What makes work meaningful?
Whether you’re in the APS, executive layer or any other position, meaning rarely comes from finding the perfect role.
Let that sink in for a moment. Meaning rarely comes from finding the perfect role.
What you do isn’t the whole story, and the pursuit of the “perfect role” can actually be risky. If you don’t get it you may be devastated, and if you do and it fails to meet expectations (which happens often), the effects can be crushing.
So if experience shows the pattern almost always repeats itself, why do people keep changing roles in pursuit of meaning?
The answer is simple: we’ve forgotten how to find it. We’ve lost the art of making meaning in our lives and work, and outsourced it to our job titles.
Fortunately though, there is a way to get it back…and fast.
Meaning is more than a nice-to-have
Research tells us that meaningful work is one of the most powerful motivators for both job seekers and employees. This makes cultivating meaning absolutely critical to effective leadership – not just for yourself, but for your team too.
When we realise that moving from job to job in search of meaning typically fails, we have to ask:
Can I find meaning right where I am?
This was a question posed by researcher of psychology Frank Martela PhD, which led to a study titled ‘What makes work meaningful?’. In conducting the study, Frank and his team uncovered two central predictors of meaning in work:
- Autonomy – how much control do I have over my work?
- Beneficence – how does what I do help others?
The extent to which we can claim autonomy and beneficence for ourselves, and promote it in our teams, is the extent to which we can cultivate meaning – and all the gains in engagement, productivity, and retention that come with it.
Remarkably, this evidence-based approach does not require changing jobs, expanding or abandoning responsibility, altering structure, or shifting scope. It can be used by anyone, in any role, at any time.
For example, a tech specialist might find autonomy in the way they code, and beneficence by seeing how the tools they create help others. A cleaner could find autonomy in the methods and processes they use, and beneficence in producing a clean, healthy space for others to occupy. An executive in a constrained system might find autonomy in the decisions they can influence, and beneficence in driving outcomes that positively impact end users.
It’s a genuine shift from the mechanics of the role (the what) towards the meaning (the why) – and it’s a shift leaders can no longer afford not to make.
Building meaning from where you stand: Kylie’s story
“I started coaching because I felt the need for something more in my work. I have always been interested in the question of how to create a meaningful life, and I wanted to connect that to my work.
The coaching with Kim helped create the space to explore what that might look like. It was a chance to try various experiments and articulate more clearly what I wanted to achieve. I felt a real sense of possibility as a result, and was able to connect with colleagues who were interested in the same thing.
The result was a course that we created to help students have a sense of optimism, agency and meaning in their lives, which students said changed their outlook on life.
If someone was facing the same challenge, I would say: meaning is not an add-on. It can be interwoven into everything you do.”
Kylie Catchpole, Professor of Engineering at ANU
When I first met Kylie, she really enjoyed her role. She wasn’t interested in changing jobs, yet she wanted to add more meaning to the work she was already doing…and she did. Kylie is a wonderful example of someone who was able to widen the frame of what her discipline could hold, and in doing so has changed the lives of those around her.
This is something you can do for yourself and your team, and you can start right now. Here are a couple of steps to help you begin:
Step 1 – Identify one decision where you can increase autonomy. This might be a single process you can shape, an agenda item you can interpret beyond compliance, or a task you can design to suit your approach. Find the margins in the constraint where you can exercise autonomy.
Step 2 – Ask:
- Who really benefits from the work we’re doing?
- What changes for them if we do it really well?
- Where does this (activity/task/project) connect to creating value for the end user?
Try small experiments instead of radical overhauls. Then, repeat the exercise over time to continue expanding a sense of meaning through iteration.
The final piece of the puzzle is to make beneficence visible. Why not share the stories of those who benefited? Start bringing outcomes back into everyday conversations with yourself and others. Connect tasks to people’s lives, rather than targets and KPIs, because the leaders who can do this are the ones who can shift energy – and that’s a skill worth investing in.
To discover how to bring more meaning into your work, see dates for my upcoming Explorer Mindset workshops, or contact me for 1:1 coaching.