and falls on the actions of
Speaker 1: my boss, then that is a recipe for disaster, because
Speaker 1: I'll feel like I don't have any control over my
Speaker 1: own situation anymore. I need to know that I have
Speaker 1: some control over the way that I approach things and
Speaker 1: the way that I, you know, set my mindset to,
Speaker 1: you know, towards something or how I shift my mindset
Speaker 1: to making things better or worse. So I think it's
Speaker 1: an important article for figuring out whether or not the
Speaker 1: job that you're in is right for you? And and
Speaker 1: and if you're on the fence, if you don't know
Speaker 1: whether it's right for you, how to figure it out
Speaker 1: in a way that makes it most likely to work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it's it's such a great call out. And
Speaker 2: I think it's I think sometimes this happens a lot
Speaker 2: where it's kind of like it's all on leaders to
Speaker 2: like figure out culture or belonging or engagement or just
Speaker 2: overall satisfaction with the job. And like, look, they play
Speaker 2: a major part of that. We wouldn't have this podcast
Speaker 2: and be talking about these things for so many years if,
Speaker 2: in fact, we didn't understand that leadership is a major
Speaker 2: component of how people feel about work. We know that
Speaker 2: there is a major component of all of this that
Speaker 2: is the responsibility of leaders. And when you raise your
Speaker 2: hand and say I want to be a leader, you
Speaker 2: accept that responsibility.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: But I think in these types of articles and things
Speaker 2: and data that we're seeing in polls and surveys, I
Speaker 2: think a part of this is that you you have
Speaker 2: to have somebody who also is looking for that opportunity
Speaker 2: to have an engaging workplace, somebody that's looking for an
Speaker 2: opportunity to do really well, to to show up, to
Speaker 2: challenge themselves, to you know, to not just be okay
Speaker 2: with you know, maybe mediocrity or complacency. Like there's a
Speaker 2: part of this that if you want to have an engaging,
Speaker 2: you know environment, if you want to find meaning in
Speaker 2: the work that you do, you also have to be
Speaker 2: open to finding out what that meaning is.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And it can and it won't. It won't always be
Speaker 2: on day one, page one of what's going on here.
Speaker 2: There can be meaning that you can find in a
Speaker 2: lot of places and for a lot of reasons. But
Speaker 2: I think for me, as you were talking through that's
Speaker 2: exactly what I was thinking, is like there has to
Speaker 2: be some element of this has to be the person
Speaker 2: as well, being in a place in life where they
Speaker 2: are searching for meaning, but in a very open and
Speaker 2: positive way to figure out how do I get the
Speaker 2: meaning that I need in the moment that I have
Speaker 2: to be able to move into the next place that
Speaker 2: I want to be. And I think that that's a
Speaker 2: you know, whether we wanted to find that as somebody
Speaker 2: who is overall positive or has good energy or is curious,
Speaker 2: like there's a lot of ways that we talk about
Speaker 2: that but for me, that's kind of at the core
Speaker 2: of what this.
Speaker 1: Means, right right. You see it all the time, and
Speaker 1: you know, you have people who who started saying from
Speaker 1: middle school when you said what do you want to be,
Speaker 1: and they go, I want to be a doctor or
Speaker 1: I want to be a lawyer. And they started saying
Speaker 1: that when they were eleven, and then you come to
Speaker 1: find out that when they're thirty five or forty and
Speaker 1: they've been a doctor or a lawyer for five or
Speaker 1: ten or fifteen years or whatnot, and they are miserable
Speaker 1: and burnt out and they quit that it was never
Speaker 1: what they wanted anyway. They were doing it for you know,
Speaker 1: a family member or you know, expectations from family or
Speaker 1: culture or whatever it is. That that's where it was
Speaker 1: rooted in. And so you know, this, this idea of
Speaker 1: being open to finding meaning starts with this with the
Speaker 1: ability to not assign what you believe that meaning is
Speaker 1: going to be first, and then try to make your
Speaker 1: job fit into that. What it is is trying to
Speaker 1: find meaning with this idea that you might not know
Speaker 1: what the definition of that is, yet you might have
Speaker 1: some idea of it. You might know what your values
Speaker 1: are Hopefully you know what your values are. Hopefully you
Speaker 1: know what the values of the organization are and that
Speaker 1: those align. Because I'll tell you when my values, my
Speaker 1: personal values, and the values of the organization I'm working
Speaker 1: for are aligned, it is very easy to find meaning
Speaker 1: in the work because the things that I'm doing are
Speaker 1: are done through the lens of what those shared values are.
