December 18, 2013, 12:00 PM ET
ByRichard Sheridan
Dax Shepard (left) and Adam Braverman in
‘Parenthood’
NBC
Joy is not typically a word associated with
business and work. Yet joy is the foundation of not only why I enjoy my work,
but why the company I’ve help build is successful and growing.
My own career journey took me from joy to fear
and back to joy again. I fell in love with writing software as a kid and
pursued that path with great energy and determination. However, in the early
days of my career, I found myself taking the longest drives to work I could,
because I didn’t want to get there. I didn’t want to be in the industry
anymore. I had arrived at disillusionment.
Getting back to joy was a long pursuit. I had to
change everything around me to find that first happiness again. Part of that
journey involved understanding what brought me joy, in the context of my job
and company, and what brought fear.
Just as there are teachers who simply go through
the motions and drag us through the material in order to complete a required
course, there are companies and jobs and bosses that do the same. That doesn’t
mean you have to live with it. Avoid those fear-run workplaces. Quit
those jobs. Ask your friends about where they work, or about companies they’ve
read about or heard about where passion, excitement, and human energy are
valued above all else. In those places, you will find that fear is not primary
motivator for getting to results.
Although I’ve found that most organizations do
not focus on their culture and end up with what I call a “default culture,”
there are also a significant number of companies who are quite explicit about
what they are trying to achieve. Those companies have a mission and a purpose
in what they do. The people who work there are focused not on themselves, but
on those they serve. They are working on something much bigger than themselves.
I learned to love my job and my work by connecting it to joy: joy for our
customers, joy for the end users of our products, joy for my team, and personal
joy in what we were doing.
Many believe this kind of mission focus can only
occur in the non-profit world. This couldn’t be further from the truth. There
are successful purpose-driven private and public corporations, large and small.
They are still rare, though, so it won’t necessarily be easy to find them, but
it is worth your time to pursue this search. Some of you will be inclined to do
what I ultimately did and start your own firm, with its own mission and
purpose.
Entrepreneurship for me was the enabler of a
noble yet selfish pursuit: I wanted to create a company that I loved. I created
my own fulfilling job, but it would only be fulfilling to me if it were also
rewarding for those who worked around me.
To learn to love your job, it’s important to
find a job where learning is a requirement to success. Learning engenders joy,
regardless of the industry you’re in. Become a student again. Read books, study
organizations, and stretch yourself to try new things. If you are in a
technical or a support role, volunteer for sales support assignments and watch
how your company interacts with its customers. Sign up for trade show booth
duty and learn what others in the world are seeking from firms like yours.
Learn to present in front of others. Sign up to speak at conferences, and then
go listen to other speakers. Find the ideas, the people and the companies that inspire
you.
You must learn to listen to what makes your
heart sing and track toward those things. Never be afraid of hard work
and know that loving your job doesn’t mean you will be happy every minute. Joy
and happiness are not the same thing.
Joy is the feeling a fighter pilot gets when,
after all the training and preparation, she lands an F-18 on the deck of an
aircraft carrier in rough seas, strong winds, and low visibility. Once the
engine is quiet and the chocks are placed, she knows that the aircraft, the
carrier, the flight deck team, and she are all safe and sound—and she can’t
wait to do it again.
We all want joy in our work lives, in our down
time, in our kids’ schools, in our faith walks, in our families, and in our
nation. Humans are wired to work on things bigger than ourselves, to be in
community with one another. It’s why we join teams, companies, and then work
very hard and long to achieve a difficult and elusive shared goal.
I wish that kind of joy at work for you.
Richard Sheridan is the author of “Joy, Inc.”
(Portfolio) and the CEO of Menlo Innovations.
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