Are You Fully Charged? Read online

  How did this relationship between individuals and organizations go so wrong? One catalyst for this change was the Industrial Revolution, when people almost literally became cogs in big machines and assembly lines. The premise was that an employee would work at a routine task for a fixed number of hours in exchange for a set amount of hourly pay. While this led to a great deal of automation, innovation, and productivity growth, it also resulted in unintended side effects that linger today.

  These transactional relationships made it easy for companies to work someone to the point of burnout, knowing they could hire the next person in line. Everything from organizational hierarchies to compensation structures sent a simple message: You are replaceable. At almost every turn, classic economics ruled. No one was even asking whether people’s lives were better because they were part of a particular organization.

  When I entered the workforce in the 1990s, the general expectation was not much different. A company offered you a job performing a specific task. If you completed that task, you earned a wage. Some jobs also provided benefits like health insurance, retirement funds, or other incentives to retain employees. A few companies even asked employees if they were satisfied with their jobs. However, these satisfaction levels have gotten progressively worse over the past 25 years.

  Go Beyond Engagement

  Near the start of the 21st century, some companies began asking if their employees were emotionally engaged (not just satisfied) with the work they were doing each day. These inquiries created a major shift; managers and leaders were finally paying attention to whether people were not just showing up but also giving all of their “discretionary effort” to the organization.

  Employers are now quite savvy about whether you are engaged or disengaged while you are on the job. They know what the organization is getting out of you. However, in most cases, you do not know how, or even if, your life is improving because you are part of that organization.

  This relationship needs to change for the foundational compact between individuals and organizations to succeed. The reality is: What’s good for an employee is in the organization’s best interest as well. A Towers Watson analysis of 50 global companies found that organizations with low scores on traditional engagement measures averaged a 10 percent operating margin. This went up to 14 percent among companies with high employee engagement scores. In organizations with “sustainable engagement,” meaning the organization also improved employees’ personal well-being, the average operating margin was greater than 27 percent.

  This analysis suggests that your personal well-being is just as important as how engaged you are in your job, even if you look at things only from an employer’s financial perspective. If you show up for work fully charged, it increases your engagement and leads to better interactions with your colleagues and customers. This is good for your peers, the people you serve, and the long-term interests of the organization.

  A healthy relationship between an employee and an organization starts with a shared mission, meaning, or purpose. A 2013 study of more than 12,000 workers worldwide found that employees who derive meaning and understand the importance of their work are more than three times as likely to stay with an organization. Author Tony Schwartz described how this one element has “the highest single impact of any variable” in a study that looked at many elements of a great workplace. Meaningful work was also associated with 1.7 times higher levels of overall job satisfaction.

  The future of work lies in redefining it as doing something that makes a difference each day. Work is a purpose, not a place. Work is about productively applying your talent. Work is about making your life, and the lives of other people, stronger as a product of your efforts. But getting to this point starts by moving beyond the pull of a paycheck.

  Find a Higher Calling Than Cash

  Working primarily for money is little more than a modern-day form of bribery. If another person is paying you to do what he wants you to do when you would rather be doing something else, that is not an ideal situation. The path of least resistance is to treat monetary compensation as the central element of the relationship between a person and an organization. But that sets both parties up for inevitable failure.

  Countless studies have shown that nonfinancial incentives — such as recognition, attention, respect, and responsibility — can be more effective than financial incentives. People who wrap their identity around their annual income rarely find satisfaction in their work. Someone else will always have a bigger house or a better car. It is a race you will never win. Money and power can be used for great purposes, but they can also be a trap.

  For me, keeping monetary incentives in perspective is an ongoing challenge. Every month, I sort through a wide range of opportunities to spend time with different groups or work on specific projects. If I based my decisions strictly on the economic benefit, it would make for much easier choices. However, while money does matter to an extent, it should not be the primary determinant when allocating time and effort. Instead of starting with classic economics to prioritize my time, I now begin by asking how my time can make a difference for others.

  I have found that leading with this fundamental question, before delving into the financial aspects, usually leads to better choices. When I reflect on what I’m most proud of throughout my career, the first thing that comes to mind is a project I worked on in 2001 called StrengthsQuest. My task was to work with a small team at Gallup to create a book and online program that helped freshmen build their college experience around their natural talents.

  More than a decade later, 2 million students have completed this program and are better equipped to find careers that capitalize on their strengths. I give an effort like this even more weight — in my informal calculus of creating meaning — because it is reaching students at such a critical time in their lives. Even though I was working behind the scenes as an IT project manager and could barely see the direct influence on students from that distance, the meaning I derived from being a part of that effort continues to influence my choices today.

