Purpose

The 3 Layers of Meaningful Work

A while ago, I shared a summary of a fantastic article on the sources of meaning in work co-authored by Amy Wrzesniewski. This year, while trying to understand how to create infographics, I wrote an article about Michael Steger’s (University of Colorado) CARMA framework on how leaders can help their employees to perceive meaning in their work.

Today, I’d like to share more of Michael’s insightful work. With several co-workers, he created a new scale that aims at measuring how much meaning somebody perceives in his or her current working role. It’s called Work and Meaning Inventory (WAMI, here’s the original article).

Steger et al. find that it might be useful to conceptualize meaningful work as having three different layers (please also see the infographic at the bottom): The meaning of the work itself, the meaning it helps to generate in the wider context of the person’s life, and the meaning that is generated when a job helps to achieve some greater good. In their own words:

Positive meaning in work. This facet is a straightforward reflection of the idea of psychological meaningfulness that has been part of work psychology since the job characteristics model. […] Meaningful work is often a subjective experience that what one is doing has personal significance. 

Meaning making through work. Empirical research has shown that work frequently is an important source of meaning in life as a whole. There seems to be a common overlap between one’s work and one’s life work. Indeed, the idea that work could be meaningful without also leading people to build meaning in their lives as a whole makes little sense.

Greater good (GG) motivations. The desire to make a positive impact on the greater good is consistently related to the experience of meaningful work as well as the related construct of calling. […] This facet reflects commonly held ideas that work is most meaningful if it has a broader impact on others. 

As the saying goes:

All good comes in threes.

Three_Level_Meaning_Steger

How to Find and Live Your Calling (TEDx)

Bryan J. Dik, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Psychology at Colorado State University. He has published widely on topics related to work as a calling; meaning and purpose in career development; measurement of vocational interests; and career counseling interventions. Bryan is co-author of Make Your Job a Calling: How the Psychology of Vocation Can Change Your Life at Work, and co-editor of two other books: Psychology of Religion and Workplace Spirituality and Purpose and Meaning in the Workplace.

He´s a colleague of Prof. Michael F. Steger who´s  work I´ve covered before here.

How Leaders Enable Meaningful Work [Infographic]

Thanks to the stunning infographics of Anna Vital (see them here, here, and here), I’ve decided to learn how to better think and communicate in a visual way. I’m not a designer, so I don’t know how to work with Software packages like Illustrator. Therefore, for the time being I have to use what’s already out there, e.g., the Webdings that come with Microsoft’s fonts.

To start, I´ve chosen a topic that´s very close to my heart: Meaningful work. Prof. Michael F. Steger is one of the world´s foremost authorities on this topic. He created the acronym CARMA to outline a set of leadership behaviors that help employees to perceive their work as being valuable and meaningful.

What do you think?

CARMA_Work

Share and enjoy!

The Meaning of Life according to different Philosophers [Infographic)

This is another brilliant infographic by information designer extraordinaire Anna Vital (see her simply beautiful work on self-compassion here) – where the content is highly relevant to Positive Psychology. Please check out her website to see more of her amazing work.   

The Flop 10 Positive Psychology Articles on Mappalicious for 2015

Two days ago, I posted a top 10 list of the most-read articles on Mappalicious for 2015. Just for fun, today I also had a look at those articles that attracted the smallest audiences. I´ve attended a seminar on improv comedy this year where I learned that “failure is sexy”. Therefore, the following ten posts made me a lot sexier.

But to be honest, once again, my readers are probably right. Most of the posts are short ones, e.g., a copy/paste of some adage or quote. Still, I find some pretty good stuff on that list, by way of example the piece on Twitter, or the one on callings. Enjoy!

Flop_10

Job, Career, or Calling? It´s the Attitude, Stupid!

The other day, for a German news outlet I regularly blog for, I wrote something on Amy Wrzesniewski´s research on our orientations towards work – so why not do it here as well.

Conventional wisdom tells us that there are more meaningful (e.g., nurse) and less meaningful (e.g., cleaner) jobs out there. Yet, Wrzesniewski and her colleagues found that the level of meaning (or purpose) we can derive from our work is only partly dependent on the type of job per se. The way we think (or feel) about what we do seems to have more importance in this matter. The researchers describe three separate (but not mutually exclusive) orientations that people can take on vis-à-vis their occupation: a) job; b) career; c) work.

Work Orientation: Job

People in this category tend to perceive their work as a means to an end. They work for the paycheck/benefits to support their life outside of work. Accordingly, they prefer jobs which do not interfere with their personal lives and typically do not have a strong connection to the workplace or their job duties.

Work Orientation: Career

Individuals displaying a “career” orientation are more likely to focus on job attributes related to prestige and success. They will be foremost interested in opportunites for upward movement, e.g., receiving raises and titles, and the social standing that come along with that.

Work Orientation: Calling

Employees with a “calling” orientation typically describe their work as an integral part of their lives and their identities. Accordingly, they feel that their careers are a form of self-expression and fulfillment.

The crucial point is: Wrzesniewski and her colleagues found that individuals displaying a “calling” orientation are more likely to be highly engaged – and satisfied with their work and their lives in general. And while there are types of jobs that indeed yield a higher percentage of employees displaying this attitude, the researchers were able to show that each orientation frequently appears within all walks of life.

