Does it give you a purpose beyond that biggest addiction of them all – your monthly paycheck?
Does it enable you to contribute to something bigger than yourself?
Hmm, what is he trying to get at?
Allow me a short detour:
Happiness is not something that we can find, acquire, or achieve directly.
We have to get the conditions right and then wait. Some of those conditions are within us. Other conditions require relationships to things beyond us: Just as plants need sun, water, and good soil to thrive, people need love, work, and a connection to something larger.
It is worth striving to get the right relationships between ourselves and others, between ourselves and our work, and between ourselves and something larger than us.
If we get these relationships right, a sense of purpose and meaning will emerge.
What do I mean?
Check out this corporate ad, for example. It’s rather good at creating that relationship with their people, their customers, and society as a whole:
Wow, what about that for a meaningful purpose?
Doing good is just good business!
Looks like SAP has found its purpose. And while they are at it, they even communicate the purpose of their customers.
“Because solving big problems is what business does best.”
Boom! It’s that message that resonates so deeply with me. Brilliant!
Do you think this commercial makes people proud to work for SAP?
I have come across so many companies that have a mission for themselves but they don’t have a vision and purpose for their people. There is a serious worldwide ‘Purpose Deficit’.
So how about your company?
What are they doing to break down that lofty mission statement into something more tangible and meaningful for you?
Do you know your organization’s purpose? Your shared tribal purpose and how you contribute to it?
Does your job ‘sap’ your energy or does its purpose energize you?
Without a sense of the bigger picture — what we are trying to accomplish and why it matters — we naturally default to fixing problems instead of creating the level of delight or innovation that wins the organization customers and employees for life.
Work is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.
Only when our purpose is aligned with the purpose of the organization we get to real engagement!
It’s in our human DNA to want a sense of purpose and meaning in our work as well as in our lives outside of it; to know that what we are doing with our time, talents and expertise is for something more than just a paycheck.
Have you found your purpose at your current job yet?
At the end of the day, a lot of our identity comes from work and if we don’t do something that we find purpose in we are not going to truly enjoy it.
And remember the primary purpose in life is to enjoy it.
Full disclosure: This is not a sponsored post! And no, I am not even a shareholder of SAP either – although I wish I were – I should have bought it on 16th November 2008 – 16% annual return plus some dividends would have been rather enjoyable.