Follow your passion and make a better living by making the world a better place… it’s a goal to which many aspire, though some may question whether it’s realistic. Is it worth the effort? Does research bear the idea that we’ll be more motivated and more successful if we build careers with meaning?
It does.
A wealth of current and popular research supports the concept that focusing on the contribution of our work to other people’s lives, rather than thinking about helping ourselves, has the potential to make us more productive and help us experience more rewarding results.
Perhaps even more importantly, the research presents insights on how to apply this knowledge in real life.
Motivation and Serving the Common Good
“Meaningfulness is associated with numerous work-related benefits, including increased job satisfaction, motivation, and performance,” according to the 2013 book Purpose and Meaning in the Workplace, from the American Psychological Association.
If we channel our efforts to “give” using effective strategies, we can even come out ahead ourselves, says psychologist Adam Grant in Give and Take, named one of the best books of 2013 by Amazon, Apple, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal.
Seeing a positive impact from our work can energize and motivate us sufficiently to avoid burnout and drive us to higher levels of performance, Grant explains. He suggests that some of the world’s greatest philanthropists do not give because they are wealthy, but became wealthy as a result of their drive to give.
“Happiness can lead people to experience intense effort and long hours as less unpleasant and more enjoyable, set more challenging goals, and think more quickly, flexibly, and broadly about problems,” Grant writes.
Grant’s colleague Robert “Reb” Rebele spoke to Catalysta about how the research applies toward efforts to serve the common good.
“It’s definitely possible to be a giver and be successful, but it’s not a given,” says Rebele, an applied positive psychology expert who leads the consulting and education projects around Give and Take.
“People tend to have personal and pro-social goals at the same time,” he says, “and Give and Takedifferentiates people who can be successful at both goals rather than get caught up in one.”
There are skills and strategies people can learn to find that balance, he says, and avoid sacrificing income, burning out, losing motivation, etc.
“A big part of it is thinking about the impact you want to have on the world, and how you’re going to take care of yourself so you can do it for a long time.”
Applying the Research
While putting meaning first may seem idealistic, it is becoming more realistic in our rapidly changing knowledge economy, experts say.
Grant provides “Actions for impact” to help people apply principles for successful “giving” to their work and their life, including:
Help Other People Craft Their Jobs—Or Craft Yours to Incorporate More Giving.
A powerful way to help yourself or others is to arrange to “work on tasks that are more interesting, meaningful, or developmental,” Grant says.
He relays a study in which a random selection of Google employees were encouraged to engage in “job crafting,” the process of creatively adding to or customizing their tasks to better align with their interests and values.
Some found ways to expand their impact, such as mentoring junior colleagues; others chose to pursue meaningful projects and worked harder in exchange for the opportunity; others chose to incorporate additional knowledge and skills.
While a natural concern is that employees will craft their jobs in ways that fail to contribute to the organization, this was not an issue. Six weeks into the Google experiment, the workers were rated as significantly happier and more effective.
This process of job crafting is “critical as a path to meaningfulness in modern work contexts,” according to Purpose and Meaning in the Workplace—and it’s also becoming more mainstream.
Some of the top researchers in this field have created a booklet called the Job Crafting Exercise, available at jobcrafting.org.
Keeping the Motivation Alive—And Avoiding Burnout
Those with tendencies to be “Givers” come in two varieties, Grant writes: “Selfless” and “Otherish.” The style you follow can make the difference between burning out or maximizing your success for the greater benefit of all involved.
Selfless givers are those who give their time and energy without regard for their own needs, “and they pay a price for it,” Grant says.
Otherish givers balance caring for others with their own self-interest, and as a result, sustain their energy and resilience, and manage to contribute more to their causes overall.
Rebele notes that giving values don’t only benefit those who are natural givers. Most people would benefit from reflecting on whether they are adding value or subtracting it, because this is more apparent than ever in the modern world of networking and social media. “In this day and age, your reputation precedes you in a big way,” he says.
Blazing a Meaningful Career Path
“We spend the majority of our waking hours at work,” Grant writes. “This means that what we do at work becomes a fundamental part of who we are. If we reserve giver values for our personal lives, what will be missing in our professional lives? By shifting ever so slightly in the giver direction, we might find our waking hours marked by greater success, richer meaning, and more lasting impact.”
Rebele adds that being a giver is not just about working for a nonprofit trying to tackle a big social ill. “It’s more about how you interact with the people around you,” he says. “You can be a giver and a difference-maker in lots of different kinds of organizations.”
For resources on organizations trying to create a collaborative and giving culture, Rebele suggests The Great Places to Work Institute and the Center for Positive Organizations.
For more research from Rebele on “otherish” career building, look for his chapter in the upcoming book, Flourishing in Life, Work, and Careers: Individual Wellbeing and Career Experiences, from Edward Elgar Publishing.
This article first appeared at Catalysta in November 2014.