Knowledge at Work - Episode 7
The Passion Problem
In this episode we are going to discuss a few different books all covering the balance between life, work, and passion.
The Good Enough Job
The first book we will discuss today is The Good Enough Job. Less of a self-help book and more of a collection of cautionary tales that center on how work has evolved over time from a thing done to get by to the defining aspect of our lives. To me this book speaks to how we all typically introduce ourselves and talk about our lives.
Question #1 is typically “What do you do?” and we do not even have to explain the for-work part. In some ways this concept goes back to people having last names. Smith is a popular last name because in the world where last names started to exist many people worked as smiths and their occupation became their last name. The same applies for Miller and Baker.
The author tells the stories of nine people who have navigated different relationships with work in their lives. Here are some highlights from a few chapters:
Workism
This is a concept that over time work is replacing other pursuits in people’s lives. Fewer people are attending church and joining social groups. More people see their job as the source of meaning in their lives.
Love of Labor
The idea that we should follow our passions and that we have some form of higher calling.
Lose Yourself
Points to the danger of defining your life through your job, especially when your job may go away or change and that could call into question your very being.
Work Hard, Go Home
Revisits a concept we discussed in the first episode of the Google Campus Compound. This story follows a person working at Google who ended up living in a parking lot of Google because everything he needed was there. Over time they realize that while everything they needed was there it also meant that they were always there and any open times became filled with work.
The author recommends a few solutions to these issues? His recommendation comes down to three things.
Disentangle Survival and Employment
this is a more political than practical solution. One thing we can do is recognize that people starting their careers today, especially young CPA candidates, are feeling increasing economic pressures. Their student debts are higher than ever, and the cost of housing has made their ability to lead an economically stable life harder.
Show, Don’t Tell
This is critical for managers and for organizations. It is easy to add benefits and perks, but if they are not used or are limited it send a stronger message than if they didn’t exist in the first place.
Define Your Version of Good Enough
I would add to this it is also critical for managers and organizations to accept and adapt to different people’s good enough. For some good enough is never going to be enough and they will work the long hours and continually do more. For others there will be a natural plateau of effort that provides them with enough to be happy. Successful organizations need to find ways to treat people differently that is also fair. In a prior episode we talked about playing favorites but basing that on data. This is another way of applying that concept.
So Good They Can't Ignore You
Next up is So Good They Can’t Ignore you by Cal Newport. By now I hope you have picked up on the flow of a Cal Newport book. In this one he simply gives us 4 rules to follow.
Don't Follow Your Passion
Cal opens the book by discussing the danger of following passions and the issue of scarcity.
We can understand the scarcity issue by thinking back to grade school when we were asked what we want to be when we grow up. You likely heard many sports and movie stars and very few janitors or plumbers. I would also say not many CPAs either. Scarcity is an issue if you share a passion with lots of other people when the number of opportunities to do that thing are limited.
Danger is a bit different. Let's take the example of kids who love their pets and animals in general and decide to become veterinarians. The danger is that being a veterinarian is significantly different to taking care of a pet. It involves learning about medicine and dealing with the owners of the animals. So, if you follow this passion you could end up doing something that is nothing like what you expected it to be. This is an area where the stereotype of an accountant is likely worse than the actual work of accounting.
So, if we do not follow our passion what do we do instead. Cal’s recommendation is to instead find something you are good at and build off those skills.
Be So Good They Can't Ignore You
Once we find a role that we are good at, Cal talks us about the importance of developing those skills. In this section he defines two terms that are very powerful. The Craftsman Mindset and Career Capital.
The Craftsman Mindset is defined as a focus on what value you’re producing in your job. The opposite of this is the passion mindset which is defined as a focus on what value your job offers you.
These are opposing concepts, and Cal makes the case that people will be better served by adopting the craftsman mindset than the passion mindset. Work in general is about generating value. If we think about what people value it is typically what others can do for them. Your clients obtain no extra value from you enjoying what it is that you do.
Cal’s next advice is to focus your craftsman mindset around developing talents that produce more value. By developing your skills, it allows you to be more demanding in what you ask from your employer. This is called Career Capital. This concept makes perfect sense in that if you have skills that are needed you have additional leverage.
We will talk about this more in the Talent and Organization recommendations, but a critical thing to keep in mind is the development of talent is a collaboration between Talent and Organization. When you are starting out as young talent you need to do the work of developing your skills. Your organization will be investing in your future potential. For the organization to make that investment they will need you to be producing value all along the way.
