Garbage Job vs. Meaningful Mission

Practical Applications in Servant Leadership, part 8

(Previous posts: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7)

One of my top 5 Strengths is Belief. People strong in Belief want to be involved in activities and work that fit with their values and core beliefs, and are often willing to take less pay and benefits for the reward of doing so. It’s one of the reasons I was drawn to ministry work earlier in my career and why I coach today. When I coach nonprofit teams, I often get to hang out with my Belief colleagues. When we start work, we truly want to know that the work we do matters.

Contrast that with economist David Graber’s recent book asserting that millions of people are in jobs that don’t matter at all. Not just the company they work for, but the job itself. This is why engagement around what people do at work, and the context in which it's done is so crucial! When you can’t find meaning in your work, it can lead well past disengagement toward loneliness and depression.

On some level, no matter what your own super-powers and drivers are, everyone wants to do something that makes a difference in the world. You want your work to be more than just a way to pay the bills (though sometimes that “why” has to be your primary driver). Ideally most people want to do work that fits with not only their superpowers, but also where they make a positive difference in the world. The next question in the Q12 Survey leans into this aspect of engagement:

Q8: The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important.

The first 7 questions focused on specific areas of an employee’s individual experience in her or his work: having the right tools, job fit, communication and interaction, relationship with the supervisor. Here the survey takes a different angle and asks about how the employees feel about the company’s mission.

This article was a hard one to jump into writing because most of us have little or no sway over our company’s mission. What can I offer you in the way of leadership advice over something you don’t control at all? Even if you’re reading this as a senior executive or C-level leader, the mission and purpose of your company isn’t something you can simply change in the coming week. And yet, setting aside time to consider how you align with your company’s mission gives you clarity and could be pivotal.

You took the job you’re at for a reason. For some of you, it’s because of the paycheck or the career growth opportunity. For some, you’re working for a place you don’t like or maybe even where you don’t care much for its purpose and mission. If you were completing the Q12 survey personally you would pick “neutral” or “disagree” for this question. If that’s the case, you’re likely not going to be able to engage your direct reports much around the importance of their work. I don’t think that’s ideal but be honest with where you’re at. If this describes you, much of what follows won’t be as practical for you as the previous posts, but you can still find value here. You can skip ahead to the third suggested activity below and engage yourself in thinking about a personal or team purpose statement. I’m happy to schedule a conversation about what that purpose might look like for you – or about transitioning to a place where you believe your work does matter!

For many of you, though, you can personally answer “Agree” or “Strongly Agree” to this question. It may not be the company you’d start, but you can get behind what your firm does and see the importance of it. You can get behind their mission, and it gives you a sense of accomplishment and importance to your work.

How would your direct reports answer the question above? How many of them would “Strongly Agree” that your organization’s mission brings a sense of importance to the work they do? Even beyond that: how widely known is the purpose of your company among the staff who are contributing to the work of fulfilling that purpose?

Purpose and mission statements are a mixed bag. Most of us have worked someplace with a prominently displayed, gloriously wordsmithed mission statement on the lobby wall – but it never came up in meetings or affected decisions. That’s distressing. You should be able to take that purpose statement and tie it directly to every job on your team.

There’s a story of President John Kennedy visiting NASA and bumping into a janitor and asking the man what he did there. “I’m helping to put a man on the moon!” That man knew that his work was important because of what the organization was going to accomplish.

What can you do to bring meaning, gravity, and importance to the hearts and minds of those under your care as a leader? Here’s a few thoughts:

1. Make sure the purpose statement for your company, if you believe in it and it’s a true reflection of the organization, is prominent in hiring and onboarding of new staff. If you’re going to accomplish your organization’s version of putting a man on the moon, you want to make sure everyone who joins the team knows that’s what you’re doing.

2. Every job description should tie back to the organization's purpose overtly. The janitor in the JFK story had to know that his sweeping and bathroom cleaning created an environment where scientists and engineers were safer and less distracted and able to focus on their part of putting the man on the moon. A restaurant dishwasher needs to know that clean dishes are part of delivering an experience that enriches the lives of the restaurant’s guests (see Union Square Hospitality Group). Don’t make people guess at how her or his individual job ties into the mission. Make it a part of the job design.

3. Watch Simon Sinek’s famous Ted Talk “Start with Why” and grapple with the “why” for you and your direct reports showing up every day. You can have a purpose statement for your team that you draw up together even if the organization’s mission isn’t inspiring or consistent with your work. Encourage one another around that “why.”

It’s easier and more rewarding to go to work knowing that your job matters beyond the paycheck. Passing on that sense of significance to those we have the privilege of working with is a gift, to you and to them.