Have you created meaningful work?

I was given a great book by a colleague at work – it’s called “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell, and it looks at the factors around success.  It builds a great argument that although a certain seed is there in all the ‘successful’ people that we know, an amazing run of right time, right place, upbringing and cultural heritage is also required to coincide for the tree to ultimately grow.

It’s an excellent read, if this stuff interests you, don’t hesitate to get it.

There was one bit which particularly caught my attention – a description of the New York City garment industry in the late 1800s, which sowed the seeds for a group who’s grandchildren would become some of the most powerful businesspeople in New York.  The garment industry required 18 hour days, back-breaking labour over sewing machines and often atrocious unsafe conditions.

It’s not a surprising image, and these work days were repeated in farms across America.

But Gladwell makes a key distinction for those in the garment trade:

1. They were their own boss – with one sewing machine and willingness to work, they could set about it their own way.  In other words, their work had autonomy.

2. The work was complex.  They were workng in a city, in fashion, which required skills in knowing the market, in choosing fabric, in accounting, in sales, and in negotiation.  Big choices had to be made in terms of upgrading equiment, changing styles and moving into new neighbourhoods.  The production side of the business might have been boring, but the overall job carried a degree of complexity well beyond picking oranges and putting them in the bucket.

3. There was a direct connection between effort and reward.  If the right decisions were made, and the hard work was done, the money would come in.  And recognition from peers.

These three points created meaningful work for the immigrants coming to New York with skills in tailoring.  They were motivated. These are critical points, and most managers I know would agree that these factors are important.

But we can go further – these three simple principles can be used as an analysis tool to check how meaningful the work you’re asking your people to do really is.

How much autonomy do you give your people?  Autonomy comes from agreeing clear outcomes, then getting out of the way to let people find their way there.  You can set some boundaries in terms of how people get there,  you can define the resources they can use, but if you start getting into the realm of instructing (not coaching) how to get there, you’re taking away autonomy.  And therefore you’re making the work less meaningful.

Do you think about the complexity of your people’s roles and the tasks?  This is not about trying to make it as complex as possible, it’s about matching the complexity to the person.  Timeframe is a great indicator of complexity – if you’ve agreed a clear outcome that will take five years to achieve, this is going to be an inherently more complex task than nailing in a few pieces of wood by 3pm.  Also consider the type of decisions that the role or task will require, and set them at a level that respects what the person can handle.  If you’ve been clear on the outcome, you’ll be surprised the level of decisions your people can make.

Have you connected up effort and reward?  This is most obviously done with sales commissions, and has led to the idea that ‘it’s all about money’.  A truer  statement would be ‘it’s all about connecting reward and recognition to effort’.   To get started, have a think about whether there is any way that your people can actually see the outcome of their efforts.  Do you show your people the monthly reports?   Isn’t that why you’ve got them working?

This stuff isn’t an on-or-off thing – work doesn’t divide into ‘meaningful’ and ‘non-meaningful’, its a spectrum.  What we can learn from Gladwell is that the more we can create roles that satisfy these three criteria, the more motivated you and your people will be.

If you’d like a bit more about this, presented in a way that is simply brilliant, check out this youtube clip from RSAnimate, which is from a talk by Dan Pink at the RSA.  (And thanks Penny for the book)