Turn Down a Promotion
As we develop our skills Cal highlights two potential pitfalls we can encounter along the way.
The first is trying to pursue control before developing enough Career Capital. The second is as you develop skills the Organization will demand more of you.
This section is all about finding the right balance for your life. Too little investment in your skills and you will not have the leverage to ask for what is important. Too much investment and you never realize the potential you have for things other than work. Conceptually this mirrors some of the Good Enough Job in that there are pressures to make your job your life. How we each deal with those pressures defines our success.
One thing I want to highlight here is for some people the drive to get to the top is what makes them happy. If this is you, then recognize it and own it. Others may not understand why you continue to push, but if that is what makes you happy the world needs some people doing this.
Think Small, Act Big
In the final section of the book Cal talks about working a passion into your life. Of note this is not tied to your job, it could be but does not have to directly relate to what you do to earn money.
The steps in this are to craft a mission or something important you want to accomplish. Then take the capital you have acquired from your skills and apply it to the mission. This could mean earning money then spending it on your mission or it could be working fewer hours and investing your time into the mission. Continually working towards the mission and talking about it then gives your life meaning which is important to happiness.
I want to re-emphasize that this mission can be completely unrelated to your job. Let's go back to our veterinarian example. If you love animals volunteering or donating to an animal shelter can be a rewarding way to achieve that mission.
80,000 Hours
80,000 Hours is both a book and a non-profit that does research on how we should live our lives and make the world a better place. Their work is based on research and we will focus on a couple aspects of their work today.
Dream job, is research done on what actually makes a job great.
Position for the future, talks about looking at the future prospects for a career based on where you are in life.
The other items listed are very interesting and the great thing is the folks at 80,000 Hours will send you a free copy of the book, all you have to do is ask at 80000hours.org.
Dream Job
In their research they found these are the six things that drive actual job and life satisfaction.
- Work that is engaging
- Work that helps others
- Work you are good at
- Work with supportive colleagues
- Lack of major negatives
- Work that fits with the rest of your life
I would like to group these things into a few categories.
Work needs to be engaging, something you are good at, and that fits with the rest of your life. As Cal pointed out having skills in an area is far more important than being passionate about the thing. At the same time your work needs to be engaging and fit with the rest of your life.
It is also important that your work help others and that you have supportive colleagues. We all want to do something that makes the world a better place and those working around us play a critical role in our enjoyment of our work.
Finaly, there are major negatives:
- A long commute
- Very long hours
- Pay you feel is unfair
- Job insecurity
As we think about these issues today some of the lingering impacts of the pandemic are at play.
Long commutes have been reduced through increased availability of work from home.
Long hours have become more commonplace as the ability to always be working has resulted in increasing pressure to always be working.
With inflation and elevated education an housing costs pay is a struggle for many right now.
Due to more people retiring than entering the work force job insecurity is less of a concern for most.
I would like to highlight that some of the tension we feel today comes from these different pressures changing in importance and Talent, Management, and Organizations are evolving to meet the new demands which requires change that is difficult to navigate.
Position for the Future
As we look to the future 80,000 Hours gives us some guidance on how to not make two critical errors. Both of these directly relate back to what Cal told us about building career capital.
First make sure to leverage opportunities to invest in yourself. Remember your Organization has a vested interest in growing your skills, but your effort is what leverages those investments. Finding ways to grow through work has the advantage of being funded by the Organization unlike schooling.
Second is not including flexibility in your career capital. As you consider where to grow your talents it is critical to consider how long those skills will be valuable. In 2024 artificial intelligence is quickly becoming more powerful, developing skills to leverage this technology has huge potential for the future. Conversely, as we see a shift to electric cars the need for combustion engine mechanics may be diminishing in the future.
Find your Skills
The key to this concept is finding what you are good at, not what you enjoy but what you can do really well.
Think about what comes easiest to you and start there. At the same time remember that easy things are not highly valued. So, you are looking for tasks that are difficult for most people but come easily to you.
Become a Master
Mastery takes time and effort. This is why it is important to pick something you are good at. Mastery requires training and training is easier if you have skills in that area.
It is critical to realize that mastery requires your time and effort, but it is also developed through the investments your Organization makes in you. This is a powerful partnership that is most successful when it finds the right balance between the needs of the Organization and the wants of the talent.
