Finding Meaning In Work

I recently had the privilege of hearing Simon Sinek, best-selling author of Start With Why, speak at the 2012 Your Workplace Conference in Toronto. According to Sinek, most organizations are good at explaining what they do, and even how they do it. However, the most innovative and successful organizations “start with why.” They are able to clearly articulate the purpose behind their products and services and can inspire customers to action, with exceptional results. He persuasively argues his case, using Apple, among others, as living examples of organizations with a strong “why”. The power of “why” also has traction when applied to our careers. This column will highlight the importance of finding our “why” and will show how forgetting about the true purpose of our work is a debilitating force that saps our emotional, mental, and physical energy. However, once we find our “why”, it is a path to renewed energy and commitment, even within the same role. Finding your why in a call centre: Mission Impossible? In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, Professor Adam Grant of the Wharton School of Business, a highly respected authority on work motivation, meaning in the workplace, employee initiative and pro-activity, discussed some of his prior research where he was presented with a seemingly impossible task. His mission was to find ways to re-energize the staff within a university call centre who were responsible for soliciting donations from alumni to support a university scholarship program for incoming students. Call centres are universally recognized as one of the most challenging environments in which to work. A primary reason for this is that there is minimal or no room for autonomy, as agents have to follow their scripts to the letter. As a result, the work becomes extremely repetitive, which can lead to boredom and disengagement from the task. There is another challenge to this type of work. Potential donors often do not like receiving these calls from their alma mater and react accordingly. Not surprisingly, Dr. Grant found that in many cases the call centre representative (CCR) is met with a variety of verbal abuses and expletives or an impolite slamming down of the phone. In other cases, even the more pleasant alumni decline the invitation. Indeed, he discovered that the average rejection rate exceeds 99%. This meant that for every 100 calls an agent would make, 99 people would say no. Understandably, he observed that many CCRs would often stare blankly at their computer screens, as they tried to motivate themselves to make another call. Sadly, even success led to a diminished feeling. As one CCR posted on his cubicle wall, “Doing a good job here is like wetting your pants in a dark suit. You get a warm feeling, but no one else notices.” Although the tone of this above message is discouraging, this idea was at the heart of Dr. Grant’s research. He was determined to find a way to introduce meaning into the work of these agents, which he surmised had long been forgotten. In his view, the agents had lost sight of the benefits and true purpose of their work. To test his idea, he randomly assigned CCRs to one of three intervention groups and then tracked their performance from Time 1 to Time 2, which occurred one month following the intervention. The Control Group did not receive anything over the study period. The Personal Benefit Group, on the other hand, received a letter from the Human Resources Department outlining all of the tangible benefits the CCRs received from working in the call centre (e.g., salary, benefits, etc.). The final group, labelled Task Significance, were reminded of their purpose and given their “why.” To do this, Dr. Grant approached one of the scholarship recipients and asked him to write a letter to the call centre, outlining what the scholarship meant to him. In an emotional and heartfelt letter, the recipient was able to express how this financial award made attending university possible and all of the life-changing things it inspired. Dr. Grant’s results were nothing less than extraordinary. Employees in the Personal Benefit and Control groups had the same level of performance across the two time periods. However, the people in the Task Significance Group “earned more than twice the number of weekly pledges (from an average of 9 to an average of 23) and more than twice the amount of weekly donation money (from an average of $1,288 to an average of $3,130).” This was an incredible finding. All that had changed was the fact that they had received a letter from one of the recipients. In an expansion and future replication of his work, Dr. Grant asked a scholarship recipient to visit the call centre in person. Under these conditions, performance increases of 500% were achieved! On its face, this result may seem shocking. The working environment was still the same. The odds of rejection and the potential for the varied and unpleasant reactions remained identical. What was different now, though, was the introduction of the possibility that the next phone call may result in the scholarship. Their “why” was now crystal clear. With this revelation, the CCR’s entire mindset about their job and the value of their work was changed forever. Loving what you do is an important goal for each of us to strive for and, as Simon Sinek and the above research persuasively argues, it all starts with why! To find our “why”, we must start asking ourselves some key questions. Why do we get up in the morning to go to work? What is the purpose behind our work? What impact do we want to have? The answers to these questions can help renew our energy and sense of commitment to what we do, and may also lead to enhanced job performance as we reflect on the true purpose of our work, making sure that each day starts and ends with “why”.

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