November 7, 2024 • 25 mins
In his second appearance on Happy at Work, Andrew Soren explores the complex relationship between meaningful work and well-being.
Drawing from recent research, he reveals surprising findings about how highly meaningful work can sometimes lead to decreased well-being, and discusses practical ways to balance purpose with personal sustainability.
In This Episode, You'll Learn:
- Why meaningful work doesn't always correlate with increased well-being, particularly in highly purpose-driven professions
- The six different motivations people have for finding work meaningful, according to researcher Michael Pratt
- How diversity in work motivations can strengthen teams and organizations
- Why an ecosystem approach (individual, team, organization, society) is necessary to address burnout in meaningful work
- The importance of regular check-ins about how work aligns with personal meaning and purpose
Quotable Moments:
"Half of everything that's been written about meaningful work has been published basically in the last year... The amount of people writing and thinking about this topic is just doubling basically every single year."
"If we go to them and are just like, 'hey guys, you just need to develop some more self-compassion here... you need to build your resilience skills'... there is nothing that will result in more moral outrage than kind of saying like, 'just take another meditation class.'"
Practical Takeaway: Consider implementing regular check-ins with team members about how their work aligns with their sources of meaning, whether that's utility, status, passion, service, kinship, or mastery. Remember that these motivations can change over time and that having diverse motivations within a team can create stronger organizational dynamics.
Resources Mentioned:
- "The Call of the Wild" study by Bunderson and Thompson (2009) about zookeepers - link
- Michael Pratt's research on meaningful work motivations - link
- Carol Riff's model of psychological well-being - link
Connect With Our Guest:
- Connect with Andrew Soren on LinkedIn
- Eudaimonic by Design
- Meaningful Work Matters
- Listen to Andrew's first appearance on Happy at Work here!
To stay connected and continue the conversation, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn.
And don't forget to check out our previous episodes for more tips and strategies to boost your workplace happiness. You can find them on your favorite podcast platform or on our website.
If you have any questions, comments, or topic suggestions for future episodes, please reach out to us. We'd love to hear from you!
Stay inspired, stay motivated, and stay happy at work!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Laura Hamill (00:06):
Music, welcome back for another episode of the
happy at work podcast with LauraTessa and Michael.
Tessa Misiaszek (00:14):
Each week, we have thoughtful conversations
with leaders, founders andauthors about happiness at work.
Michael McCarthy (00:22):
Tune in each Thursday for a new conversation.
Enjoy the show.
Tessa Misiaszek (00:39):
Welcome to the happy at work podcast. We are so
excited to be joined today againby Andrew Soren, who is the CEO
of eudaimonic by design. Andrewwas with us, gosh, I think it
was a little over a year ago,and we're so excited to catch up
with him, hear more about whathe's been doing, as well as talk
about a topic that's very closeto my heart, which is really
(01:02):
around meaningfulness of work.
So without further ado, welcomeAndrew to the happy at work
podcast.
Andrew Soren (01:08):
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much. Tessa. Thankyou so much, Michael. It's so
great to be here.
Tessa Misiaszek (01:14):
Awesome. So Andrew, we haven't we haven't
seen you in a year. Well, Ithink maybe Michael's talk to
you, but I haven't seen you in ayear, so I'd love to hear about
what you've been up to.
Andrew Soren (01:24):
Yeah, sure. Well, it's been quite a busy year.
There's been lots going on, butprobably for the purposes of
this podcast, the thing thatthat has been occupying a lot of
my mind has been the topic ofmeaningful work, meaning and
purpose at work, the good, thebad and the ugly of it, I have
been spending a lot of timethinking, Writing, Publishing
(01:45):
spun off a whole entire otherpodcast about this topic. Like,
there's, there's, there's a lotthat is in my head right now
around this topic of
Michael McCarthy (01:52):
meaningful so tell us what's the what's what's
on top of mine? Why is thistimely? Why is this important,
and how can we benefit from it?
Yeah,
Andrew Soren (01:59):
sure. So I'll give you the Cole's Notes version of
how I started thinking aboutthis probably about two and a
half, three years ago. Now, Iwas having this conversation
with this extremely importantperson in the psychology of well
being space. Her name is Carolriff, and she's probably like
the godmother of positivepsychology, although she
(02:22):
probably wouldn't say that. Whatshe would say is that she has
spent her whole entire careerthinking and really wrestling
with what have psychologistsbeen saying for, you know,
hundreds, if not 1000s of years,what a good life is, and about
how that actually translatesinto the way that into the way
that we think about how we feel,think and do. And her model of
(02:46):
psychological well being isprobably like one of the two
most important models ofpsychological well being period,
like most studied, mostresearched, most published
around like it's it's prettyit's pretty extraordinary. And
as we were taught, in a big partof that model is meaning and
purpose. Specifically, a senseof purpose for Carol is, like, a
really, really big thing. Andwhat was interesting for us is
(03:09):
that when we started to look atthe literature on, like, what's
the relationship between a senseof purpose or meaning and work,
we started to see that there wasjust an enormous amount being
published, and then in this,like, really vast exponential
kind of curve, so much so thatbasically half of everything
(03:29):
that's been written aboutmeaningful work has been
published basically in the lastyear. Wow. It's like just
doubling basically every singleyear. The amount of people
writing and thinking about thistopic is, we're like, Well, what
are they saying and, and here's,here's the bottom line of like,
of what they're saying. Do youwant me to go in there? Do you
ask any questions before I jumpin? Okay, so there's just, like,
(03:53):
just hundreds and hundreds andhundreds of articles that, at
this point have been written,and most of them trumpet
meaningful work as somethingthat is really, really good.
It's good for performance, it'sgood for motivation, it's good
for loyalty at work. Like, Imean, all the things that, if
you have a skew of talentmetrics you're wanting
meaningful work, should deliverupon. Like, it's great for like,
(04:17):
organizational behavior. It'sgreat for kind of pro, social,
kind of mentalities at work.
