Thinking Productively About… Dissatisfaction
Do you find yourself complaining about your job? If so, I am going to challenge you to get specific about your complaints.
On the flip side, if you love your job, it is useful to think about precisely why that is the case. You can use this knowledge to focus on the most motivating parts of your job.
Below are seven factors that will affect how much you enjoy your job. Reflect on the quality and character of each factor in your current job, then give each area a score out of five.
Ranking Scale:
1= BOOOOO!
2= Dysfunctional but glimmers of hope
3= Okay
4= Great, but still room to improve
5= Excellent! Extraordinary! Exemplary!
1. Environment: The physical space in which you work – your desk, or vehicle, or a retail area, or a trading floor, or a health care centre, or Parliament – you get it!
Are you physically comfortable in your workspace? Do you have freedom to move? What is the sensory experience (light, sound and airflow)? Are the tools and technologies you use safe and high quality? How is your privacy or lack thereof?
2. People: The people you work with, inside and outside of your organization.
Do you like them? Do you respect them? Are they kind to you? Are they honest with you? Do they appreciate you? Do you receive mentorship and feedback?
3. Structure: The way power, decision-making and information access are organized in your workplace.
Who has the power to make decisions? How (and when) is relevant information controlled and shared? What is your position in the hierarchy? Are there very many or very few levels of responsibility? Is decision-making centralized (the job of one person or a small group of people) or are individuals throughout the organization able to make independent decisions? Is power clear and transparent, or is there a lack of certainty regarding assignments and accountability?
4. Interactions: The nature and type of engagement you have with other people.
To what extent are you interacting with people? Do your interactions take place in-person, over the phone, over webcam/videoconference? Are your interactions frequent or minimal? Are they relaxed or urgent? In a typical work interaction, are you receiving or delivering instructions?
5. Intensity: Pressure on you to perform in a timely and proficient manner.
Is your work urgent and time-sensitive? Do you play a vital role in the success of your workplace / team / project? Do you feel – for better or worse – intense pressure to respond to requests and deliver on goals? Are you working on long-term or short-term timelines?
6. Variety: The changeability and diversity of your duties and deliverables
How diverse are the tasks / content / topics / interactions / learning that you encounter at work?
7. Impact: End result of your work
How do you feel about the impact your work has on people in your workplace, community, city, country, world? Do you get to see your projects through to their impact stage? Does your organization learn from the impact of previous projects to improve future work?
Unpacking Your Ranking
Ranking a category very low could mean:
(1) This area is truly in a shambles in your workplace
and / or
(2) This area is particularly meaningful to you and plays a major role in your work satisfaction, so your expectations are high in this area.
What Next?
Now that you have your ranking, think about how your priority areas could be improved, in a practical way, in your current or future work.
What does excellence in practice look like for your most important categories? Imagine solutions or alternatives that may be an antidote to a toxic situation.
Look for ways to improve the specific challenge areas in your current workplace. Can you ask for resources to increase your physical comfort? Can you participate in more (or fewer) in-person interactions? Will your boss provide opportunities for you to exercise your decision-making skills?
If you are on the hunt for a new job, ask potential employers for specifics about the factors that are most important to you.
Equipped with self-awareness, you can make better judgments on how to bring a job into closer alignment with your expectations for a comfortable and motivating environment.
