“Your Work Is Not Your God: Welcome to the Age of the Burnout Epidemic.” That’s the title of an essay by scholar and ex-professor Jonathan Malesic. He wrote a book about the subject. The essay is definitely worth a read if you can pardon the F Word toward the end.
The title of Malesic’s essay implies that we have made work our god. That what we do is our identity. It gives us meaning.
Part of his argument involves the modern emphasis on employee engagement. He quotes Gallup’s work and seems to understand it as almost a trick–a way to get employees to perform and join “the communion of work saints.”
I would quibble with him here: Gallup is clear that leadership has the responsibility of engaging staff, giving them a workplace where they are treated with dignity, not robbed of it. See Dan Pink’s drivers of motivation: autonomy, mastery and purpose. Motivated employees often are blessed with those three things. If a manager or workplace can give me freedom to do the work my way, recognize my achievement and growth, and show me how my work has impact … I more likely show up because I want to, not because I have to.
I’m not sure if this has been studied, but I suspect the third driver, purpose, can largely outweigh any other detractors to motivation. And that’s because it can be self-defined.
It’s why St. Paul told the Colossian slaves:
… obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
Colossians 3:22-24
Anyone who honored the spirit of that letter would have found himself or herself self-motivated. Work was not their identity, but work had eternal significance.
A few centuries after that letter, Benedict began organizing monastic communities with the rule, “Ora et labora.” Pray and work. Historian Rodney Stark argues that those communities were early examples of capitalism, long predating Max Weber’s protestant work ethic.
They created wealth. But wealth wasn’t the driver.
All this is to say that the manager has some work to do giving people space for meaning. Here’s a simple exercise:
Ask each employee, “What do you want out of this job besides a paycheck?”
The fact that you ask–and listen–demonstrates that you see the employee as an individual, not a cog in your machine.
And the answer may illuminate the things that help your employee have a fulfilling career with you.