Forging meaning at work

Does your job excite you? Do you feel enthused to talk about your work? Or, is your job a humdrum affair that you perform to make ends meet? Alas, the third option will resonate with most people. A job, for the vast majority, is a series of tedious chores that simply need to get done. But work doesn’t have to be that way. No matter what your job, however mundane it seems, you can find meaning in it. Since work, whether we love it or not, consumes most of our adult lives, it’s worthwhile investing effort in crafting a meaningful career and life.

In an article in Harvard Business Review, Shalene Gupta writes how the pandemic prompted many people to reexamine their priorities. Many felt that their work wasn’t that fulfilling and was spurred to make significant changes. Some quit their jobs, some changed careers while others moved to be nearer to their dear ones.

But does everyone who is dissatisfied with their jobs have to make such momentous changes in order to derive meaning? Not necessarily, argues Gupta, based on recent research conducted by Julian De Freitas, Michael Prinzing and Barbara Fredrickson.

Read | Poor career growth, not 'bad bosses' the top reason behind job switches: Survey

Through their research, the authors tried to unpack how people define the meaningfulness of work. In one experiment, about 400 subjects were given short vignettes of a “fictional restaurant owner” named Ariana. Two parameters, “fulfilment” and “contribution” were varied. Whether Ariana loved or despised her job were the high and low fulfilment conditions respectively.

The contribution was represented by Ariana giving “meals to local homeless people” versus eating dinner on her own. While 74% rated Ariana’s job as meaningful when she contributed to society though she disliked her job, 90% thought her “life was meaningful” even if she didn’t make any societal contribution. The researchers concluded that both parameters “independently contribute to a meaningful life”.

Listing likes and dislikes

In an ideal scenario, a job that you enjoy and believe makes a societal contribution will help you lead a meaningful life. But what if you don’t like the work? One option is to list all the tasks that you need to perform as part of your job and rate each one in terms of how much you like it. Chances are you don’t dislike all aspects. Then, you may consider talking to your boss to see whether you may do more of what resonates with you while reducing the amount of time on tasks that you find unappealing. You may also check whether you can perform other functions that interest you.

Again, whether you are making a societal contribution is highly subjective. While we generally view those in caring professions, like healthcare or education, as contributing to society, many other professions can also be seen as meaningful, based on a person’s perspective.

John Nemo writes in The Business Journals about President John F Kennedy visiting NASA in 1962. When he saw a janitor holding a broom, Kennedy went up to him and asked what he was doing. The janitor’s response, “I’m helping put a man on the moon,” has been oft-quoted to show how even a low-status job can be perceived as part of a grander mission.

Balancing act

Dharmaraju Kakani, an alumnus of IIM, Ahmedabad, has always been seeking to do impactful work and has crafted an unusual and inspiring career trajectory. Instead of treading the beaten path of a lucrative corporate career, Kakani chose to pursue the meaning from the word go. Soon after his MBA, he pursued a Master’s in Agriculture and Economics in the United States and then returned to India and worked in the development sector.

Over the next couple of decades, he worked for various government, quasi-government and non-governmental organisations involved in grassroots rural development. He channelised his skillsets to help organisations build systems, outline strategy and document impact.

Being a deep, reflective thinker, Kakani was also critical of the social sector space. At any point, if he felt an organisation’s goals or practices didn’t align with his values, he changed jobs. About eleven years ago, Kakani made a more dramatic shift by joining a technology company. As he had a family to support, he needed a job that could help pay the bills.

However, sometime during the pandemic, Kakani, ever the introspective questioner, decided that he needed to contribute to something larger than himself. Balancing prudence with passion, Kakani currently devotes 50% of his time to his corporate job and the remaining 50% to working in the area of special education.

Meaning, for Kakani, involves two aspects: the feeling that he is meeting a “meta goal” of the world while also constantly learning something new. By proactively making necessary tweaks and shifts, whenever his job wasn’t entirely satisfying, Kakani has crafted a meaningful career and life.

This is just an example. Find your own ways to make work more meaningful, because there is no universal way to do it.

(The author is a psychologist)