It's it generally tends toincrease creativity and
innovation. It definitelyincreases apps like lowers
absenteeism. It lowers people'spropensity to quit and look for
another job. Like these are allreally, really good things, and
you would think that if that'strue, it's also going to be
(04:38):
increasing well being, and allthe people who kind of research
this, especially because, like,meaning is such an important
part of what well being is allabout. And a lot of the people
who research this kind of justassume that it's kind of like a
spillover effect, right? Like,they don't necessarily see a
direct relationship betweenhappiness and meaning, but if
all those other. Things aregoing well, if you're liking
(05:00):
your job, if you're like, reallyinto it, if there's lots of
creativity, if there's lots ofcollaboration, if you're
generally more productive whenyou're involved in meaning,
obviously your well being isgoing to go up, right? Except,
dot, dot, dot. And so this wasthe interesting thing in the
research. What we started to seewas that, in some ways, the more
meaningful the work, the lesspeople were experiencing well
(05:22):
being. And so, like, that waskind of like a wow, what's
what's going on here? And like,when I say the more meaningful
the work, I mean, like, thinkabout the most meaningful work
that you can possibly imagine.
Well,
Tessa Misiaszek (05:38):
that's what I'm thinking of. Immediately. What
comes to mind is the pandemicand healthcare workers
healthcare, right? So, ifyou're, if you're on the front
lines of saving lives, and, youknow, there's so much riding on
this, and then how could you, Imean, we saw the burnout that
happened across, you know, theentire healthcare field. You got
(05:58):
it as a result of just, youknow, the sense of urgency, and
many of them never taking a dayoff. And then, as a result, you
see the collapse of theseworkers. So you're
Andrew Soren (06:09):
totally, you're totally going in the direction
of what this dark side ofmeaning literature says. And
healthcare is a great example. Ithink healthcare is great. We
could also add educators tothat. We could include social
worker, basically, like anyonein a caring profession, probably
strikes pretty high in themeaning. But nonprofits, you
know, international aid, like,really, the more meaningful the
(06:31):
work, right? Like, the morelikely this scenario is going to
happen where the work is really,really important. The best,
like, the best study around thisis actually with zookeepers.
It's a beautiful study came outin 2009 called the call from the
wild. Bunderson and Thompson,fantastic study. Basically, it
looked at zookeepers andzookeepers totally like their
(06:54):
work is a calling, like they arethey. They are so passionate
about the work they the workthat they do makes a really big
difference. I mean, animals liveor die based on their work.
Often, the animals who they arelooking after are, like, at the
cusp of extinction. And so like,if they drop the ball, they
might be responsible for thelike, elimination of an entire
race of species right on theplanet. And and like, that's a
(07:17):
big deal. They they work hard.
They say they love this work somuch they would probably do it
even if they weren't paid, andthey're often not very well
paid, like this is theinteresting thing about this
research is that zoo sports arenotoriously underpaid. They're
asked to work more. They'reasked to come on a nights, on
weekends. They they kind of get,you know, the short end of the
(07:38):
stick a lot when it comes totheir fundamental decency work
and zookeepers are kind ofmiserable. I mean, not all of
them, you know, this is, this isdistribution curves. So some are
totally able to, like, figureout a way to survive. But like
many, have a fair bit of careerregret. They feel alienated and
(07:58):
exploited by their jobs. Theythey often kind of do that to
themselves to a certain extent.
Like they, they care so muchabout this work that they go
into it expecting to be paidless as many people in deeply
meaningful work do. They'relike, I'll trade off the salary
for this job. Like, that'sliterally the thought that
(08:19):
they'll go going into aninterview. So, like, they're
kind of doing it to themselvesbefore the organization does,
but the organization'sdefinitely exploit. I mean, I've
been in jobs where the boss hasliterally said, you know, this
is purpose driven work. Youshould expect to be paid less
than you would at McKinsey oranywhere else, right? I mean,
this is, like, fairly commonthat
Tessa Misiaszek (08:39):
you just, you just use the opposite of purpose
filled work as we
Andrew Soren (08:43):
could have, like a wonderful we could have a whole
conversation about, quote,unquote, bullshit. I know a
Tessa Misiaszek (08:48):
lot of people who work at McKinsey, so I'm not
saying anything about that.
That's right, but I do have aquestion. So I do, because I had
the privilege of working with aneuroscientist at a bass general
for a few years who reallystudied the neuroscience of
empathy. Kind of empathy,similar, I would imagine, to
meaningfulness of work, is thatyou can kind of go too far,
right? And if you give too much,and you give too much of your
(09:12):
energy away, and you're soempathetic that you just you can
feel the pain of other peopleall the time, that then you can
be burnt out by that. But itreally started with self
empathy. And if you weren'tpaying attention to yourself,
it's really difficult to giveempathy to other people. So if
you truly wanted to be empathicin your nature and in your
(09:34):
communication, it really likethe first rule was pay attention
to yourself first. So I'mcurious, when it comes to to
meaningfulness of work, if thereis that balance that people have
to have, and yes, you can workand give yourself, but you're
actually not. You're doing aworser job for the purpose the
good of the situation thatyou're in, if you're not taking
(09:56):
care of yourself. So I'm just,I'm assuming that it's aligned,
but I'm curious,
Andrew Soren (10:04):
totally aligned.
Totally aligned. Tessa, and,like, I think, you know, like
the research that you're talkingaround empathy is sometimes the
way that people describe thedifference between compassion
and empathy, right? Like,empathy is, I'm going to step
inside the shoes of the otherI'm going to feel their pain.
And that is, I mean, these arereally good thing, but if that's
the kind of way that you'rethinking about empathy, it's
(10:26):
going to destroy you, and it'sgoing to destroy you really,
really quickly, whereascompassion is a much more
cognitive way of thinking aboutsomebody else's but like, I'm
I'm going to appreciate thatperson, like, what they're going
through, but like, I'm notstepping in their shoes, as I do
that sometimes. There's thisresearcher whose name is Carrie
olberger, who works a lot withsocial workers and and people in
those professions, and she kindof describes it as, like, human
(10:50):
accompaniment, like, I'm gonnawalk beside the person, but I'm
not gonna actually step insidetheir shoes. And that's like,
that's a huge element ofdifference, which is super
important. Now I like I justwant to say I think compassion,
self, compassion, all of thosethings are hugely important. And
if there's one thing that I'velearned from all of this
(11:12):
research, it's that theindividual is not the whole
location of the problem. So andI think that what we can see in
healthcare workers, especiallyis if we go to them and are just
like, hey guys, you just need todevelop some more self
compassion here, like foryourself, right? Like you need
to build your resilience skillsto be able to get through them.
