Thanks to the industrial revolution we have many great conveniences of modern life. However, it has also left us with some legacies. Namely: the fact that most of us have to work 9 to 5. Work isn’t about showing up and sitting in one spot. It’s about getting something accomplished. Why isn’t this true of our jobs? Why, for most of us, is attendance the factor that determines whether we were a ...

Over the years I’ve done a lot of volunteering.  Some of the roles were awesome, fun, and energizing.  Others, well, let’s just say they made me wonder how soon I could head home. As I look back I realize that my involvement in each volunteering opportunity was hit or miss.  I’d sign up for something to “give it a try.”  Maybe it would work. Maybe it wouldn’t.  There wasn’t a strategy in how I decided where to volunteer.  More importantly, however, organizations didn’t have a strategy for ...

It's tough to be number one.  In fact, by math, that means only one person, one team, one organization can be "the best" at a time.  Which means that if you wait to celebrate until you've reached the top, you're going to be waiting a very long time.  But is this a good thing?  Should we celebrate more often? What about celebrating in the midst of suffering or problems?  Is it even right to celebrate if we're not the best? That's what I explore in my new ...

Can robots make a good sandwich?  That’s a question that has plagued philosophers since the time of Aristotle.  But before I give you the answer, let’s look at why this is important.  (Although if you’ve been following Meaning to Work on Twitter, then you’d already know the answer.) For starters, sandwich making robots are clearly the holy grail of science fiction.  Which means we’re one step closer to living in the future. A future with great sandwiches! But more than that, this has practical implications for ...

Yesterday I met a nurse who had been at her job for 35 years.  As hard to believe as that is, she wasn’t alone.  Another nurse, that very same day, was retiring after 40 years.  Both had been at the same hospital for their entire careers. Hearing this tells me two things. 1. This must be an amazing hospital if people are willing to spend (literally) a lifetime working there. 2. These nurses love what they do. It’s this second point I want to focus on.  To most of us working ...

Does having an empathetic boss improve the quality of your work?  According to research, the answer would be “yes.” We often think of empathy as “feeling your pain.”  (Thanks Bill Clinton!)  But it’s actually more than that.  True empathy is the ability to recognize and relate to other people’s emotional states.  Both the good and bad emotional states. So how does this relate to our work? Well, all of us experience aches and pains in our daily lives.  Maybe we have a chronic illness.  Maybe we’re just sick.  Or maybe ...

Ah, November.  The time when we celebrate what’s arguably the best monthly tradition on the calendar?  It’s hard to believe that as it closes, we once again wrap up another National Novel Writing Month.  (What?  You thought I was going to talk about Thanksgiving?) For the second year in a row I managed to complete a 50,000 word book.  And yes, I did that in a month.  This is both impossibly harder, and wonderfully easier than it sounds.  Make no doubt about it, 50,000 words is a ...

The headline says it all.  Choosing your team impacts everything you do.  And in some cases, is your most important decision.  A good team can overcome terrible working conditions, unexpected problems, and tight budgets.  Of course with good working conditions, few problems, and the right budget, they’ll do even better!   But the right team goes a long way to securing your own success or failure. Take this example from the world of video games.  In short, a highly anticipated sequel (Deus Ex: Human Revolution) was released after ...

One of the most tragic parts of our lives is how little we learn from the mistakes of others.  Certainly this is true in our personal lives, but it’s also true in our professional lives. There are many reasons this is the case.  One reason is simply our pride.  We’re proud creatures, who have a hard time asking for directions, let alone true help.  (Fortunately Google Maps has made it so we don’t need to ask for directions.) Another reason is that at least in America, we have a ...

I’ve always hated the idea of working 9 to 5.  It’s a remnant from the command and control structure of factories (and to a lesser extent farming.)  In those environments all your employees needed to be in one spot, working together.   After all, it’s hard to run an assembly line if someone’s missing from their post. But in today’s create on demand world, is that kind of structure necessary anymore? I say no.  But more than that, my suspicion is that chaining someone to a desk from 9 to ...