The 3 TRUTHS behind your IDEAL JOB

For the last 35 years I've been searching for my ideal job. And for the last year, many of you will know I've been building my own business from scratch. No history nor legacy. So this whole process as to how to build a great work experience and company culture got me thinking so much more deeply. I wanted to now take this opportunity to share some of these insights and thoughts with you. Whether you are working for someone else or a CEO, I believe the content below may prove useful so let's begin to uncover the 3 truths behind your ideal job.

On my life journey thus far, I've been fortunate to have gleaned insight in to many diverse business sectors and across multiple continents. From steelworks to pharma, food to clinical, I have seen that almost irrespective of what you do and where you actually work, there appear to be just three key baseline elements that seem to define happiness in work.

For the vast majority of us in our day-to-day working activities, we can consider ourselves pretty fortunate if we are able to experience even just one of the three elements that we'll talk about shortly. Having one element alone is where the vast majority of us will remain, as the pressures of earning a regular income often hold us back from taking risks and aspiring for a job with more personal reward...

Then there's some of us who manage to combine more than one of the three key baseline elements. Having two elements is a huge step up in the happiness stakes, but we often find that each comes and goes and not necessarily all at the same time! This added dynamic dimension to the baseline elements means that having 2 elements does not mean we are twice as happy! Like the tidal waters, the baseline elements are not static and can ebb and flow from week to week or month to month. However when we put two of these baseline elements together within a job role, there's certainly a higher level of job satisfaction and often forms the basis or foundation for what we then refer to as our career. One-step-on then from the job!

However when we work with all 3 baseline elements occurring simultaneously or in flux, we can almost always transcend the idea of career! We can be jet propelled past career and straight onto the idea of work becoming our vocation.

A place where we'll never feel like we're working ever again? Well maybe not...

You will often find many business leaders out there, commonly driven by all three baseline values. It's often hard therefore for leaders not to understand why others lower down their organisations, don't feel the same about their business as they do! But they are not in the same place as leaders. It is therefore beholden to business leaders to cascade all of the three elements throughout our organisational structures, so that ALL of our peers get the opportunity to experience that very same higher level engagement when all 3 baseline elements come together.

However its not always easy!

As I mentioned, these three elements ebb and flow like the tides. Their flow can be disturbed by external influences that emanate well beyond the boundaries of the working environment. Life itself can throw us off course, our health and of those around us can affect our journey as much as the wider economic, inflationary and other such macro-influences that we experience year on year as we progress through life.

But the one thing I've seen that repeatedly works for entrepreneurs in particular, is their intrinsic understanding of these three elements and for which they are continually building, knocking down and rebuilding within their own lives. That's where the secret to success and happiness at work lies, so let's take a closer look and uncover each of the elements in turn:

Autonomy:

The ability to self govern in any job role is pretty self-explanatory but very hard to achieve. It manifests itself when there is a high level of trust between the employer and employee and where the immediate line manager creates a clear "managed gap" within his/her team/structure into which other team members will then fill, develop and grow. Sometimes called the art of good management, its a simple baseline principle but it's rarely articulated this way. What is more commonly cited is the resultant anecdote of what happens when this is not done, in that "people don't leave bad jobs, but leave bad managers!"

However managers themselves are also not solely to blame here! Product experts are often promoted into management roles because of their knowledge / ability to do the job. So their natural state is actually to fill in these gaps, by themselves and for the betterment of the business! So it's clear that business leaders should spend much more time, helping to develop and nurture their teams and especially managers, to harness the power of the collective through managing these gaps. This is a skill in its own right. A skill that should be taught at schools and colleges and one of the key founding principles of any successful society. Get this bit right, and then we can move on to the next element:

Mastery:

Giving your team the space and freedom to showcase their skills and abilities, makes a world of difference in terms of personal self-worth and value. It is an opportunity that everybody within work should be given, no matter what they may do. Mastery can come in many forms; from coaching and leadership through to high product expertise, or things like ultra-hand-eye coordination and dexterity, whether that is showcased in sport on a table tennis table or by surgeons on an NHS operating table.

Regretfully, many leaders then feel that it's actually the external validation that comes as a result of displaying public mastery that is then valued by the employee... Although yes, this can sometimes be the case, I would respectfully argue that most of the deep-seated value employee's yield from mastery is that which is internalised. In many cases, it is the personal knowledge of a job well done that is often all that is needed. For many, being trusted by your employer and having been given the free-stage to present your mastery is enough, and this recognition is where the value of excellence in people management resides. This now moves us onto the last of the three elements:

Purpose:

The preceding 2 elements alone are hard enough to reach. However there is an all-important and overarching element that is needed to tie all of this together and is often articulated as "the direction of travel", your "why" or what we will call your purpose!

From a well crafted and personalised mission statement determining long-term direction, through to the very short-term, granular level day-to-day activity lists that we probably all utilise. Almost irrespective of the timeframe, knowing "why" you are doing what you're doing, and having an understanding as to "where" this will ultimately take you, provides purpose for what you do, and is the vital final third element that can truly unlock happiness in all aspects of your life.

Whilst setting up Giganeer, I agonised for months over our "Mission, Vision and Values". Often called the value proposition, I wanted to ensure that the business values were fully aligned to all of our stakeholders not just in a business/commercial sense, but also in terms of our health, our wellbeing, our diversity and inclusivity. I cannot stress highly enough how important this process step is for your life and business. It will oversee your overall level of satisfaction and happiness no matter what you are building: career, family or business.

Summary:

In summary the world of work has changed so much for us all.

The three baseline elements of #Autonomy, #Mastery and #Purpose, are all critical for your ideal job and ultimate happiness.

There is much written about the #thegreatresignation and #quietquitting. However this is nothing really new. For Milenia, people have left careers, jobs and bad managers in order to progress themselves.

However what has changed is the pace of change and the high levels of expectations of the new engaged workforce.

As leaders today, we need to both recognise and appreciate these challenges as well as the importance of implementing these values throughout our businesses. If we build this together with our peers, we will all live more fulfilled and happy lives.

If you'd like to know more about Giganeer or what we've done in this sphere, or about how we could potentially assist you in building a NEW Flexible Workforce of the future:

Please email: info@giganeer.com or call 03301658988 or reach out to / DM me on LinkedIn

Thankyou

Jem Drew

CEO of Giganeer ltd

C.Eng MIMMM B.Eng.Hons