(11:33):
There is nothing that willresult in more moral outrage
than kind of saying like, justtake another meditation class.
Here's a yoga program, right?
Let's have someone
Tessa Misiaszek (11:45):
still placed on them. That's right.
Andrew Soren (11:47):
That's right, because, you know, one of the
reasons why it's so crappy isbecause of the organizational
context in which they findthemselves, and that
organizational context isinfluenced by societal factors
that are often well outside anyhealthcare organizations, kind
of, you know, sphere ofinfluence. And so thinking about
this problem in a bit of anecosystem approach is really,
(12:11):
really important. And byecosystem I mean, like, we need
to think about the individual,but we also need to think about
the team that that individual ispart of. We need to think about
the organization that that teamis part of. We need to think
about the societal structuresthat that organization
ultimately lives within. Andonly kind of, when we think
about all of those differentpieces of the system and how
they fit together, are we ableto start to approach what
(12:35):
something different might behere. So
Michael McCarthy (12:38):
it sounds like, in correct me on this one,
it sounds like they're caringtoo much. They're putting the
other person in front of them.
They're not creating boundaries,and they're getting burned out.
And I'm wondering if there's acall for the organization and
supervisors to be on the lookoutfor your burning out. You're
(12:58):
getting way too into this, takecare of yourself. I'm curious if
there, if you feel that there'sa need for someone to be looking
out for that person, that mightbe a little bit too, too much
into into the caring part. What
Andrew Soren (13:15):
do you think? 100% 100% I think that there's
definitely a call for managerand and you know, you know
person responsible for otherswithin an organization to be
looking at for these things. Andthere is probably the biggest
influence on an individual'swell being in an organization
like the biggest lever you canpull are the behaviors of their
(13:35):
direct manager and supervisor.
And so that is absolutelyimportant. And I would still say
you can't, like, if you are amanager, and especially if you
are a frontline manager or amiddle manager, how much control
do you really have over thethings that you are asking
people to do? Like, I mean,there's absolutely some, but you
still are part of systems thatneed to change, which kind of
(13:57):
goes back to, well, how are wethinking about, you know, the
human resources of ourorganizations. You know, are we
thinking of them as humans? Arewe thinking them as resources?
And like we're often than not,most of the organizations that
we're part of, they areresources. They are not
necessarily humans. And so,yeah, sorry,
Tessa Misiaszek (14:22):
sorry to interrupt, but I have a question
for you, because I work in aconsulting company, and we have
a lot of clients that are wehave lots of clients that are in
healthcare and pharma andbiotech and doing amazing work
around the world, but we have alot of clients that are in other
industries and and, you know,making cars and making widgets
(14:42):
and and so what do you say to tothose managers who really,
actually are proud of thecompanies they work for. They
feel like it's a good brand,it's providing for their family,
but how do they really helptheir teams feel that connection
to meaningfulness if it's notthe. Life Saving work like what
what are you finding in theresearch? What tools can
(15:04):
managers leverage to really makeeveryone, no matter where you
work, to feel some connection tomeaning and purpose? That's
Andrew Soren (15:12):
great, and it's a great question. And I think that
one of the mistakes that we makein any of this research is
flattening it out. And so, like,I'm talking about people who are
deep, like, find deep, deepsenses of meaning and calling in
their work. But those aren't theonly kinds of people that, like,
we could be talking about. Andso another guys that that is,
(15:34):
like, a really importantresearcher in this field of
meaningful work. His name, Hisname is Michael Pratt, and he
talks about the differentreasons why somebody might find
their work significant andworthwhile, and that, by the
way, is like often thedefinition of meaningful work,
like, meaningful work is workthat we personally think is
significant and worthwhile. Andwhat he says, based on his
(15:56):
research, is that there'sprobably, like six different
reasons why people might findtheir work significant and
worthwhile. One of them is justfor very utilitarian reasons,
like this, work allows me tomake an income so that I can
live the life that I want tolive outside of work, and that's
like, that makes work really,really meaningful, like work can
(16:19):
be for many, probably the vastmajority, of, workers around
this globe, work is the vehiclethat allows them to be able to
live the lives that they want tobe able to live, right? And so
we can think about what theorganization's responsibility is
to ensure that those people havethe opportunities to be able to
do that. But that's not the onlyreason why people find their
work meaningful. Other peoplemight think that their work is
(16:40):
really meaningful because itgives them an opportunity to
have status, right? So climb aladder. This is a career. I'm
trying to raise. I'm trying togo up higher, I'm trying to make
more money. I'm trying to, like,have more power in this
organization, like that. That'sa good reason why people might
come to their work. But thosearen't the only reasons. There's
four other reasons,
Michael McCarthy (16:59):
any like, I guess, like ranking on your
reasons that when you when youmentioned the first one to me
that popped up was I'm here forthe money, I'm here for the
paycheck. And is there anymeasurement between I'm here for
the money or the lifestyle, etc,versus I'm here to help people?
(17:21):
Is there like a qualification?
This is a better reason, abetter version of meaning, or
no, is it just whatever?
Andrew Soren (17:28):
I guess, like better involves a big value
placement that somebody else isplacing upon that reason? Yes, I
guess I don't have a directanswer, but let me just tell you
the other four reasons thatMichael would say are really
important. Michael proud wouldsay are really important,
because I think it gets to evenwhat you're saying. So one is
passion. I'm here because thework I just, like, I care so
(17:49):
much about it, right? It's likea little bit of the zookeepers.
