Know Your Why

No matter your stage of life or professional role, no matter how happy or fulfilled you may be at work, at some point we all ask the question: Is this all there is? Call it a mid-life crisis, call it existential angst, call it lack of work ethic, whatever you want to call it, its perfectly normal. We all have moments where we question our reason for getting out of bed in the morning; hopefully these moments are few and far between, and not an ongoing state of being.

The Gallup organizations research into employee engagement identifies three types of employees:

• Engaged employees work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company. They drive innovation and move the organization forward.
• Not-engaged employees are essentially checked out. Theyre sleepwalking through their workday, putting time but not energy or passion into their work.
• Actively disengaged employees arent just unhappy at work; theyre busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day, these workers undermine what their engaged coworkers accomplish.

Which one are you? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but most likely its not what you think: according to Gallups research, worldwide only 13 percent of employees are engaged at work.

What does this mean for you and me? It can be tempting to blame others: your boss, your co-workers, the state of the economy, the state of your relationship, what-have-you. But you soon will find that this is a less-than-satisfying exercise that leads to little in the way of fruitful outcomes. Worse, if you take it too far, you very likely will fall into that actively disengaged category, acting out your frustrations in ways that negatively impact others.

Instead, its time to take ownership of those things that are in your control, and to let go of those that are not. And taking ownership starts with figuring out your why.

In strategic planning terms, your why is your need what is the change over time that you would like to create? You might also think of this as your mission, that thing that gives you purpose and defines you, the thing that describes why you do what you do (and why you dont do other things). Organizationally speaking, this is why you get out of bed in the morning. Systems theory tells us that every member of an organization has to know what the mission of that organization is, and how his or her work connects to that mission, for his or her work to have meaning. If the front desk receptionist does not understand how his or her engagement with customers impacts the organizations greater mission, then pretty soon he or she is going to stop caring how the phone gets answered or visitors get greeted.

As an individual, you also have a why. This might be a need that youre trying to fill, or a change that youre trying to create, or a goal that youre trying to reach. It could be something deep and mission-driven, like a cause. Or it could simply be a means to an end. Organization behavior researcher Amy Wrzesniewski has identified three orientations to work, that help us as individuals to define our why: a job orientation, those who see work as a means to an end; a career orientation, those who connect work to aspiration and success; and a calling orientation, those who connect their work with their identity.

When I was doing my doctoral research on the socialization of women to careers in academia, I had not been exposed to Wrzesniewskis work, but I found a similar typology connected to academic discipline: those in the humanities tended to see their careers as ones of chance, where any decision along the way could have sent them along another path; those in business saw their academic careers as ones of choice, and they were very clear that they could always make another choice to pursue a career with greater salary and benefits; and those in the sciences described their careers as callings, and were unable to separate their professional identities from their personal ones.

The point is this: it doesnt matter what you call it. Call it a choice, call it a career, call it a job or a calling, what matters is that you know why you are doing what you are doing. You have to know your why, and you have to know how your actions connect to that why on a daily basis, or you are soon to be a disengaged, burned-out employee. Just like in systems theory, you have to know how your daily actions support your mission or purpose. There is no value judgment on what that mission or purpose is; someone who is called to build an orphanage is no better or no worse than someone who is working on Wall Street or someone who is working to pay off student loans. What matters is that you know your why.

Define your why. Then ask yourself: How does this organization and this role support my ability to meet that need? What changes do I need to make to get closer to my why?

For more resources on discovering your why, check out our Five For Your First Five .