Profoundly Human: The Need for Meaning
Meet the amazing Peggy O’Neal, friend of Amber Law. A USA based lawyer for 12 years turned life coach who has for a few decades helped people know who they truly are and with that as a foundation, discover and express what they feel called to do.
Countless people are openly stating that they want to experience meaning in the work they pursue. They wonder, “Do the values of this organization align with mine, and is the work I do meaningful for me?” Given the critical issues we face daily, people are asking this fundamental question and seeking to answer it, personally and professionally.
(Most of us have been longing for this meaning our whole lives, whether we have been knowingly aware of it or not.)
Of course, we want to experience meaning in our work. We should all experience meaning. Each of our lives by definition is meaningful … we are here, Divine Beings one and all.
We are actually alive to fully express our genius, which in its expression is felt meaning.
We spend at least half of our waking hours working, then there is the possible commute, texts and emails at home, thinking about work, you get the drift.
As Mary Oliver in her poem “The Summer Day,” reminds us, we have “one wild and precious life.”
It’s also good news for the world. People are no longer willing to settle. They want to make a meaningful difference, experience it in their lives and see it lived in the world.
Many employees want to know that what they do is more than help the organization make money (even if they’re entrepreneurs), and these desires are fueling where and how they decide to work. They want the values and beliefs espoused by leadership to align with their own.
I propose that people also want to experience meaning, i.e., that they feel that they matter based on how they are treated and that what they specifically do throughout their day is significant and recognized as such.
Leaders in organizations, senior management and other executives who are serious about retaining their employees and continuing to attract the best people for the open positions are exploring how to satisfy this inherent desire.
Some are looking to speak to social issues, such as climate change and racial equality.
Others are asking at another level – the one I proposed above: How do we support people to experience meaning in their jobs, i.e., in the work they actually do? For people in an organization who are sincere about their coworkers knowing that their work is meaningful, this is the primary question.
Yes, the organization wants to impact societal issues.
Yet meaning is personal.
That's the way to ask the question: How do we support people to experience meaning in their work?
Leaders that see the value in this might find themselves asking: “How can I inspire meaning? How can I instill meaning? How can I make work meaningful for others?”
Although the intent is well-intentioned, I suggest a different focus. Notice that these questions imply that meaning can be imparted “from the outside” in. Yes, you can do what you can to create an environment of inspiration and meaning but meaning is solely determined internally. It is a felt sense, a sort of “knowing” that this is meaningful for me.
Meaning actually does not come from the outside, i.e., from someone trying to inspire another. Something “from the outside” might trigger a sense of meaning but meaning is going to come from the inside. From an inner knowing and inner felt since that I matter, that what I do matters, that I feel inspired with my work, that I feel my work is meaningful.
How do we go about drawing that out, helping people connect with that felt sense?
If you're ready to pursue this, the first step is to ask yourself: “Do I experience meaning in my work here?” Because until you do it's going to be almost impossible to create a culture where others experience meaning.
If you do experience meaning, you can ask, “Why? What matters to me about my work? This organization? The people? The clients? The work or product of the organization?”
If you’re not experiencing meaning, you will be hard-pressed to create that with your coworkers. The first step will be for you to explore what matters to you and why you do what you do, to generate meaning for yourself.
Once you are clear that you experience meaning in your work, and it truly matters to you that others do as well, you want to intend to create a culture of meaning. Next you have conversations one-on-one with people and speak from your own sense of meaning. You let them know that you want to explore with them what is meaningful – for them – about their work and how you can support them to deepen the meaning. Follow through. Keep the conversations going. (These are some of the initial steps, as there is more to creating and sustaining an organizational culture, which is beyond the scope of this particular piece.)
I have worked with clients who are concerned that if they explore what matters to them, they will have to change careers, leave the security of their jobs. Maybe, maybe not. Some have, some haven’t. But I promise you: you can live the life you are being called to and you will be just fine.
We are being asked to create profoundly human organizational cultures of meaning and possibility.
Review
1. We all want to experience meaning, in all domains of our lives.
2. More and more employees are deciding where to work based on meaning.
3. Leaders will want to decide if they want to focus on meaning, if they don’t currently.
4. If meaning will be a focus in the organization, the leader will first examine if their work deeply matters to them.
5. If so, begin conversations to support employees in discovering and experiencing meaning in their work.
6. If the leader is not experiencing meaning, the first step is to discover how and why their work is meaningful.
7. Continue the conversations to keep meaning front-and-center.
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We are in the midst of a paradigm shift that is fundamentally changing our knowing of and relationship with reality. We are being asked to know who we truly are and to express that knowing in our relationships, activities, conversations and being. My dream is that millions of us live aligned with our essential nature, beginning now.
With love,
Peggy