It would be a little bit of anexample of the passion. And
that's usually, like, sometimeswe say calling, like, job,
career, calling as kind of like,the three reasons why someone's
interested in work and stopthere, but, but Michael's
Michael's response is, like, no,it's actually deeper. So passion
is one service, which I think iskind of what you're getting at.
(18:10):
Michael is another, like, I'mhere to serve, right? Like, this
is often where we see kind ofnurses or educators or or people
in those caring professions, butthose are the only reasons,
either kinship. I'm here for mybrothers and sisters, like we
think about that, like militaryor firefighters, like it's it's
the people that are surroundingme that are the reason why I'm
doing this, like, they're reallyimportant. Or the last one, I'm
(18:32):
here for mastery. I'm here togrow right? I'm here to become,
like, the best that I canpossibly be in this specific
domain. Like, think of like theengineer who just wants to get
better and better and better atkind of what they're trying to
do. I
Michael McCarthy (18:45):
love these differences. And I remember from
all the guests that Tessa and Iand Laura have interviewed some
of the best organizations, whatI found a common link is that
they hire really well. They'rereally thoughtful about the
hire. And I wonder what youthink about this interview
question, because I'd love toget your thoughts on it. What do
you think of an interviewquestion that would say, How
(19:08):
does working here fit yourmeaning and purpose in life?
That's
Andrew Soren (19:12):
a beautiful question. I think it's a really,
really important question. And Iactually think that it's, it's
probably one of the mostimportant things that we can do
period, not just in aninterview, but as managers of
people in general, is check intothat and recognize that it
changes. Right? So, like Michaelwould say that those motivations
for working probably evolve andchange over the course of a
(19:34):
lifetime. Like, maybe I get intoit for service, but maybe that
changes over time to be moreabout mastery. Or maybe I have
kids and a mortgage and a wholebunch of things that I need to
pay for, and that you that,like, status becomes really
important. Or just, frankly, theutility, like, maybe other
things are going on in my in myworlds, and I just, I just need
to earn a paycheck so that Ican, like, focus on them. Like,
(19:55):
those things are probably goingto change over time. One other
thing that Michael PRI. Said inthis, in this wonderful
interview that we can link to iffolks are interested, was that,
as you're hiring, like, myinstinct would be, okay, great.
Like, if I know this, I'm gonnaI'm in kind of a more service
oriented job, I should hirepeople who have service
motivations. And he's like,Well, think about it, and maybe
(20:17):
a different way. Think about itas, like, a perspective
diversity thing, right? Like, weknow that diversity can be
really important and good in anykind of an organization. So can,
so can diversity of motivation.
I kind of want someone on myteam who's thinking about
kinship, because they're thepeople who are gonna, like, you
know, invite everyone out fordrinks on Friday, and remember
when your birthday is Michael,and, like all those kinds of
(20:39):
things, you want somebody who'sthere for mastery because
they're gonna, like, they'regonna build, you know, the
excellence of this team. Youwant somebody who's there for
service because they get theclient. They get what we're
trying to do, they they want tobe able to serve. You. Want
someone who has a veryutilitarian focus, because
they're gonna say, hey, Tessa,why are you working like it is
(20:59):
six o'clock on a Friday night,get out of here. Like, Surely
you've got a life, right? Andeven you even want someone with
a status orientation to be like,Hey Michael, you know what?
Like, you really deserve apromotion at this point. Like,
why aren't you trying to, like,do more than we like you want
all like, a great team has a mixof all of those motivations,
(21:21):
which is just like a wonderful,different way of thinking about
kind of job fit I
Tessa Misiaszek (21:28):
was. I absolutely love that point. I
mean, I, I love that point somuch I'm going to think about
that for the rest of the dayonly because I've, I've spent a
lot of my career in thediversity, equity, inclusion
space and kind of defining whatis, what our diverse teams and
its ways of thinking, I mean, beway beyond race and ethnicity
and demographics, the ways ofthinking and so forth, education
(21:50):
and experience. But what is,what is your motivation to kind
of create meaningfulness in yourwork? Is life changing? Bomb
like huge light bulb moment forme. And it's interesting
because, of course, I'm selfevaluating as you're talking,
right? And I'm thinking about,you know, I made a job change
about three years ago out ofacademia back into corporate,
(22:13):
and immediately, when you saidutilitarian, I was like, Well, I
mean, to be honest, a little bitonly because I had a son heading
off to college, and the tuitionwas extraordinary,
extraordinarily expensive. Butthen, like, as you move through
it, I was like, No, well, my jobis definitely mastery. I'm
learning every day. I have anamazing team I work with that's
kinship. So I would imagine thatyou can also kind of start to
(22:36):
layer these kind
Andrew Soren (22:37):
of like bubbles, totally, this kind of like, Venn
Diagram of things that areimportant, that evolves and
changes. And therefore it'slike, so like, whatever you
hired for, this is kind ofgetting back to your original
question, Michael, like, Would Ijust hire for that? Or, like,
how often do I need to bechecking in on those things? And
then how often do I need to behelping someone craft their job
(22:59):
to be able to take advantage ofthose things? And I think that's
true, whether I'm blue color orwhite color, whether, you know,
I'm doing, you know, whetherthere's this whole entire
wonderful sphere of people whostudy like dirty work, you know,
people who are like janitors orgarbage men, or, you know, folks
like that, like, there's alllike any job, like, there's room
for these questions aboutmeaning and purpose. This is a
Michael McCarthy (23:22):
nice elevation, or addition to job
crafting to add on that, thatextra layer of there are six
different reasons, six differenttypes of meaning and purpose.
According to Michael Pratt, Ithink it's really interesting
that I think we should all checkin. You know, every once in a
while, at least once a year,should I still be here? Am I
(23:43):
here for the right reason?
Tessa Misiaszek (23:47):
Totally, I'm like spinning right now because
it just I need to read moreabout Michael Pratt research,
and just want to continue theconversation with you. Sacked
with insights. So very excitedfor others to hear it.
