“People can feel empowered or disempowered by the way you run things.” —A priest on the impact of managers, quoted in MIT Sloan Management Review: “What Makes Work Meaningful — Or Meaningless”
1: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.
Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations. On Friday, I share something about myself or what we are working on at PCI.
We’ve been exploring what makes work meaningful and meaningless for the last two Fridays.
Last Friday, we looked at three actions we as leaders take that “destroy the fragile sense of meaningfulness that individuals find in their work,” Catherine Bailey and Adrian Madden write in their article “What Makes Work Meaningful — Or Meaningless” in the MIT Sloan Management Review:
Factor #1: Disconnect people from their values.
Factor #2: Taking team members for granted.
Factor #3: Give people pointless work to do.
Today, we will look at four additional destroyers of meaning. These factors accumulate, so “when several of these factors were present, meaningfulness is considerably lower,” Catherine and Adrian write.
Factor #4. Treat people unfairly.
“Unfairness and injustice can make work feel meaningless,” the authors note, which includes bullying and lack of opportunities for career progression.
“Forms of unfairness ranged from distributive injustices, such as one stonemason who was told he could not have a pay raise for several years due to a shortage of money but saw his colleague being given a raise, to freelance musicians being asked to write a film score without payment,” Catherine and Adrian explain.
Factor #5. Override people’s better judgment.
“When people felt they were not being listened to, that their opinions and experience did not count, or that they could not have a voice, then they were more likely to find their work meaningless,” they observe.
“Quite often, a sense of meaninglessness was connected with a feeling of disempowerment or disenfranchisement over how work was done.”
In one instance, a nurse was required, against her judgment, to conduct a medical procedure outside of the established procedure. In another example, lawyers were forced to skip steps to finish a case rapidly.
“Stonemasons described how being forced to ‘hurry up’ using modern tools and techniques went against their sense of historic craft practices,” Catherine and Adrian write.
Factor #6. Disconnect people from supportive relationships.
Feelings of meaningless were directly correlated with workers feeling isolated or marginalized at work. “This could occur through deliberate ostracism on the part of managers, or just through feeling disconnected from coworkers and teams,” the authors observe.
“Most interviewees talked of the importance of camaraderie and relations with coworkers for their sense of meaningfulness,” Catherine and Adrian write.
In the start-up phase, entrepreneurs shared feelings of loneliness and meaninglessness. The ability to share early success with others was meaningful.
Artists talked about being unable to connect with an audience through their art as periods of profound meaninglessness.
Factor #7. Put people at risk of physical or emotional harm.
“Many jobs entail physical or emotional risks,” the authors note, “and those taking on this kind of work generally appreciate and understand the choices they have made.
“However, unnecessary exposure to risk was associated with lost meaningfulness.”
Examples included:
- Nurses being left alone with hostile patients.
- Garbage collectors experiencing avoidable accidents.
- Soldiers being exposed to dire weather conditions without appropriate gear.
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At PCI, we plan to have our leaders do an inventory of the work being done across the organization to reduce or eliminate areas of meaninglessness.
More next week.
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Reflection: Are any of the seven destroyers of meaningfulness present in my workplace? What can I do to minimize or eliminate them?
Action: Discuss with my team or with a colleague.