“…..More Than A Job….”

I’m reading General Stanley McChrystal’s book, On Character. A sentence stood out, “During my career, the Army was more than a job—it was a life choice.” Coincidentally, I read another fascinating article from Alex McCann, The death of the corporate job. They are approaching the same issue, but coming at it from opposite directions.

They are both focused in finding meaning in what we do. For McChrystal a large part of it was in his “corporate job.” For McCann, it’s outside that corporate job. The corporate job is just a platform enabling people to find meaning in other places.

It causes me to reflect, “Is this a generational issue,” do different generations have such different expectations of work. Or is it something deeper, is there something massively wrong with modern workplaces? Are modern corporations failing to provide meaning, purpose, and fulfillment?

McChrystal and McCann are approaching the same issue from differing perspectives. Consciously or unconsciously, we all look for meaning in our work. Meaning encompasses things like purpose, identity, contribution, recognition, and association. When these things are present in our work, we find it fulfilling. When they are not present, we search for it elsewhere. It may be finding a new job. It may be finding things outside our core job that provides these things.

How did we get here?

Part of it has been a change in attitude for work careers. In my father’s generation, people typically wanted to work for a single company for their entire careers. Moves were made, but they were very few. My father worked in 4 organizations over his career. Today, all of us have a much more fluid view of our careers.

Part of it is a deep distrust of institutions. Loyalty collapses in cycles of massive layoffs, broken promises, focus on investors and executive success over that of employees, customers, partners, and communities. Shortened leadership tenures, shortened time horizons focused on quarterly earning, have reduced loyalty.  This has the effect of training people their relationship with the company is purely transactional.  

And that becomes a two way street.

Part of it is a massive shift in generational thinking. Gen Z has been raised in a world of financial shocks, radically changing workplaces, constant layoffs, the emergence (and disappearance) of 1000s of startups, the pandemic, and now AI.  Their experience of work and “norms” is far different from that of previous generations.

The accumulation of tension across all generations around “work-life” balance. The understanding that purpose, meaning, identity are core elements of our whole lives.  If they don’t exist in the workplace, then time and focus shifts to where these critical things can be found.

Each of us want our time to matter.  

Individually, we need to choose where we find those things that matter most to each of us.

Organizationally, we have to recognize that we compete on those things that matter.  And if we fail, then, as McCann states, we become platforms people use for a paycheck.

And when we fail, organizationally or individually, we fail to achieve our full potentials.

I have to confess, I fall more into McChrystal’s view than McCann’s.  And it’s ironic, because when you look at the consulting business, it’s a collection of different projects or “side gigs,” somewhat resembling McCann’s view of work. 

But here’s what I notice in the work we do.  The clients with strongly aligned cultures, values, purpose; where people feel cared for and connected with their work, are consistently the companies that perform the best.  When I talk to their people, I seldom hear about side gigs, they are consumed with the mission and what they are doing with the company.  

By contrast, organizations that treat jobs as purely transactional struggle to engage people and inspire them.  The people may be collecting their paychecks, but finding purpose and meaning elsewhere.   And, these companies, and the people working in them never achieve their full potential.

McChrystal and McCann are, perhaps unwittingly, in wild agreement.  We seek meaning, purpose, contribution, recognition and association in our lives.

The real issue about corporations is whether they choose to create this or ignore it.   If they ignore it, they lose the energy, creativity, and potential needed to excel.  Those that embrace it, recognize their success is based on building places where the work matters.

This leaves us with two questions:

For company leaders, how is your organization competing on meaning?

For individuals, where do you choose to find your meaning?

Afterword:  This is one of the best AI generated discussions of a very complex post.  They do make a couple of small errors in their explanation of my unique perspective.  It may have been the way I originally wrote the post that caused confusion.  But as a result, I modified it.  Again, truly excellent.  Enjoy!