Andrew Soren (24:01):
I've been so obsessed with these ideas that,
like, I've spun off a wholeentire podcast series, actually,
with your producer, Ariel. Sothank you very much, Ariel, and
thank you happy at work forhelping me come to Ariel. She's
She's changed but, but like,there's, we now have, like, over
35 different episodes of ofdifferent scholars talking about
different facets of meaningfulwork and the way that it shapes
(24:24):
so if you're at all interestedin this topic, I really
encourage you to go check outthat podcast. It's called
meaningful work matters.
Tessa Misiaszek (24:30):
Yeah, we'll definitely link it. Thank you so
much, Andrew, it was great tospeak with you again. Bye for
now.
Michael McCarthy (24:36):
Bye for now.
We'll see you soon. Thanksagain. We hope you've enjoyed
this episode. If you'd like tohear future episodes, be sure to
subscribe to the happy at workpodcast and leave us a review
with your thoughts.
Tessa Misiaszek (24:51):
Are you interested in speaking on a
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Laura Hamill (25:03):
and lastly, follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter for
even more happiness. See yousoon. You.
Music, welcome back for another episode of the
happy at work podcast with LauraTessa and Michael.
Tessa Misiaszek (00:14):
Each week, we have thoughtful conversations
with leaders, founders andauthors about happiness at work.
Michael McCarthy (00:22):
Tune in each Thursday for a new conversation.
Enjoy the show.
Tessa Misiaszek (00:39):
Welcome to the happy at work podcast. We are so
excited to be joined today againby Andrew Soren, who is the CEO
of eudaimonic by design. Andrewwas with us, gosh, I think it
was a little over a year ago,and we're so excited to catch up
with him, hear more about whathe's been doing, as well as talk
about a topic that's very closeto my heart, which is really
(01:02):
around meaningfulness of work.
So without further ado, welcomeAndrew to the happy at work
podcast.
Andrew Soren (01:08):
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much. Tessa. Thankyou so much, Michael. It's so
great to be here.
Tessa Misiaszek (01:14):
Awesome. So Andrew, we haven't we haven't
seen you in a year. Well, Ithink maybe Michael's talk to
you, but I haven't seen you in ayear, so I'd love to hear about
what you've been up to.
Andrew Soren (01:24):
Yeah, sure. Well, it's been quite a busy year.
There's been lots going on, butprobably for the purposes of
this podcast, the thing thatthat has been occupying a lot of
my mind has been the topic ofmeaningful work, meaning and
purpose at work, the good, thebad and the ugly of it, I have
been spending a lot of timethinking, Writing, Publishing
(01:45):
spun off a whole entire otherpodcast about this topic. Like,
there's, there's, there's a lotthat is in my head right now
around this topic of
Michael McCarthy (01:52):
meaningful so tell us what's the what's what's
on top of mine? Why is thistimely? Why is this important,
and how can we benefit from it?
Yeah,
Andrew Soren (01:59):
sure. So I'll give you the Cole's Notes version of
how I started thinking aboutthis probably about two and a
half, three years ago. Now, Iwas having this conversation
with this extremely importantperson in the psychology of well
being space. Her name is Carolriff, and she's probably like
the godmother of positivepsychology, although she
(02:22):
probably wouldn't say that. Whatshe would say is that she has
spent her whole entire careerthinking and really wrestling
with what have psychologistsbeen saying for, you know,
hundreds, if not 1000s of years,what a good life is, and about
how that actually translatesinto the way that into the way
that we think about how we feel,think and do. And her model of
(02:46):
psychological well being isprobably like one of the two
most important models ofpsychological well being period,
like most studied, mostresearched, most published
around like it's it's prettyit's pretty extraordinary. And
as we were taught, in a big partof that model is meaning and
purpose. Specifically, a senseof purpose for Carol is, like, a
really, really big thing. Andwhat was interesting for us is
(03:09):
that when we started to look atthe literature on, like, what's
the relationship between a senseof purpose or meaning and work,
we started to see that there wasjust an enormous amount being
published, and then in this,like, really vast exponential
kind of curve, so much so thatbasically half of everything
(03:29):
that's been written aboutmeaningful work has been
published basically in the lastyear. Wow. It's like just
doubling basically every singleyear. The amount of people
writing and thinking about thistopic is, we're like, Well, what
are they saying and, and here's,here's the bottom line of like,
of what they're saying. Do youwant me to go in there? Do you
ask any questions before I jumpin? Okay, so there's just, like,
(03:53):
just hundreds and hundreds andhundreds of articles that, at
this point have been written,and most of them trumpet
meaningful work as somethingthat is really, really good.
It's good for performance, it'sgood for motivation, it's good
for loyalty at work. Like, Imean, all the things that, if
you have a skew of talentmetrics you're wanting
meaningful work, should deliverupon. Like, it's great for like,
(04:17):
organizational behavior. It'sgreat for kind of pro, social,
kind of mentalities at work.
It's it generally tends toincrease creativity and
innovation. It definitelyincreases apps like lowers
absenteeism. It lowers people'spropensity to quit and look for
another job. Like these are allreally, really good things, and
you would think that if that'strue, it's also going to be
(04:38):
increasing well being, and allthe people who kind of research
this, especially because, like,meaning is such an important
part of what well being is allabout. And a lot of the people
who research this kind of justassume that it's kind of like a
spillover effect, right? Like,they don't necessarily see a
direct relationship betweenhappiness and meaning, but if
all those other. Things aregoing well, if you're liking
(05:00):
your job, if you're like, reallyinto it, if there's lots of
creativity, if there's lots ofcollaboration, if you're
generally more productive whenyou're involved in meaning,
obviously your well being isgoing to go up, right? Except,
dot, dot, dot. And so this wasthe interesting thing in the
research. What we started to seewas that, in some ways, the more
meaningful the work, the lesspeople were experiencing well
(05:22):
being. And so, like, that waskind of like a wow, what's
what's going on here? And like,when I say the more meaningful
the work, I mean, like, thinkabout the most meaningful work
that you can possibly imagine.
