Your job shouldn’t define you.
Feeling passion for and deriving meaning from work is often seen as a good thing. But in “The Job,” Ellen Ruppel Shell explains how that can backfire.
Some CEOs – like Morgan Stanley’s James Gorman – have also said that your job shouldn’t define you.
In her new book, “The Job,” journalist Ellen Ruppel Shell includes a chapter on finding meaning in your work.
Shell spoke to Amy Wrzesniewski, a Yale professor whose research on “job crafting” – or molding your job to be more meaningful to you – has made its way into more than a few career-advice books and articles.
Wrzesniewski’s research also divides workers into three different categories: those who see their work as a job, a career, or a “calling.” If you see your job as a calling, you’re inclined to see your life and work as linked inextricably, and you’re motivated by a sense of purpose and mission (as opposed to financial rewards).
Thompson said, “If you believe you were put on this earth to fill some ‘calling,’ and for whatever reason you do not do it, you might easily consider that a moral failure.” What’s more, Thompson said, if you feel called to your work, you might even be more vulnerable to exploitation from managers, because they sense you’ll do anything to stay in this role.
This happened to Dan D’Agostino – who was fired from his position as CEO of a multi-million dollar business. But as D’Agostino wrote on Business Insider, “Being fired and taking a year off has provided me with the space to get truly comfortable with not having my identity tied to an occupation.” Instead, D’Agostino spent time traveling with his family.
In “The Job,” Shell describes research conducted by Sally Maitlis, a professor at the University of Oxford’s Said Business School. Maitlis followed professional dancers and musicians who had to stop that work because of illness or injury. And she learned that the artists for whom work was a larger and more consuming part of their identity were the least likely to bounce back.
On the other hand, some of the artists for whom work was less consuming found ways to channel their dedication to music or dance in other ways that weren’t “jobs” per se.
Shell summed up her conversation with Maitlis: “Flourishing in a global economy requires us to see ourselves independent of our jobs while maintaining a strong grasp of our work identity” – something that, to be sure, is easier said than done.