Get more satisfaction and fulfilment from your work with these three approaches
Or, how to do work that matters.
Key points
Don’t change jobs, change your approach. It’s cheaper and less risky.
All work involves people, so improve your interactions.
Your work isn’t about you, it’s about what it’s there for. Make quality your calling card.
Don’t just do what work, add improvements.
Work that matters should add value to you, others, and the purpose of your work overall.
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Don’t change jobs, change your approach
Most people work. It's a big part of our lives often taking up 30 to 50 hours a week. We earn a living from it and, hopefully, do something we love.
However, most polls and research indicate the majority of people want to change jobs. The reasons vary from boredom to poor fit, a bad boss, or just wanting to progress in their career.
But changing jobs is a time-consuming and anxious experience. There are:
people to inform or to keep things quiet from
ads and opportunities to look at
interviews to navigate
new environments, systems, and people to get used to.
It can take three months or longer to feel in the groove again. An alternative, for now at least, is to instead consider how you can increase the purpose and fulfilment you get from your work at present. You could do this by asking yourself, "How can I make the work I do matter more?"
I believe there are three areas worth considering.
An alternative, for now at least, is to instead consider how you can increase the purpose and fulfilment you get from your work at present.
Firstly, improve the quality of your connections
Or, be more aware, kind and helpful.
In the end, everything in our societies serves or is served through someone. In other words, people are involved somewhere along the line.
Whether it's building new footpaths in town, providing online security software, teaching children, driving buses, or selling banking services, in every case it's ultimately for someone. For anything to occur, like having a new vehicle to sell, there were many, many people involved in the process of design, materials supply, construction, shipping, marketing and so on.
I believe that by making your work matter to people more, you will increase their experience and your own fulfilment. So, here's how you might do work that matters more to people:
1. Realise that all work is about people - directly or indirectly.
2. Recognise that all work involves people - the human chain, if you will.
3. Recognise and pay attention to cleaners, customers, and colleagues as part of your interactions with them.
4. Make sure that you connect with them, not just collate or collaborate. Don't forget the human side of business or work.
5. Recognise differences in personality, style and even emotional state. Make room for the differences and in all cases be kind and respectful.
It's important to your health, theirs, and the health of our communities.
Photo by LinkedIn Sales Solutions on Unsplash
Secondly, increase the quality of the utility of your work
In other words, ensure what you do or provide is good. Very good.
Most work is about providing a good product or service that helps someone do what they need to do, whether that's at an individual or collective level.
The opportunity here, and one that can increase your focus and satisfaction in your work, is to make sure that what you offer is done very well. Almost, for it's own sake.
As we've said, in almost all cases what you do for work is not for you - it's for the internal client, customer, patient, or whoever is the receiver of the benefits.
Putting yourself in their shoes, wouldn't YOU want the very best service, product or care? Of course you would, so one strategy to do work that matters, is to pay attention to and take steps to ensure, you do the very best you can for the end user.
Or, as I say, maximise the quality of the utility of your work for it's end purpose.
Even if no one's watching, it’s a signal of your character that you care about how well you do what you do.
Pay attention to, and take steps to ensure, you do the very best you can for the end user.
So, whether it's:
creating another spreadsheet, make it clear, clean, effective and efficient.
baking supplies for catering clients, make sure the quality level is tops and that that is maintained right through the production and delivery chain.
lecturing at University, work to make your lectures the very best in terms of content, usefulness, and delivery.
Whatever you do, do it well as if you're the best in the country at your job.
As if, you're the one who's receiving the product, service or care you're providing in your work.
Have a think for a minute: If that was the case, what might you do differently?
Thirdly, the addition of value
Have a mindset of improvement, not just delivery.
To do work that matters more, find ways to do it better, add new products and services that are improvements, come up with ways to leave a lasting mark.
Everything is in a state of change - it's how life works, how the years go, and how products, services and the organisations that provide them come and go.
The products, services and organisations that continue the way they always have, and don't improve year by year, soon become redundant.
Technology is the prime example of that.
But then so are designs, processes and corporate ideas.
And what about educational methods, medical treatments and leisure activities?
If all we do is do work without increasing it's usefulness, efficiency or impact then sooner or later either we'll get bored or that thing we do will be superseded by someone or something else. So, there is a career protection aspect to this by ensuring we are always relevant and valuable.
But it's more than that. This is about not just participating in work but making it better as well.
That might be by finding improvements or enhancements to how projects are done, to processes that are used, to the way people are recruited, the way marketing is done, the way customers are served etc.
Everything can be improved.
What is true leadership?
I believe that leadership is nothing more than a decision to improve the current state.
And one key way of doing this is to ask yourself, "How well is this going/how good is this? What can I/we do to improve it in some way?"
That's rising above the level of participation to the level of observation, which can therefore lead to improvement.
If all we do is do work without increasing it's usefulness, efficiency or impact then sooner or later either we'll get bored or that thing we do will be superseded by someone or something else.
Three ways to do work that matters
To enhance the enjoyment of your work, and to increase the sense of worth and fulfilment you derive from it, we've looked at three strategies you can focus on.
1. Pay attention to, and improve the quality of the connections you have with others in the course of your work.
Everyone from the cleaners, to those on reception, to your direct reports, clients or providers.
Operating with greater awareness, respect and kindness will make a big difference to them, the your organisations' reputation, and to you because we all want to do work that is significant to others in some way.
2. Develop or re-develop a mindset of quality of work.
Whatever you turn your mind or hand to, do it very, very well. If someone asks you to reply, then do so. If there's a process to follow, follow it throughly. If a client wants a project delivered to spec, do everything you can to meet that expectation. If you drive, drive smoothly, safely and like an instructor.
Work to the best of your ability (and by this I don't mean frantically or constantly out of control - that's an issue for another day) because you will feel good about it. The alternative is a creeping boredom and eventually, irrelevance.
3. Don't just do work, but improve it. If not for yourself, then for your colleagues or customers.
Nothing is perfect, nor ideal. Everything can be improved in some way, but not every improvement is worth the effort. Ask yourself, "How is this going? Is it as effective as it could be? What's missing that we can add, or what's some way of tweaking things so it operates more effectively?" or "What is a better way of approaching this? What could we do that hasn't been done yet?"
This is not the sole domain of people in leadership roles, but by doing it you will be exercising leadership. And, if you want it, it's probably the best chance you've got of securing one of those official leadership roles. Every organisation loves people who add value worth having.
But in the end, this is about becoming a better person by doing work that matters.
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