Well,
Tessa Misiaszek (05:38):
that's what I'm thinking of. Immediately. What
comes to mind is the pandemicand healthcare workers
healthcare, right? So, ifyou're, if you're on the front
lines of saving lives, and, youknow, there's so much riding on
this, and then how could you, Imean, we saw the burnout that
happened across, you know, theentire healthcare field. You got
(05:58):
it as a result of just, youknow, the sense of urgency, and
many of them never taking a dayoff. And then, as a result, you
see the collapse of theseworkers. So you're
Andrew Soren (06:09):
totally, you're totally going in the direction
of what this dark side ofmeaning literature says. And
healthcare is a great example. Ithink healthcare is great. We
could also add educators tothat. We could include social
worker, basically, like anyonein a caring profession, probably
strikes pretty high in themeaning. But nonprofits, you
know, international aid, like,really, the more meaningful the
(06:31):
work, right? Like, the morelikely this scenario is going to
happen where the work is really,really important. The best,
like, the best study around thisis actually with zookeepers.
It's a beautiful study came outin 2009 called the call from the
wild. Bunderson and Thompson,fantastic study. Basically, it
looked at zookeepers andzookeepers totally like their
(06:54):
work is a calling, like they arethey. They are so passionate
about the work they the workthat they do makes a really big
difference. I mean, animals liveor die based on their work.
Often, the animals who they arelooking after are, like, at the
cusp of extinction. And so like,if they drop the ball, they
might be responsible for thelike, elimination of an entire
race of species right on theplanet. And and like, that's a
(07:17):
big deal. They they work hard.
They say they love this work somuch they would probably do it
even if they weren't paid, andthey're often not very well
paid, like this is theinteresting thing about this
research is that zoo sports arenotoriously underpaid. They're
asked to work more. They'reasked to come on a nights, on
weekends. They they kind of get,you know, the short end of the
(07:38):
stick a lot when it comes totheir fundamental decency work
and zookeepers are kind ofmiserable. I mean, not all of
them, you know, this is, this isdistribution curves. So some are
totally able to, like, figureout a way to survive. But like
many, have a fair bit of careerregret. They feel alienated and
(07:58):
exploited by their jobs. Theythey often kind of do that to
themselves to a certain extent.
Like they, they care so muchabout this work that they go
into it expecting to be paidless as many people in deeply
meaningful work do. They'relike, I'll trade off the salary
for this job. Like, that'sliterally the thought that
(08:19):
they'll go going into aninterview. So, like, they're
kind of doing it to themselvesbefore the organization does,
but the organization'sdefinitely exploit. I mean, I've
been in jobs where the boss hasliterally said, you know, this
is purpose driven work. Youshould expect to be paid less
than you would at McKinsey oranywhere else, right? I mean,
this is, like, fairly commonthat
Tessa Misiaszek (08:39):
you just, you just use the opposite of purpose
filled work as we
Andrew Soren (08:43):
could have, like a wonderful we could have a whole
conversation about, quote,unquote, bullshit. I know a
Tessa Misiaszek (08:48):
lot of people who work at McKinsey, so I'm not
saying anything about that.
That's right, but I do have aquestion. So I do, because I had
the privilege of working with aneuroscientist at a bass general
for a few years who reallystudied the neuroscience of
empathy. Kind of empathy,similar, I would imagine, to
meaningfulness of work, is thatyou can kind of go too far,
right? And if you give too much,and you give too much of your
(09:12):
energy away, and you're soempathetic that you just you can
feel the pain of other peopleall the time, that then you can
be burnt out by that. But itreally started with self
empathy. And if you weren'tpaying attention to yourself,
it's really difficult to giveempathy to other people. So if
you truly wanted to be empathicin your nature and in your
(09:34):
communication, it really likethe first rule was pay attention
to yourself first. So I'mcurious, when it comes to to
meaningfulness of work, if thereis that balance that people have
to have, and yes, you can workand give yourself, but you're
actually not. You're doing aworser job for the purpose the
good of the situation thatyou're in, if you're not taking
(09:56):
care of yourself. So I'm just,I'm assuming that it's aligned,
but I'm curious,
Andrew Soren (10:04):
totally aligned.
Totally aligned. Tessa, and,like, I think, you know, like
the research that you're talkingaround empathy is sometimes the
way that people describe thedifference between compassion
and empathy, right? Like,empathy is, I'm going to step
inside the shoes of the otherI'm going to feel their pain.
And that is, I mean, these arereally good thing, but if that's
the kind of way that you'rethinking about empathy, it's
(10:26):
going to destroy you, and it'sgoing to destroy you really,
really quickly, whereascompassion is a much more
cognitive way of thinking aboutsomebody else's but like, I'm
I'm going to appreciate thatperson, like, what they're going
through, but like, I'm notstepping in their shoes, as I do
that sometimes. There's thisresearcher whose name is Carrie
olberger, who works a lot withsocial workers and and people in
those professions, and she kindof describes it as, like, human
(10:50):
accompaniment, like, I'm gonnawalk beside the person, but I'm
not gonna actually step insidetheir shoes. And that's like,
that's a huge element ofdifference, which is super
important. Now I like I justwant to say I think compassion,
self, compassion, all of thosethings are hugely important. And
if there's one thing that I'velearned from all of this
(11:12):
research, it's that theindividual is not the whole
location of the problem. So andI think that what we can see in
healthcare workers, especiallyis if we go to them and are just
like, hey guys, you just need todevelop some more self
compassion here, like foryourself, right? Like you need
to build your resilience skillsto be able to get through them.
(11:33):
There is nothing that willresult in more moral outrage
than kind of saying like, justtake another meditation class.
Here's a yoga program, right?
Let's have someone
Tessa Misiaszek (11:45):
still placed on them. That's right.