  Avoid Upward Comparison

  It’s easy to think that doubling your income will lead you to an entirely different level of happiness. One national sampling found that Americans thought their overall life satisfaction would double if they went from making $25,000 a year to making $55,000 a year. When researchers looked at the actual differences in life satisfaction that a sudden doubling of income produced, it did boost happiness — by 9 percent. Nine percent is better than 0 percent, but, as one of the study’s authors put it, “It’s still kind of a letdown when you were expecting a 100 percent return.”

  It’s important to note that financial security is vital to your well-being. Constant worry about being able to afford basic necessities or to pay off debt can lead to stress, fear, and uncertainty. Yet if you are able to reach a level of basic financial security, making more money becomes less important for your daily well-being. At much higher income levels, increases in annual pay are unlikely to produce any real effect.

  Even at the highest end of the continuum, there are many millionaires who don’t feel “rich enough” relative to their peers. A study conducted in the United Kingdom found that satisfaction and income are almost entirely relative to one’s comparison group. One of the researchers summarized, “Earning a million pounds a year appears to be not enough to make you happy if you know your friends all earn 2 million a year.” The challenge is to figure out how to avoid this game of upward comparison.

  Judging the success of your career based on the amount of money you make can quickly lead you astray. Think of all the people you know who worked tireless hours at jobs that were less than enjoyable for decades. Behind the scenes, many of these seemingly “successful” people led pretty miserable lives because they failed to put things in perspective and work for meaning instead of a paycheck. Nobel Prize–winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman and his co-authors found that wealth can lead people to spend less time doing thin
gs that are enjoyable and more time doing things that create stress.

  Unless dying with more money than anyone else in the cemetery is your ultimate goal, you need to evaluate the health of your career more broadly. Ask yourself a few basic questions: Are your relationships stronger because of your job? Is your physical health better because of the organization you are part of? Are you contributing more to society because of what you do every day?

  Keep Money From Killing Meaning

  Simply thinking about money can cause you to put your own interests ahead of the collective good. Even if you have the best intentions, once you are paid to outperform your peers (who are presumably given the same motivation), individual incentives create a division between you and your colleagues. Left unchecked, financial motivation can erode your well-being and relationships, and it can diminish your contribution to society.

  A University of Minnesota study found that when participants were reminded of monetary rewards, they were three times more likely to prefer working alone to working with others. The same study revealed that in a social setting, the mere thought of money made people position their chairs roughly 12 additional inches apart. Participants literally moved away from other people and isolated themselves when money was on their minds. This is one reason why group incentives tend to work better, as they create more cohesion and less division.

  The more you focus your efforts on others, the easier it is to do great work without being dependent on external rewards like money, power, or fame. A fortune will always be relative to the person who has more, and fame is fleeting. While you may be rewarded with a large bonus or major recognition at certain times, most days consist of making a little forward progress without external reward. This is why identifying meaning and purpose in the process of your daily work is essential.

  Whenever possible, get your motivation from doing things that contribute to a collective good. Incentives based on group performance have been shown to boost innovation more than individual incentives. Instead of focusing solely on your own performance at work, find a way to gauge the performance of your team. Then put your energy into helping the group achieve. Working toward a shared mission with other people will add a positive charge to each day.

  Ask What the World Needs

  When the Great Recession hit in 2008, Ron Finley’s fashion business was ruined. But Finley found another way to apply his creative talents. Driving the streets around his Compton home, Finley realized that his neighborhood was profoundly unhealthy. There were countless fast food restaurants and dialysis centers in South Central Los Angeles — but there were no gardens, and access to fresh fruits and vegetables was limited.

  Finley redirected his creative energy to address this need. He planted fruits and vegetables in abandoned lots, outside his home, and on traffic medians. Between the sidewalk and the street near Finley’s home, you can now see an explosion of green, punctuated with color. There are sunflowers, a banana tree, blackberries, raspberries, a pomegranate tree, an apple tree, a plum tree, a fig tree, an almond tree, squash, lemongrass, rosemary, and a host of other plants.

  “It’s all art,” he says. “With this art, you build community. You build your health, you build lasting relationships, because you can trade food.” He wanted to show his community that anyone could grow their own food, and at the same time surround themself with beauty.

  You create meaning when your strengths and interests meet the needs of the world. Knowing your talents and passions is critical, but that is only half of this supply-­and-demand equation. What may be even more important is understanding what the world needs from you and how you can productively apply your strengths and interests.

