Skip to main content

What Makes Us Feel Good About Work?

When I went to college, I studied Sociology because I wanted to save the world! At least that’s what I thought at the time. In reality, I believe I chose it because I found it interesting at the time, but the motivation goes deeper than that. My father always told me that if I found a job that I loved, I’d never work a day in my life. That platitude stuck with me and I’ve been engaged in work that I find rewarding ever since. My goal in life is not to be rich and famous or to drive a Tesla (although that might be nice). My goal instead is to be happy and do work that positively impacts the people and community around me. This is why I’ve gravitated to social services and nonprofit all of my life. Over the years I have done the following kinds of work:

  • Training volunteers to advocate for children in foster care
  • Supporting child care professionals to comply with state regulations
  • Tax preparation for low-income populations
  • Short-term crisis counseling

As you can see, the work I’ve engaged in has been varied, but I could always go home at night knowing that I helped someone improve their lives in some way. This work is also complex and nuanced adding to the effort required to successfully complete it. This brings me to Dan Airely’s talk about motivation at work. I hadn’t reflected on it before, but part of the reason that I’ve been motivated by my work is because of its complexity and the effort required to complete it. Airely calls this idea the IKEA effect inspired by the complexity associated with assembling IKEA furniture (TED, 2009). The work that I do not only challenges me, but also has a social redeeming value. 

Image From: https://www.perdoo.com/resources/intrinsic-motivation/

According to Whetten and Cameron (2016) Millennials, a generation that I belong to, are more motivated by work that serves the common good. It seems that I've leaned deeply into this facet of my generation. It is my belief based on this understanding of my own intrinsic motivation and what I've learned from Airely & Pink's TED Talks on motivation that motivation should primarily come from the employees and their values (TED, 2013 & TED 2009). Having worked in nonprofit organizations, financial compensations was never a primary motivator for work for myself or many of my colleagues. The best run organizations know how to recruit, hire, and retain staff that have values that align with the values of the organization. 



References

TED. (2009, August 25). The puzzle of motivation | Dan Pink [Video.]. Youtube. https://youtu.be/rrkrvAUbU9Y  

TED. (2013, April 10). What makes us feel good about our work? | Dan Ariely [Video.]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/5aH2Ppjpcho 

Whetten, D. A. & Cameron, K. S. (2016). Developing management skills, 9th ed. Pearson. 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How I found the Standards in my Life

I had standards by which I lived my life before I could explicitly identify them. I found that not every choice I made brought me closer to the person I wanted to be. I make decisions every day that bring me joy, sadness, fulfillment, and yearning for more. In an effort to understand how I make these decisions, and to be more intentional, I recently started a journey to reflect on my own core values. I have made many moves in my life and I wanted to better understand how I can make decisions that align with my core values. To facilitate this introspection I asked myself the questions below. In reflecting on these questions I found patterns. Patterns of behaviors and ways of being that helped me understand how I have lived in and out of alignment with my core values. Now that I am aware of them, and have them written out, these are my standards for decision making. These are the ways of being that help ensure I am living the life I want to live. Questions I asked myself What am I doing ...
Post a Comment
Read more

My Role(s) in a Team

Teamwork is a common thread throughout life. Growing up with parents and a sibling, working at my first job at McDonald's, and my marriage and current household all provide me with an opportunity to practice teamwork. Most, if not all, of the engagements in my life involve interacting and cooperating with others, so this exploration into how teams form and are led is an interesting practice of reviewing literature and reflecting on how I engage in my day-to-date life. As a part of a team, I tend to take leadership roles quite naturally. Whetten & Cameron (2011) describe several roles of embers within a team: task-facilitating, relationship-building, and blocking roles. I believe that I have played each role at some point. I feel most at home when I play a task-facilitation role, but I also make time and space for relationship-building. Teamwork is all about getting individual contributors to work together toward a common goal, so ensuring that the relationships among team membe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Constraints on Creative Problem Solving

Creative problem-solving requires a great deal of flexibility, and acceptance of risk which can be difficult for businesses who are generally risk averse to embrace. Many constraints also exist in our individual thinking which limit our capacity to think and problem-solve creatively (Whetten & Cameron, 2016). In my own experience in the nonprofit and social service industries I have seen these constraints hold back otherwise successful individuals.  “Well, this is how we’ve always done it” I’m sure you’ve heard this common refrain from supervisors and teammates in the past. Generally, we hear this when someone questions an existing policy, procedure, or process. The inquiry is not personal, but this knee-jerk response is a clear indicator that the individuals are experiencing some conceptual blocks to creative problem solving. Complacency is a major impediment to thinking differently, in fact, complacency may mean that the people in question are not thinking at all. When we avo...
Post a Comment
Read more