Last Friday, I re-published an excellent article written by Ron Ashkenas about how many of us don't look forward to returning from our weekends. It is not that weekends should not be enjoyable--it is just that work should be enjoyable too.
One of the causes of this sense of work malaise, as Ron pointed out, is feeling a lack of purpose at work. It is well-documented that unless a person feels a legitimate sense of purpose in what they're doing, it will be difficult to sustain excitement and energy towards that activity.
Certainly it's appropriate to take inventory of your own work activities and make sure that you're working with a sense of purpose in your daily tasks. But here is another important question:
How would those you manage say they feel about their sense of purpose in your work environment?
Interestingly, Harvard Business Review (HBR) recently conducted some research on this topic and uncovered several surprising insights. The researchers in the study were trying to figure out how work gets stripped of its meaning (I'm not kidding, people actually do study this stuff).
The data in the study was collected by analyzing the work diary entries of 238 "knowledge workers" who agreed to be part of the project. After compiling the data, researchers looked for patterns that related to the topic of meaning at work. There were four common themes that emerged. HBR called these themes the "4 Primary Ways in Which Managers Unwittingly Drain Work of Its Meaning." Here's a quick summary:
1. Managers dismiss the importance of employees' work or ideas. This was the most common theme that was documented. Managers ask someone to work on something, and then pay little attention to the results that are being produced. The researchers cited one example where an employee went three solid weeks without any positive feedback from his manager on a project that he was told was critical to the company's success. It is hard to feel like you're working on something meaningful when this type of disconnect happens.
2. Managers destroy employees' sense of ownership in the work. When a manager asks someone to work on an important task and then takes it away at a critical juncture, it's demoralizing. The HBR research did not cite specific real estate industry examples, but I can imagine many cases where new agents are "micro-managed" at just the wrong time. It is better to allow some mistakes to happen and then train around those mistakes. This will put a new agent on the path to long-term ownership of their transactions and provide more meaning in their day-to-day tasks.
3. Managers may send the message that the work employees are doing will never see the light of day. How could this happen? In many organizations, there is constant pressure to find innovations that will produce new business and help the company compete more effectively. But, these innovations may be short-lived if they do not produce quick results. As priorities change (a necessity in any business), managers need to be sensitive to the time, effort, and life-energy that individuals may have put into these projects. Find ways to reuse the work accomplished on the shelved projects and be open and forthright with communication about the bigger purpose that may have emerged.
4. Managers neglect to inform employees about unexpected changes in priorities. As noted above, communication goes a long way to helping people deal with disappointment. While changes can sometimes not be avoided, it helps to explain the bigger picture. Keep in mind that BSing someone on your team never works. People want to be part of an organization that has a consistent and meaningful purpose. If legitimate changes are necessary to respond to such things as market conditions, new technologies, and competitive pressures, the people you manage will understand. But, if changes are being made because of bad strategy or management mistakes, things suddenly feel pretty meaningless.
Bottom line: If you have the responsibility of managing, you also have a responsibility to ensure that those in your group are working with a sense of purpose. By doing so, you'll not only have a more productive and engaged team, you'll be answering a higher calling of your own.
Source: Harvard Business Review, The Power of Small Wins, May 2011, p. 77
Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.
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