Thoughts On Doing Meaningful Work

Everyone likes a good hero story. It is why we watch Harry Potter or The Avengers. More broadly speaking, we all like inspiring stories. They make us feel like “I can be that guy that does this very cool and difficult thing and evolves in the process!”. Inspiring stories feel meaningful since they portray a mode of being that feels meaningful to us, specifically good meaning.

No matter how motivating an inspiring story can be it does not sustain action for a long time. We all know that, we get inspired about going to the gym. Or we get inspired about changing a certain behavior. Inspiration turns into a short burst of motivation but at the end we fail miserably. We fail because we do not have a concrete plan and supporting environment. No matter how inspired or motivated we feel about doing meaningful work it is not enough. We will most probably end up feeling motivated and inspired for exactly two days. Or weeks and best.

So how can we come a few steps closer to doing meaningful work?

Environment

A few years ago, when I was a Junior Software Developer, I joined a highly motivated team. The entire team was extremely bullish about the product’s idea and really believed in it. On top of that, they all put a lot of effort into their work. It was a unique combination of highly technical and talented individuals that believed in the product. Maybe more importantly they cared for it deeply. It created winning environment.

Simply joining that team made me up my game. Their enthusiasm and commitment was contagious. It is a well established fact that you become similar to the people you spend time with. And I did become 10x more enthusiastic about coming to the office and doing meaningful work since I’ve been on the team.

It was not a short term fling with motivation but rather a long term hype about doing great work in our field. It kept me going for a good couple of years. The commitment that I had for the team and the product helped me bounce back the morning following a rough day.

Environment is key. Find a team with such environment. That alone will do wonders to your motivation and more importantly to your actions and habits. You will simply develop the habit of caring and doing great work.

There are many more aspects that make for a great environment. Google has researched that topic extensively and is a highly recommended source.

Measure

What isn’t getting measured typically isn’t getting better. Hence, if you want to get better at doing meaningful and impactful work — you should measure your impact.

One way impact can be measured is through KPIs. As long as defined correctly, KPIs becomes a proxy for impacting the world through the business. Teams that have specific KPIs see direct connection between their work and a number in the real world. Seeing impact and progress with your own eyes, literally, facilitates the feeling of meaning.

A good example of this is Spotify which is built out of Squads. Each squad has a specific KPI that they are in charge of a specific goal. For example, increase subscriptions by 30% in the next quarter. They are totally self sufficient and autonomous which helps them achieve the goal of moving the needle on that KPI. Teams at Spotify tell that they feel empowered to do great and meaningful work.

Take Home Message

It is hard to find a meaningful role that will keep feeling meaningful as time goes by. Whenever we are lucky enough to be in a position to choose to do something meaningful with great people we must indulge ourselves.

We also must work diligently to keep the environment pristine since it is very easy to harm it. Bad influence is much more harmful and destroying than good influence is nourishing.

Measure progress with great KPIs that will make you see your impact. It will keep you hungry to do more and improve.

Lastly, we all know deep down inside whether our work feels meaningful — don’t ignore it.