In response to my recent post on doing less, Rebecca Thorman from Modite commented on the importance of, “making sure everything on your plate has meaning.”
I talk a lot about providing employees with meaningful and engaging work. That said, I think meaning is overrated. Here’s my response:
Interesting ideas. I really like what you said about meaning, but let’s be honest, there’s stuff you have to do in your life that doesn’t have meaning. Laundry. Cleaning the house. Putting gas in the car.
In fact, I think we do ourselves a disservice by seeking meaning in every single minute task in our lives. That’s why I think value is so much more important. There’s no meaning in doing laundry. But there is value.
Does this mean we shouldn’t provide employees with meaningful work? Of course not!
But there are some things, some jobs, that just have to get done. They’re not glamorous. They’re not meaningful. But they are important.
I think as HR pros, it’s important for us to ensure that the jobs that aren’t meaningful are at least valuable. Busy work is a waste of a time – we should always seek to eliminate pointless work.
But if people understand that some work is valuable – even if it’s not meaningful – perhaps they can at least derive some personal satisfaction from it.
What do you think?
Chris-
Great point–we all have work that has to get done that does not necessarily excite the soul. For me, I can do the valuable/not meaningful work, if I know that I will have a chance to soon work on some valuable/meaningful work…work that impacts the business and makes a difference. I can redesign forms for a while, but I will get bored and lose energy if I do not see a new project at the end of the tunnel. It took me a while to figure this out about myself…others are wired differently.
i have an interesting perspective on this, given a friend’s recent crisis. her husband died after a brief three-month unexplained virus. they celebrated their one-year anniversary in the hospital. her grief counselor advised her to start with something meaningless like cleaning the bathroom because meaningless things are part of life.
f
I wouldn’t say meaning is overrated, but I think it’s overplayed by most. I do agree with you that people overvalue what their duties are given and not focusing on the bigger picture. There are times value and meaning overlap; they just have to know what is important to themselves and the business.
@RJ – Isn’t it amazing how some people are completely satisfied with consistency, while others crave constant variety? This is probably where understanding how you work best and finding an organization or role that aligns well with that is really important.
Conversely, imagine how much untapped productivity is out there because organization ignore personal work styles!
@Fran – How tragic! I’m so sorry to hear about your friend! =(
Interesting “take away,” though. Work – the insignificant kind – really does seem to be an essential part of the human condition.
(Heady stuff for RHR!)
@Tracy – Interesting regarding the overlap and understanding what’s both personally important and important for the business. Mind expanding on that bit?
I agree, Chris. I think it’s a bit of semantics at this point. If you don’t find meaning/value in cleaning, then you should get someone else to do it. I personally love cleaning, so that stays on my list :)
But Rebecca, meaning and value aren’t the same thing! Meaning implies a sense of purpose. Value just means its valuable to you. I value having clean clothes, and I’m too cheap to pay someone else to do it for me. But I certainly don’t find cleaning my clothes meaningful.
See the difference?
@Chris I do agree that meaning and value have different definitions, but at times, they can be crossed over where you’re valued for your job and the organization has a strong meaning to you. An example is in the nonprofit realm where someone works and are value by their employer and co-workers for their work, and also loves the mission by volunteering their time to the mission. These are occasional happenings, but value and meaning can overlap, but in the perfect situation.
@Tracy – Absolutely! Things of value can definitely have meaning. But they’re not always mutually inclusive.
Sometimes things of meaning have no value beyond personal meaning to you. Other times, things of value have no meaning at all.
The ideal is to find the overlap when you can. I worry, though, that people (especially us young whipper snappers) get too wrapped up in the search for meaning at the expense of actions of value.
@Chris agreed