Speaker 1: And I could be doing the exact same task or
Speaker 1: project or work whatever it is for a company whose
Speaker 1: values I did not align with, and it does not
Speaker 1: feel like I've found meaning in my work. It does
Speaker 1: not feel like I enjoy that work and it's the
Speaker 1: exact same work. So what's the different, Well, the difference
Speaker 1: is whether or not the work that I'm doing I
Speaker 1: can connect it to something broader, that is something that
Speaker 1: really hits home on my values and makes me feel
Speaker 1: like I'm accomplishing something because it is align with my values.
Speaker 1: And so just kind of like shifting your mindset is
Speaker 1: the first step of this is not starting with a
Speaker 1: preconceived notion of what you define meaning is and then
Speaker 1: trying to like fit the round peg into the square hole.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of thinking about, Okay, what can I control,
Speaker 1: what things are very easy to take inventory of and
Speaker 1: from a from a value standpoint, and then you know
Speaker 1: and and then going back in and saying, Okay, what
Speaker 1: can I find in the work that I already do
Speaker 1: that I would say is a positive thing or fits
Speaker 1: towards that, instead of just dwelling on the things that
Speaker 1: I think are not working towards that, or the negative things.
Speaker 1: If you're always finding the negative things, then it's going
Speaker 1: to be very easy to think that they're all negative.
Speaker 1: And if you're able to find the positive things, it's
Speaker 1: going to be easy to think that your work is
Speaker 1: positive and that it is fitting with something that you
Speaker 1: can find meaning in. It's one of those cliche whether
Speaker 1: you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.
Speaker 1: I want to go over some of the things that
Speaker 1: you can do besides just shifting your mindset, the actual
Speaker 1: actionables that you can do to try to find more
Speaker 1: meaning in your work. But first I'm gonna get to
Speaker 1: one of our sponsors. All right, So, if you're trying
Speaker 1: to find more meaning in your job or figure out
Speaker 1: whether or not it's the right job for you, and
Speaker 1: you've already shifted your mindset, so you've already tried to
Speaker 1: find the things that you can look at that you
Speaker 1: see as a positive of your job. And if you
Speaker 1: work forty hours a week, then hopefully you find things
Speaker 1: that tick up somewhere between five, ten, fifteen, twenty hours
Speaker 1: of your job are positive things. And the things that
Speaker 1: you that you don't you know, really thrive on or
Speaker 1: that you love doing are are a lesser than forty
Speaker 1: hour thing. So if you if you focus on those
Speaker 1: things and you find the gratitude in those things, and
Speaker 1: you've aligned with your values, the next step is to
Speaker 1: kind of recraft the job. So what steps can you
Speaker 1: take to make those things that take up part of
Speaker 1: your week, what things can you do to make them
Speaker 1: take up more of your week? And and how can
Speaker 1: you spend less time on the things that are not
Speaker 1: as as as meaningful. And that doesn't mean eliminating things
Speaker 1: that you just don't like doing. That that's the that's
Speaker 1: the simplistic way to say I don't want to do
Speaker 1: I don't want to do work. There's always going to
Speaker 1: be things that you don't enjoy doing in your job.
Speaker 1: But if you can make the majority of the time
Speaker 1: that you spend in your job beyond things that you
Speaker 1: do find meaning and enjoyment in. Then it can make
Speaker 1: the mundane things are the things that you don't find
Speaker 1: meaning in. It can make them go by far quicker.
