The Four Facets of Work Fulfillment
Photo by Eric Ward on Unsplash
We are entering the season of gratitude, celebration, reflection, and change. I support many clients who are in the midst of career transitions, whether that’s feeling stuck, starting to dream about what they want, or actively interviewing. However, for many people, it may not be the right time to switch jobs. This could be due to any number of reasons—financial constraints, golden handcuffs, health concerns, energy, or simply not the right time to embrace a job change. Whichever state you’re in, as we approach 2020, consider the following four facets of work fulfillment.
1. Autonomy
How much autonomy do you have in your work? Perhaps you have more control than you think. Some people have the privilege of flexible hours and projects but that comes with the pressure to be always-on and accessible. Consider what active choices you can make throughout your work day.
Hours and schedule. Workers in the gig economy often cite this flexibility as the main reason to work for Lyft or Postmates. If you have a more traditional job, what autonomy might you choose over your hours? What is the formal requirement of the job, and what are the assumptions or additional burdens that you’re taking upon yourself? When I worked in tech, we had the freedom of unlimited vacation and the ability to set your own hours. It can be a double-edged sword when this expanse of autonomy made many of us feel like you have to be always-on and respond within 5 minutes to texts and messenger pings. And sometimes unlimited vacation translates to no vacation at all. Could there be a team discussion to establish cultural norms about work hours? Is there more that you can do to establish personal boundaries & communicate it to your team?
What work you do. Autonomy over your work is the ability to choose the work you want to do. You may not have this choice and be assigned your work. If you do have the luxury of choice, consider what projects you’re drawn to and why. Is it because they’re high profile? Because you can collaborate with a stellar team? Because it will give you the chance to grow? Consider how these projects map to your goals & dreams over the next 3–6 months.
Execution of your work. Even if you are assigned projects, you will have some choice in how you execute on them. Do you tend to be tidy or sloppy? Do you plan out each item task-by-task or do you procrastinate and do it all at the end? You have a default approach for how you do work. How might it feel to mix it up with small experiments? What if you picked an intention for your work such as playful or thorough or as-fast-as-possible? How could you experiment with different ways of work execution? Keep what you like and discard the others in the quest for more control over work choices.
2. Flow
How often in a work week do you feel that you’re in a state of flow? This is a state where you’re doing what you do best, taking advantage of your innate skills, and working through a challenge. The challenge could be a gnarly problem, a creative exploration or even rote scheduling.The common theme is that you are joyful, the activity makes you feel that you’re at 100%, and time flies by quickly.
The desire for flow regularly shows up every 6 months in Facebook’s Pulse survey. At Facebook, similar to many corporations, every person completes a Pulse survey of employee satisfaction. One of the most complicated answers to diagnose is when low scores appear on two related questions:
How often do you have the opportunities to do what you do best?
What percentage of time do you spend doing the work that you enjoy?
These questions refer to a flow state. The reason they’re hard to solve org-wide is that the answer can both be deeply personal and also dependent on roles & context. For example, product designers would often want more time to do broad overarching blue sky concept work rather than the perceived grind of growth work where iteration through 20 different variations of a design detail is needed.
For yourself, start with some days or weeks of observation:
What tasks or meetings do you enjoy the most in a work day?
What activities give you the most energy?
What meeting size do you feel most comfortable & strongest in?
Who do you enjoy being around?
What do you dread doing?
When you have a sense of what triggers your flow, try to optimize your days around those activities. One example from Facebook is that many product designers feel like their day is chunked into 30 minute meetings with wasted down-time in between. They are unable to get into a flow state to produce the design work they do best. One solution is to block out 2–3 hour chunks of time on the calendar to protect focused creation time.
3. Meaning
Why do you do the work you do? Meaning can be broken down to mission and values, both on a company and personal level. Why do you work at a certain company? People want to believe in something bigger than themselves. Having a common mission-based cause helps provide meaning around work. For customer-centric organizations, meaning is providing better experiences for people or significantly improving their lives. While reading a recent Verge article on the travel company Away, I was struck by how long the employees could stand a toxic environment because of the company mission:
“Away promised a lifestyle of inclusion and nice vacations. It was also founded by two women (one a person of color) who sought to run a globally minded business. “In my mind, it’s a trivial product but the brand is more than just luggage,” Avery says. “It’s about travel.”
We choose to spend our time at work places where we believe in the mission, in something greater than ourselves. How might you remind yourself of your company’s mission? One of the easiest ways is to get closer to customers, as a proxy to the mission. This could be done with a stint in the customer service org or by observing research sessions. Research sessions can be listening to people using your product and giving direct feedback in a usability lab, or getting the privilege to go on a research trip to the customer’s workplace or home.
Work fulfillment is also amplified when our personal values get honored at a company. I have a strong value for directness and transparency. While working at a design studio, it was challenging for me to support a South Korean electronics client with a culture of indirect feedback and strong adherence to hierarchy in that the boss’ opinion is always right. Consider your personal values, and try to optimize for a company, or at the very least a manager who can help you honor those values.
4. Community
Finally, the last facet of work fulfillment is the community of people around you. Community exists on both the team and personal level. On the team level, what is the vibe and culture? Is it a group that likes to eat lunch together or do activities outside of work? How does that map to your values? You may love the joint activities that provide a built-in social circle, or you may resent having to join team-building activities and off-sites that interfere with other priorities.
Is there some part of the community that you can experiment with?
Do you have a genuine friend at work? Someone with whom to share small wins, to vent with, and to tackle any work issues together.
Could you build stronger 1–1 relationships by asking different colleagues out to coffee?
If you have a colleague who you frequently clash with, how might you challenge yourself to find something you have in common to agree ?
If the team vibe or culture doesn’t feel inclusive, how might you change it? For example, if you feel like an isolated introvert inside team culture of drinking or physical activity, could you try establishing a book club?
Experimenting with the Four Facets: Autonomy, Flow, Meaning, and Community
If you look at the four facets and how each of them can be considered within your individual context as well as your company’s work context, which one feels the strongest for you? Which one feels the most out-of-whack? Consider if there’s one small thing in one facet you want to experiment with to drive more work fulfillment. Try it for a week or two and notice if you start to feel happier at work.