Four Sources of Meaning at Work
In the Eighties, I was involved in what was then called Peace Conversion work. We’ve moved so far in the other direction under the current U.S. regime that this might seem somewhat quaint, but the idea was to look for ways to repurpose the skills and resources previously used in the arms race, in order to reduce the social and political barriers to disarmament.
One of the things I did was interview engineers in the cruise missile program. I was looking for where they found meaning in their work. Out of two hundred engineers, only a single one drew meaning from the outcome of his work. He was proud to be building armaments, which he saw as strength and security. The rest of them tended to derive their meaning from building really interesting black boxes (without concern for what they do), working with talented people, or even just getting a paycheck and taking care of a family’s needs. This was good news for peace conversion.
The experience of these interviews led me to a fairly functional four part taxonomy of meaning at work. People get meaning from: (1) the outcome or purpose of the work, (2) the art and skills of their craft, (3) colleagues and communities of practice, and (4) the indirect meaning of material compensation.
There are some important interactions between these, of which I can think of two. First, as Alfie Kohn and others point out, the indirect rewards of material compensation can actually undermine the innate meaning provided by the first three sources. Second, the more the first three are functioning in harmony, the more they amplify each others effects.
I think this helps in our conversation about authenticity. I will venture to say that in the authentic organization, people draw their sense of meaning from the alignment of purpose, process, and people.
Posted: November 22nd, 2006 under The Text.
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Comment from Dalene Bradford
Time: September 10, 2008, 7:44 pm
Paul Schervish, in writing about donor inclinations (i.e. what inclines donors to give–he avoids motivations), talks about what he calls “hyper-agency.” “Agency is the personal empowerment to be an actor in the world, to be an agent. From the Latin word “agere” or “to do.” Most of us are in this mixed arena of being creators of our world and receivers of our world. So all of us have agency. But most of the time you are trying to figure out how you can act in a way that makes the world work for you, or to find a place that is most fitting for you to exist. …A hyper-agency, instead of finding a place in the world, is a founder of the world. These are the institution creators…being a creator of the institutions and the organizations in the world within which other people are to change agents.” He focused these thoughts on the wealthy who were becoming hyper-agents in philanthropy (like Bill Gates). But this concept may have some interest in your work. Schervish is at Boston College in the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy and has many publications online. Another inclination he mentions is death. How do I want to be remembered? these probably fit somewhere within your four areas, but might prompt some other thoughts. Paul has been a big influencer in my philanthropic work.
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