Enjoy Your Life
Once you have developed your skills and can-do things that others simply can’t. It is OK to enjoy yourself and take a break from time to time.
This can come in an infinite number of forms. If you find joy in having a bunch of money and things, then keep pushing at work and accumulate wealth. If you find joy in simple trips, then leverage your skills and ability to produce to take more time away.
The really important thing is to find what makes you happy and use your abilities as a tool to maximize those things. Once you know what makes you happy talk to your Management about what you want. This doesn’t mean you will get everything you want, but communicating what you want is the first step to finding the right balance.
Find Your Good Enough
As a manager you have opportunities to lead by example. By finding and living your good enough, you can show your talent what it looks like. Again, this can look many different ways. You may be very driven and work more to get further ahead or you may work less and do more outside of work.
You will likely also understand that there will be times when your balance is disrupted. This is something learned over time and one of your jobs as a Manager is to teach your Talent how this works. The flip side is that you also need to manage the work of your Talent and continually over working them will result in burn out and them leaving.
Recognize that this is an ever changing balance and you will not always get it right. Having good intentions and recognizing when you get it wrong will help build stronger relationships within your teams.
Help Your Talent Discover Their Skills
As a manager another part of your job is evaluating and learning what makes your Talent effective. You should know how much effort is needed for different tasks. Keep an eye on Talent to see when they are meeting expectation and when they both excel and struggle. Communicate to your Talent where they are exceling and falling behind and try to coach them to best leverage their talents.
Especially in accounting there are disconnects between the theory of the work and the doing of the work. Allowing Talent to experiment in different areas is critical to finding where they can be most impactful. It is also important to recognize Talent may excel at something they do not like. In the short term this can be frustrating, but over the long-term working on something that comes more naturally allows talent to produce more with less effort.
Another part of this is recognizing when someone doesn’t fit with the profession or your organization.
Lead by Example
Leading by example has two key parts. First is discovering your own skills and good enough so that you are working at your desired levels. Second is communicating that you are in balance, how you found that balance, and how that balance changes over time.
Again, there will be times where you are out of balance and that is OK. Communicating that this is a struggle, and evolving is important so that Talent understand things can’t always be the way we want. But the other side of this is actively working to maintain the right balance as much as possible.
In accounting we have tax season, month close, and year end. These are all natural cycles where work increases. Recognizing and planning for these things is a first step towards find the right balance. As we are asked to do more with less, we also have to recognize and plan for these things so that we do not end up in a constant never ending busy time.
Recognize the Value of Your Production
The Organization does things that may feel easy or simple due to the level of skill within the Organization. It is critical for the Organization to recognize not the effort your talent put in, but the lack of ability for your clients and customers to accomplish what you are capable of doing.
When pricing your service consider the value the market puts on what you are producing, not the costs you incur to provide that service. When we price based on cost, we are devaluing the efforts of the Talent we employ.
Recognize the Partnership to Build Your People
Your organization benefits from developing your Talent. This is a partnership where both parties are making investments and generating returns.
As an organization it is your responsibility to create an environment where your Talent can enjoy the fruits of their labor. On the flip side the Organization needs to recognize a return on the investment into the Talent. Finding and managing that balance is incredibly difficult.
Much of the tension we are feeling today comes from an evolution in this equilibrium. Talent has more power and is asking more from their Organizations. The Organizations that will be successful will be the ones who find ways to best balance the needs of the organization with the wants and desires of Talent.
Communicate How You Work and Make an Impact
We all want to find the right balance where we enjoy what we do and don’t feel overly stressed about it. But striking the right balance is incredibly difficult especially when resources are thin and people are constantly changing.
At the organizational level it is critical to communicate how you strive to find balance and what you do when things get out of balance. Communications comes in different forms. Part of this is having policies that align to how you view balance, but a more important communication is how you actually implement your policies. We talked about walking the walk and the organization has the power to make sure that everybody is doing this.
The other thing I would challenge Organizations to do is to communicate how the Organization helps people. For accounting firms, it can seem like the work is not making a difference. Telling the stories of your clients’ success is a great way to remind both your Talent and your clients of the impact you make.
I want to close by also recognizing that different organizations work in different balance. If your Organization thrives on constant deadlines and pressure then own that and let people know that is the expectation. If your Organization works at a slower pace and the financial rewards are smaller communicate that as well. The important thing is not what your balance is, but that you explain it so your talent and managers understand what is expected of them.