Shrinking the Camel

Several months ago I reported that happiness was a hot topic in business reporting these days. But unfortunately, some depressing news has recently developed in the happiness department.  

Apparently worker happiness is on the fritz.  

A January survey by the Conference Board revealed that more Americans than ever before are unhappy at work, representing the nadir of a steady decline that has been ebbing away for the last 30 years.  

According to the research, only 45% of Americans are currently happy at work, compared to 52% in 2005, and 61% in 1987.

Most likey these unhappiness trends are linked to the effects of a dismal recession: employees are required to do more with less resources; they are more likely to settle for jobs they are not suited for; and incomes have not kept up with inflation. Blech! No wonder everyone is so miserable.   Read the rest of this entry »

“Since you are so obsessed with your next big career move,” he suggested, “write down a description of your ideal job, to include your work environment, the type of industry you are in, the types of people you are working with, the business results you are achieving, the talents you are using, and also describe what the non-business parts of your life look like: your faith, your family, your community involvement, your hobbies. Be creative.”

I hadn’t done one of these Visioning exercises in a long time, so I agreed that might be a good idea, to take a big step back and ask those basic questions again:

Fun? You didn’t say anything about making it fun! My career is serious business, man! And my family is a big responsibility! I don’t take those things lightly.  Then I drew his attention to the bullet point describing my European vacations. That’s fun, isn’t it?

“Your homework for next month is to have fun. You must have more fun in your life.”

After spending a few minutes discussing the definition of what “fun” is (the fact that I had to define “fun” in and of itself is a very bad sign), we narrowed down my fun interests to a few creative outlets. We also emphasized the importance of tapping back into the creative side of me. We decided I should begin to write.

“I would love to write,” I said, “but what do I have to write about? I don’t have any big ideas.”

 ”Write about your faith.” Dr. Payne replied.

My faith? What faith? I’m a business executive, not a pastor! What is there to say about my faith?

Well, maybe that’s the point. Really, maybe the act of writing about my faith, even with my doubts and struggles, would somehow be spiritually therapeutic and a creative outlet and fun all at the same time. I agreed to at least give it a try. I decided I would write ten minutes a day and see what comes of it.

So now you know my story. I have started a prescribed course of action that includes writing about my faith and work through this Blog, getting mentored by the good Doctor, finding joy, having fun, and somehow opening my heart and ears to God’s mysterious calling and purpose for my life. This is the hardest and easiest thing at the same time.

Isn’t it funny: after just two meetings with Dr. Payne, I realized that I have spent the last 15 years of my life so focused on my career and the next big advancement, the next promotion, the next ego-boost, that I had forgotten how to think about life in more simple terms: fun; gratitude; relaxation; joy.  And in the process, I have kind of deferred God to a back seat in my life. But now I am sensing that God is challenging me to let Him have more of a say in my life than ever.

Dare we say that Dr. Payne was sent by God?

Dr. Payne met with me the next week in my office at work. I shut the door and immediately unloaded my great burden on him, working myself into a lather about my untapped, underutilized, unacknowledged leadership potential that was completely going to waste. He let me rant for a while, and then he gave me some advice:

            “As we get older and approach mid-life, it becomes more important to find joy in what we are doing rather than what we can achieve. Do you agree?

            “Sure thing, Doc”

(What I was really thinking): “I don’t want joy, I want a kick-ass career upgrade! I want the stock grants and the IPO in two years and those business trips to Europe and the Caribbean!”

Dr. Payne definitely had the advantage here because he is about 15 years older than I am, so he might know something that I haven’t thought about yet. He talked about how things that were important to us when we are young do not bring us the same fulfillment as we start getting older. In order to stay happy and productive, we need to shift the way we look at our lives. This started to make sense. He continued.

            “Because when we do things that bring us joy, it will ultimately bring joy to others. And then God opens up His pathways for us and you begin to experience His abundance. I have no doubt you will find your way to discover God’s purpose for your career. But right now I want you to spend the next few weeks paying very close attention to the things that bring you joy as you go through your work day. Write it down for me.”

            OK, well, actually, joy isn’t so bad. I’m sure I could benefit from identifying the activities that bring me joy, since I’ve been so resltess and cynical lately. In fact, to be honest, I haven’t really thought about joy in my life much at all. Joy is good. Good idea. 