Andrew Soren (11:47):
That's right, because, you know, one of the
reasons why it's so crappy isbecause of the organizational
context in which they findthemselves, and that
organizational context isinfluenced by societal factors
that are often well outside anyhealthcare organizations, kind
of, you know, sphere ofinfluence. And so thinking about
this problem in a bit of anecosystem approach is really,
(12:11):
really important. And byecosystem I mean, like, we need
to think about the individual,but we also need to think about
the team that that individual ispart of. We need to think about
the organization that that teamis part of. We need to think
about the societal structuresthat that organization
ultimately lives within. Andonly kind of, when we think
about all of those differentpieces of the system and how
they fit together, are we ableto start to approach what
(12:35):
something different might behere. So
Michael McCarthy (12:38):
it sounds like, in correct me on this one,
it sounds like they're caringtoo much. They're putting the
other person in front of them.
They're not creating boundaries,and they're getting burned out.
And I'm wondering if there's acall for the organization and
supervisors to be on the lookoutfor your burning out. You're
(12:58):
getting way too into this, takecare of yourself. I'm curious if
there, if you feel that there'sa need for someone to be looking
out for that person, that mightbe a little bit too, too much
into into the caring part. What
Andrew Soren (13:15):
do you think? 100% 100% I think that there's
definitely a call for managerand and you know, you know
person responsible for otherswithin an organization to be
looking at for these things. Andthere is probably the biggest
influence on an individual'swell being in an organization
like the biggest lever you canpull are the behaviors of their
(13:35):
direct manager and supervisor.
And so that is absolutelyimportant. And I would still say
you can't, like, if you are amanager, and especially if you
are a frontline manager or amiddle manager, how much control
do you really have over thethings that you are asking
people to do? Like, I mean,there's absolutely some, but you
still are part of systems thatneed to change, which kind of
(13:57):
goes back to, well, how are wethinking about, you know, the
human resources of ourorganizations. You know, are we
thinking of them as humans? Arewe thinking them as resources?
And like we're often than not,most of the organizations that
we're part of, they areresources. They are not
necessarily humans. And so,yeah, sorry,
Tessa Misiaszek (14:22):
sorry to interrupt, but I have a question
for you, because I work in aconsulting company, and we have
a lot of clients that are wehave lots of clients that are in
healthcare and pharma andbiotech and doing amazing work
around the world, but we have alot of clients that are in other
industries and and, you know,making cars and making widgets
(14:42):
and and so what do you say to tothose managers who really,
actually are proud of thecompanies they work for. They
feel like it's a good brand,it's providing for their family,
but how do they really helptheir teams feel that connection
to meaningfulness if it's notthe. Life Saving work like what
what are you finding in theresearch? What tools can
(15:04):
managers leverage to really makeeveryone, no matter where you
work, to feel some connection tomeaning and purpose? That's
Andrew Soren (15:12):
great, and it's a great question. And I think that
one of the mistakes that we makein any of this research is
flattening it out. And so, like,I'm talking about people who are
deep, like, find deep, deepsenses of meaning and calling in
their work. But those aren't theonly kinds of people that, like,
we could be talking about. Andso another guys that that is,
(15:34):
like, a really importantresearcher in this field of
meaningful work. His name, Hisname is Michael Pratt, and he
talks about the differentreasons why somebody might find
their work significant andworthwhile, and that, by the
way, is like often thedefinition of meaningful work,
like, meaningful work is workthat we personally think is
significant and worthwhile. Andwhat he says, based on his
(15:56):
research, is that there'sprobably, like six different
reasons why people might findtheir work significant and
worthwhile. One of them is justfor very utilitarian reasons,
like this, work allows me tomake an income so that I can
live the life that I want tolive outside of work, and that's
like, that makes work really,really meaningful, like work can
(16:19):
be for many, probably the vastmajority, of, workers around
this globe, work is the vehiclethat allows them to be able to
live the lives that they want tobe able to live, right? And so
we can think about what theorganization's responsibility is
to ensure that those people havethe opportunities to be able to
do that. But that's not the onlyreason why people find their
work meaningful. Other peoplemight think that their work is
(16:40):
really meaningful because itgives them an opportunity to
have status, right? So climb aladder. This is a career. I'm
trying to raise. I'm trying togo up higher, I'm trying to make
more money. I'm trying to, like,have more power in this
organization, like that. That'sa good reason why people might
come to their work. But thosearen't the only reasons. There's
four other reasons,
Michael McCarthy (16:59):
any like, I guess, like ranking on your
reasons that when you when youmentioned the first one to me
that popped up was I'm here forthe money, I'm here for the
paycheck. And is there anymeasurement between I'm here for
the money or the lifestyle, etc,versus I'm here to help people?
(17:21):
Is there like a qualification?
This is a better reason, abetter version of meaning, or
no, is it just whatever?
Andrew Soren (17:28):
I guess, like better involves a big value
placement that somebody else isplacing upon that reason? Yes, I
guess I don't have a directanswer, but let me just tell you
the other four reasons thatMichael would say are really
important. Michael proud wouldsay are really important,
because I think it gets to evenwhat you're saying. So one is
passion. I'm here because thework I just, like, I care so
(17:49):
much about it, right? It's likea little bit of the zookeepers.
It would be a little bit of anexample of the passion. And
that's usually, like, sometimeswe say calling, like, job,
career, calling as kind of like,the three reasons why someone's
interested in work and stopthere, but, but Michael's
Michael's response is, like, no,it's actually deeper. So passion
is one service, which I think iskind of what you're getting at.
(18:10):
Michael is another, like, I'mhere to serve, right? Like, this
is often where we see kind ofnurses or educators or or people
in those caring professions, butthose are the only reasons,
either kinship. I'm here for mybrothers and sisters, like we
think about that, like militaryor firefighters, like it's it's
the people that are surroundingme that are the reason why I'm
doing this, like, they're reallyimportant. Or the last one, I'm
(18:32):
here for mastery. I'm here togrow right? I'm here to become,
like, the best that I canpossibly be in this specific
domain. Like, think of like theengineer who just wants to get
better and better and better atkind of what they're trying to
do. I
Michael McCarthy (18:45):
love these differences. And I remember from
all the guests that Tessa and Iand Laura have interviewed some
of the best organizations, whatI found a common link is that
they hire really well. They'rereally thoughtful about the
hire. And I wonder what youthink about this interview
question, because I'd love toget your thoughts on it. What do
you think of an interviewquestion that would say, How
(19:08):
does working here fit yourmeaning and purpose in life?