Typically, this involves being able to “see the big picture” (and thus, leadership comes into play). E.g., a cleaner in a hospital setting might say that she helps to “save lives” (instead of, e.g., cleaning the beds) because she knows that she helps to kill off bacteria that otherwise might infect and kill the patients.

Now, I don’t know how the people displayed in the following video view their work – but they´ve surely turned it into something extraordinary – even though most of them seem to work in rather ordinary jobs. Enjoy!

10 brilliant Quotes, Adages, and short Poems related to Positive Psychology

Over the last years, I´ve collected countless quotes, sayings, short poems and similar inspirational stuff that (to my mind) is related to Positive Psychology. Here are my top-10 for the time being. Enjoy!

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
(Frederick Douglass)

Be yourself. No one can say you´re doing it wrong.
(Charles M. Schulz)

Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.
(Abraham Lincoln, among others)

Your brain is not designed to make you happy. That´s your job.
(Tony Robbins)

People were created to be loved. Things were created to be used. The reason why the world is in chaos is because things are being loved and people are being used.
(Unknown)

Be you! The world will adjust.
(Unknown)

We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.
 (Carlos Castaneda)

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
(Herm Albright)

To laugh often and much: To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you lived. This is to have succeeded.
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which came to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.
(Dawna Markova)

Be Yourself - Schulz

Morning is God’s way of saying one more time, go make a difference…

I stumbled upon this beautiful quote today. I do not believe in God, at least not in a very traditional way – but I love the categorical optimism it portrays.

Morning - God

Should you really “Follow your Passion“? Yes, but…

StinkefingerOne of the most common pieces of self-help advice is to “follow your passion”. Countless authors propagate this is the surefire way to lasting success and happiness at work (please also read Following your Bliss vs. following your Blisters).

Research suggests that, on the one hand, this may be good advice, but that things are not as simple as they seem, on the other hand. According to Robert J. Vallerand and his colleagues, there is a distinction between what they call harmonious vs. obsessive passion. In general, they define passion as

a strong inclination toward an activity that people like, that they find important, and in which they invest time and energy. Thus, for an activity to represent a passion for people, it has to be significant in their lives, something that they like, and something at which they spend time on a regular basis.

They further propose that

there are two types of passion, obsessive and harmonious, that can be distinguished in terms of how the passionate activity is internalized into one’s core self or identity.

In detail:

Harmonious passion results from an autonomous internalization of the activity into the person’s identity. An autonomous internalization occurs when individuals have freely accepted the activity as important for them without any contingencies attached to it. This type of internalization produces a motivational force to engage in the activity willingly and engenders a sense of volition and personal endorsement about pursuing the activity. Individuals are not compelled to do the activity but rather they freely choose to do so. With this type of passion, the activity occupies a significant but not overpowering space in the person’s identity and is in harmony with other aspects of the person’s life.

Whereas:

Obsessive passion results from a controlled internalization of the activity into one’s identity. Such an internalization originates from intrapersonal and/or interpersonal pressure either because certain contingencies are attached to the activity such as feelings of social acceptance or self-esteem, or because the sense of excitement derived from activity engagement becomes uncontrollable. Thus, although individuals like the activity, they feel compelled to engage in it because of these internal contingencies that come to control them. They cannot help but to engage in the passionate activity. The passion must run its course as it controls the person. Because activity engagement is out of the person’s control, it eventually takes disproportionate space in the person’s identity and causes conflict with other activities in the person’s life.

Vallerand as his coworkers have developed a scale to assess whether a certain aspect in our lives is a harmonious or an obsessive passion, e.g., for harmonious passion:

  • This activity allows me to live memorable experiences.
  • This activity reflects the qualities I like about myself.

And for obsessive passion:

  • I have difficulty imagining my life without this activity.
  • I am emotionally dependent on this activity.

After having developed and validated the scale, they evaluated some of the consequences of having harmonious vs. obsessive passion in our lives. Here’s their synopsis:

Harmonious passion was positively related to positive affective and cognitive (concentration and flow) experiences and to the absence of negative affect during and after activity engagement. In addition, harmonious passion was unrelated to negative affect and cognition when people were prevented from participating in the passionate activity. Conversely, obsessive passion was unrelated to positive affect and cognition during task engagement but positively associated with negative affect during and after activity engagement, as well as when prevented from engaging in the passionate activity.

Additionally, there were able to show that

the positive affect experienced during task engagement seems to spill over onto how the person feels in general in his or her life. More specifically, it appears that harmonious for the activity leads to increases in general positive affect over time even when the person is not directly engaged in the activity.

So, in the future you might want to be a little more careful when giving someone the advice to follow their passion. Only those that are intrinsically motivated and really fit it with the “overall system” of that person will lead to growing satisfaction and a fulfilled live.

22 Positive Psychology-infused Articles every (HR) Leader should know

Positive Organizational ScholarshipPositive Psychology has a lot to offer for leaders, especially those people taking on a leadership role in human resources and people management. In this post, I´ve gathered 22 research articles infused by Positive Psychology (more specifically: Positive Organizational Scholarship) that, in my opinion, have tremendous value for aspiring as well as established managers and entrepreneurs.

The topics comprise desirable attributes and personality variables such as grit, character strengths, and core self-evaluations, how to create positive relationships at work, how employee motivation is created and sustained, how to find meaning and purpose in work, and several review articles, e.g., on the connection of positive emotions and job performance. Enjoy!

P.S.
This is my 300. post since I’ve started Mappalicious about two years ago. Giving myself a slight pat on the back right now…