  Start with a focus on others’ needs to ensure that the things you are passionate about have a practical application. Finding a way to make a difference through your work requires the same kind of analysis that businesses perform when designing new products. Just as a company would not invest millions in a product that wouldn’t serve many customers, you don’t want to invest thousands of hours developing a talent or interest when there is little demand for it from your employer or your community.

  One of the rightful critiques of all the “follow your passion” advice is that it presumes that you are the center of the world, and pursuing your own joy is the objective of life. Those who make a profound difference, in contrast, begin by asking what they can give. Starting with this question allows you to direct your talents toward what matters most for others.

  Step back for a moment and explore some of the most pressing needs in your social circles, organization, or community. Look for specific problems or issues that require time and attention. As you think about what people around you need most, identify areas that overlap with your strengths and interests.

  Maybe a company needs a talented graphic designer, a child needs a mentor, or a community group needs someone with expertise in fundraising. Look for ways that your unique talents, background, expertise, dreams, and desires can serve some of these local and global needs. What is your unique purpose that continually sets you apart from your peers? What do you believe in so deeply that you’re willing to sacrifice short-term happiness in order to make it happen?

  Double Down on Your Talents

  There is something that you can do better than anyone else in the world. You were born with talents as unique as your DNA. Perhaps you have noticed how some people have a natural ability to comfort others in times of need. Another person has an innate curiosity and is always learning. And the next person has a great deal of talent for selling and persuading. These differences create far more diversity than broad categories of gender, race, age, or nationality do. This diversity of talent is what makes individuals distinct from one another.

  Yet society keeps telling you that you can be anything you want to be . . . if you just try hard enough. This age-old aspirational myth does more harm than good. While people can overcome adversity and are remarkably resilient, the most potential for growth and development lies in the areas where you have natural talent to start with. The more time you spend building on who you already are, the faster you will grow.

  That is the main lesson I learned from my late mentor and grandfather, Don Clifton, who spent a lifetime studying people’s strengths. Instead of aspiring to be anything you want to be, you should aim to be more of who you already are. Starting with your natural talents — then investing time in practicing, building skills, and increasing knowledge — yields a much greater return.

  Gallup’s research suggests that when you use your strengths, you can double your number of high-quality work hours per week from 20 to 40. It also reveals that people who focus on their strengths every day are six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs and more than three times as likely to have high levels of overall life satisfaction.

  If you spend most of your life trying to be good at everything, you eliminate your chances of being great at anything. Unless your goal is to be mediocre at a lot of things, starting with what you are naturally good at is a matter of efficiency. Focusing on strengths is in many ways a basic time-allocation issue. Every hour you invest in an area where you have natural talent has a multiplying effect, whereas each hour you spend trying to remedy a weakness is like working against a gravitational force. Yet many people spend years or even decades working on weaknesses in hopes that doing so will make them well-rounded.

  Do everything you can to avoid falling into this trap. While well-roundedness may be helpful for acquiring the basic tools for any trade — such as reading, writing, and arithmetic — it loses value as you get closer to finding a career. At that point, what’s more important and relevant is what sets you apart. If you want to be great at something in your lifetime, double down on your talents at every turn.

  Act Now Before Today Is Gone

  Throughout my career, I have underestimated the importance of being interested in the work you do every day. Until a couple of years ago, much of the research I had
read, primarily from studies on hiring people for entry-level jobs, did not find a very strong relationship between job applicants’ personal interests and their subsequent performance at work. However, recent studies and experiments have changed my perspective on this topic.

  A 2012 study found that when interest profiles match specific job profiles, performance, relationships on the job, and likelihood to stay with the organization improve. Another series of experiments, published in 2014 by a team from Duke, helps explain why interest is critical to success. As you might expect, when people were assigned tasks that matched their interests, they performed better. This happens because activity that is personally interesting “creates an energized experience that allows people to persist when persisting would otherwise cause them to burn out,” according to one of the study’s authors.

  But how much of your time in a typical day is dedicated to activities that give you a positive charge or make a long-term contribution to society? When researchers ask people to keep a journal of how they spend their day, it is remarkable how little time falls into either of these meaningful pursuits that create sustainable well-being.

  The reality is, you don’t always have tomorrow to do what matters most. A couple of years ago, I wrestled with this thought extensively, given my health challenges and interest in this topic. Consequently, I stepped away from a workplace consulting job so I could spend all of my time on research and writing about how to improve health. I felt like I had to do something to help countless friends and loved ones who were battling heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity. When I asked myself how I could use my strengths and interests to do more for the people I care about, it took me in a new direction.