That's
Andrew Soren (19:12):
a beautiful question. I think it's a really,
really important question. And Iactually think that it's, it's
probably one of the mostimportant things that we can do
period, not just in aninterview, but as managers of
people in general, is check intothat and recognize that it
changes. Right? So, like Michaelwould say that those motivations
for working probably evolve andchange over the course of a
(19:34):
lifetime. Like, maybe I get intoit for service, but maybe that
changes over time to be moreabout mastery. Or maybe I have
kids and a mortgage and a wholebunch of things that I need to
pay for, and that you that,like, status becomes really
important. Or just, frankly, theutility, like, maybe other
things are going on in my in myworlds, and I just, I just need
to earn a paycheck so that Ican, like, focus on them. Like,
(19:55):
those things are probably goingto change over time. One other
thing that Michael PRI. Said inthis, in this wonderful
interview that we can link to iffolks are interested, was that,
as you're hiring, like, myinstinct would be, okay, great.
Like, if I know this, I'm gonnaI'm in kind of a more service
oriented job, I should hirepeople who have service
motivations. And he's like,Well, think about it, and maybe
(20:17):
a different way. Think about itas, like, a perspective
diversity thing, right? Like, weknow that diversity can be
really important and good in anykind of an organization. So can,
so can diversity of motivation.
I kind of want someone on myteam who's thinking about
kinship, because they're thepeople who are gonna, like, you
know, invite everyone out fordrinks on Friday, and remember
when your birthday is Michael,and, like all those kinds of
(20:39):
things, you want somebody who'sthere for mastery because
they're gonna, like, they'regonna build, you know, the
excellence of this team. Youwant somebody who's there for
service because they get theclient. They get what we're
trying to do, they they want tobe able to serve. You. Want
someone who has a veryutilitarian focus, because
they're gonna say, hey, Tessa,why are you working like it is
(20:59):
six o'clock on a Friday night,get out of here. Like, Surely
you've got a life, right? Andeven you even want someone with
a status orientation to be like,Hey Michael, you know what?
Like, you really deserve apromotion at this point. Like,
why aren't you trying to, like,do more than we like you want
all like, a great team has a mixof all of those motivations,
(21:21):
which is just like a wonderful,different way of thinking about
kind of job fit I
Tessa Misiaszek (21:28):
was. I absolutely love that point. I
mean, I, I love that point somuch I'm going to think about
that for the rest of the dayonly because I've, I've spent a
lot of my career in thediversity, equity, inclusion
space and kind of defining whatis, what our diverse teams and
its ways of thinking, I mean, beway beyond race and ethnicity
and demographics, the ways ofthinking and so forth, education
(21:50):
and experience. But what is,what is your motivation to kind
of create meaningfulness in yourwork? Is life changing? Bomb
like huge light bulb moment forme. And it's interesting
because, of course, I'm selfevaluating as you're talking,
right? And I'm thinking about,you know, I made a job change
about three years ago out ofacademia back into corporate,
(22:13):
and immediately, when you saidutilitarian, I was like, Well, I
mean, to be honest, a little bitonly because I had a son heading
off to college, and the tuitionwas extraordinary,
extraordinarily expensive. Butthen, like, as you move through
it, I was like, No, well, my jobis definitely mastery. I'm
learning every day. I have anamazing team I work with that's
kinship. So I would imagine thatyou can also kind of start to
(22:36):
layer these kind
Andrew Soren (22:37):
of like bubbles, totally, this kind of like, Venn
Diagram of things that areimportant, that evolves and
changes. And therefore it'slike, so like, whatever you
hired for, this is kind ofgetting back to your original
question, Michael, like, Would Ijust hire for that? Or, like,
how often do I need to bechecking in on those things? And
then how often do I need to behelping someone craft their job
(22:59):
to be able to take advantage ofthose things? And I think that's
true, whether I'm blue color orwhite color, whether, you know,
I'm doing, you know, whetherthere's this whole entire
wonderful sphere of people whostudy like dirty work, you know,
people who are like janitors orgarbage men, or, you know, folks
like that, like, there's alllike any job, like, there's room
for these questions aboutmeaning and purpose. This is a
Michael McCarthy (23:22):
nice elevation, or addition to job
crafting to add on that, thatextra layer of there are six
different reasons, six differenttypes of meaning and purpose.
According to Michael Pratt, Ithink it's really interesting
that I think we should all checkin. You know, every once in a
while, at least once a year,should I still be here? Am I
(23:43):
here for the right reason?
Tessa Misiaszek (23:47):
Totally, I'm like spinning right now because
it just I need to read moreabout Michael Pratt research,
and just want to continue theconversation with you. Sacked
with insights. So very excitedfor others to hear it.
Andrew Soren (24:01):
I've been so obsessed with these ideas that,
like, I've spun off a wholeentire podcast series, actually,
with your producer, Ariel. Sothank you very much, Ariel, and
thank you happy at work forhelping me come to Ariel. She's
She's changed but, but like,there's, we now have, like, over
35 different episodes of ofdifferent scholars talking about
different facets of meaningfulwork and the way that it shapes
(24:24):
so if you're at all interestedin this topic, I really
encourage you to go check outthat podcast. It's called
meaningful work matters.
Tessa Misiaszek (24:30):
Yeah, we'll definitely link it. Thank you so
much, Andrew, it was great tospeak with you again. Bye for
now.
Michael McCarthy (24:36):
Bye for now.
We'll see you soon. Thanksagain. We hope you've enjoyed
this episode. If you'd like tohear future episodes, be sure to
subscribe to the happy at workpodcast and leave us a review
with your thoughts.
Tessa Misiaszek (24:51):
Are you interested in speaking on a
future episode, or want tocollaborate with us? Let us
know. You can send us an emailat admin. At happy at work,
podcast.com,
Laura Hamill (25:03):
and lastly, follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter for
even more happiness. See yousoon. You.
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