Speaker 1: They can make them not feel as as draining emotions
Speaker 1: or or mentally, if you know that right around the
Speaker 1: corner is more work that you can do, Like I
Speaker 1: love I love delivering you know, kind of you know,
Speaker 1: conversations around coaching and goals and accomplishing goals. I can't
Speaker 1: stand the formal performance, appraisal, evaluation delivering thing because to me,
Speaker 1: it's a formality that if I've done the right things
Speaker 1: throughout the quarter, then this should just be a very
Speaker 1: quick thing. And and and to me it feels like
Speaker 1: I'm checking a box off. So I don't love doing it,
Speaker 1: but I have to do it. And I know that
Speaker 1: if I, if I do the right things during the
Speaker 1: quarter of having those conversations and talking about goals and development,
Speaker 1: then it becomes a much smaller part of my time
Speaker 1: to actually deliver those conversations because there's no surprises and
Speaker 1: it goes by much more quickly. So the things that
Speaker 1: you can do to maximize the time that you spend
Speaker 1: on meaningful things and minimizing the time you can spend
Speaker 1: on the not meaningful things without shirking your responsibility. I
Speaker 1: think that's a real big key to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think, you know, I think the final
Speaker 2: piece of this is just around support. But I think
Speaker 2: that when supporting your people and supporting your people through change,
Speaker 2: or supporting your people to to to look at things differently,
Speaker 2: the first two things you just spoke about are critical
Speaker 2: mission critical to making that happen. Like, you can't get
Speaker 2: to that point without without them, without spending that time
Speaker 2: without you know, making sure that you're setting the stage
Speaker 2: for eventually the change that you're looking for. And and
Speaker 2: that's you know, it's it's dialogue that has to happen,
Speaker 2: and it's clarity that has to happen. And I think
Speaker 2: that getting people and getting your teams on the same
Speaker 2: page and being able to you know, show up for them,
Speaker 2: because again, if if you're getting if if you're asking
Speaker 2: people to adjust their perspective, change how they see things,
Speaker 2: be more engaged, find more meaning in their work, that
Speaker 2: means that for some people and for a lot of people,
Speaker 2: they're gonna have to you know, uh, open up, They're
Speaker 2: going to have to take some calculated risk here, they're
Speaker 2: going to have to you know, showcase and share when
Speaker 2: they're when they're not sure of something, when they have questions,
Speaker 2: when you know, when everything around them will tell them
Speaker 2: to kind of fake it until you make it. And
Speaker 2: the idea here is to be be open and honest
Speaker 2: and transparent and question things, but do it in a
Speaker 2: positive way, in a way that's really about curiosity. When
Speaker 2: you're when you're looking to support people in that space,
Speaker 2: it's really important that you start with the foundational elements
Speaker 2: of getting them there and getting your relationship in a
Speaker 2: healthy place where you're able to have that kind of conversation.
Speaker 1: Right right that The example the article gives, which I love,
Speaker 1: is if you go to get support to help make
Speaker 1: this happen from your leader, and you start with I'm
Speaker 1: miserable at work. You've created a terrible environment, you know,
Speaker 1: fix it. Then, as a leader, it's really difficult for
Speaker 1: me to kind of like go all in on supporting
Speaker 1: that person because they're basically putting it all on me,
Speaker 1: that they're putting their happiness on me. But if they
Speaker 1: come to me and say, you know, the way that
Speaker 1: I do my job, I think I'll be more engaged
Speaker 1: and productive, and they'll be more fulfilling if I could
Speaker 1: do this and this and this more, and this and
Speaker 1: this and this less. And look what I've done already
Speaker 1: to make that, to make that happen. Can I get
Speaker 1: your support in that? As a leader, I am much
Speaker 1: more likely to move mountains. For an employee who has
Speaker 1: done that work first and comes to me with a
Speaker 1: with a sense of ownership around their own happiness. I
Speaker 1: want to get behind that person. I want to. I
Speaker 1: almost feel a too much responsibility. I put their success
Speaker 1: and their happiness almost too much on myself when I
Speaker 1: see that they've done all that work because I want
Speaker 1: I want it to be to be successful for them.
Speaker 1: I want it to work because they put that effort in.
Speaker 1: And when they haven't put the work in or the
Speaker 1: effort in, then I don't have as much buy into
Speaker 1: making it happen. Like I'll do what I can, I'll
Speaker 1: let them know what the resources are, but at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, I need to see that coming
Speaker 1: from them first in order to be all in on
Speaker 1: that support. And so the support is important, and it
Speaker 1: is important as a leader that you do own some
Speaker 1: of this for your people. But it's it's far more
Speaker 1: successful if they've taken a personal ownership of it. First,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us on this episode. We appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Join us next Thursday we'll continue talk about employ engagement.
Speaker 1: You have a great day.