Over the next few weeks I kept track of the things I did that brought me joy at work. Surprisingly, this was not difficult. It turns out there were many things about my job that were enjoyable. And keeping track of it kind of helped me to gravitate more towards those activities I found joy in. For me, they were things like working on high-level strategy projects, initiating major change, mentoring other guys in their jobs.  When I stopped to pay attention, there was actually a lot of interesting things going on with my job that I truly enjoyed. I think I had been so focused on what I didn’t have, or what I thought I should have, that I was missing the opportunity to make the most of what was right in front of me.  And maybe Dr. Payne was right. Maybe if I just keep focusing on the things I’m good at, the things I enjoy, then that tremendous new Chief Executive job would kind of show up at the right time, if it was part of God’s plan for me. I decided I was going to trust God on this and have a better attitude about my current work.

To be continued…

(continued from the previous post)

So the purpose of my work is to glorify God, is it? I needed to think that one over. The truth is, over the past few months I had been experiencing a bout of career angst that had been driving me nuts. As a side-effect, I was sure that my work wasn’t really glorifying God.

Here’s what had happened to me: Several months before this, I had been offered a very exciting CEO position with a high-visibility, rapid-growth company, but it ended up falling apart because of some “accounting irregularities” that were uncovered at the company. Oops. It sent the business into a tailspin for a while and eventually the owners sold out to an investor group, who of course wanted to choose their own CEO. Thank God the mess came out of the woodwork before I committed to it. But afterwards, I was left with this empty feeling, wondering how I was going to go back to my real, now very boring by comparison, existing job (the one that was still paying me) with any enthusiasm. By comparison, my current job seemed entirely mundane and beneath my capabilities. Maybe, I thought, the job offer was a nudge from God pushing me forward, a sign for me to move on, to start looking for another CEO position somewhere else – a hint that I had outlived the useful life of the current company and position I was in. God does that sometimes, doesn’t He?

I kept ruminating about it, getting more and more disappointed and disgusted with my current station. Yes, I’m sure of it: God has Bigger Plans For Me! This is the Purpose and Direction I had been waiting for! This CEO opportunity must have been God’s leading me towards the next chapter of my life – the one in which I step into some fantastic leadership role and have huge influence and make gobs of money so I could become a well-known philanthropist and God would be so pleased and say “Well done, good and faithful servant!” and I could take the family on expensive European vacations a few times a year, even though the dollar has been at an all-time low, and I could finally start that art collection that I’ve been dreaming about, etc etc etc.

I had big ideas for God’s plan for that particular chapter of my life.

I decided that I must consult with my new British Leadership Coach friend Dr. Payne about this. I desperately needed a spiritual/business advisor to help me make some important career decisions and discern God’s point of view on the whole thing. I cornered Dr. Payne after his next Sunday session with the Men’s group at church and we scheduled some time to talk at my office.

I could hardly wait to get Dr. Payne’s advice and assistance in charting out a roadmap for my new, exciting career path.

To be continued…

One Sunday morning in church I noticed in the bulletin an announcement for a new Men’s group that was going to be starting up the next week as a new offerring of the Christian Education program.  I yawned at first, because trying to get men to talk about their faith in small groups can sometimes be painstaking. But I decided to take an obligatory look at what kind of topics this new Men’s group was going to tackle. The first guest speaker was a man by the name of Dr. Stephen Payne, “Leadership Coach,” and he was going to be speaking to the men on “Faith in the Workplace.” This got my attention.

After the men had gathered and settled in, Dr. Payne opened up the class by asking a question. A very simple question:

This cross-section of intelligent, successful, ambitious men from our very sophisticated church were immediately stumped and sat in embarrassing silence for a few moments. Even I was thinking to myself, “He shouldn’t make us think so hard about things which we know nothing about, so soon into the class, and so early in the morning.” Coming up with an answer to this deep question is supposed to be his job, isn’t it? I consider myself to be a well-educated, knowledgeable Christian, but this one flew right over my head.

Dr. Payne was quick to chastise us short-sighted men and pointed out that the purpose of our work was instead to glorify God.

The purpose of my work is to glorify God. 

Well. That puts things in a different light, now, doesn’t it?