From 'meh' to Wow at work: Create & Align your story

Student (in crowd): 'Dr. Peterson, can you tell me how can I find my purpose...my willingness to contribute... getting my ideas out there. What's the best way I can do that? I often get frustrated as there are so many opposing voices. So much resistance. And, most of the time it seems like an uphill struggle to deliver my message as intended.'

Dr. Peterson (on stage): 'Learn to write. And, write more often. If you articulate your thoughts & ideas into a structured post (of any kind!); it will leave an impression...an impact on your brain. Yes, perhaps only 1 person (you?) may actually read it. But it provides a compendium of your thoughts & gives it that necessary meaning. The impact shall happen. Gradually. But keep writing & the meaning shall manifest accordingly.'

The conversation above aren't exact statements. It's an interpretation of my psyche (Conversations of Culture forum)- but in it's entirety I did my utter best to extrapolate meaning from Dr. Jordan B. Peterson's words. They may not be exactly as how he delivered them. But that's how my cerebrum interpreted this conversation.

And isn't that how work & life generally is? A bunch of interpretations chained together as stories.

Some of our core problems at work & society at large (often palpable!) is that we take this interpreted meaning of the management, media, peers, family, social feeds as gospel. What we generally do is accept this interpreted spoonful & gulp it down without that crucial self thinking pause. We already know how our social media feeds are cleverly interpreted to show content that we (generally) agree with. As humans we love echo chambers. That realization then indeed, must drive us to incorporate challenging views & voices.

There's an indescribable beauty that emancipates from the perceived 'chaos of disagreement'.

True growth lies in that. Where were our thoughts & reasoning process? Did we leave any room for our personal interpretation? Much like anything in mass media consumption- we just swallowed the information whole & then the neurons in our brain lit up to provide us a feeling (of sorts). Before moving on to the next story. Thus fundamentally, the lack of this self defined purpose... a lack of our personal stories nudged me to write this piece.

So, where could I make a measurable impact in my daily life? At work, of course! As companies grow in the new subscription economy, the lines between a corporation's services & it's need for being an agent of social change are blurring. That's where my crazy little method could perhaps fit in. I knew I had a problem with the frame-worked & traditional perceptions of work & society. And I encouraged myself to map these connections in a personal story. A need for a (well) defined story was inevitable.

To navigate these interesting times in corporate culture, it's important that we have a personal intervention moment & define our stories.

The chart below (apologies to analysts all around the world) shows a purpose-less day for me at work moving from one task to the next. All the while thinking I'm quite busy.

Within a more traditional framework of work- the above graph wouldn't be that bad. I mean I've done my tasks for the day. The report was a huge personal success. My manager was happy I stuck to my delivery deadlines. Of course, being busy is a good thing, no?

Busyness is often a justification for us to define a good day at work.

In all honesty- I'm being slightly flippant with my graph above. Shout out to my wonderful folks in our people team. Don't worry about me (Erm, Seriously!) This is of course, before I became obsessed with the concept of assigning personal purpose at work.

So, here's what I did. As with most of my ideas, it occurred when I woke up in the middle of night for restroom duties. It's weird how our thoughts & ramblings during the day- manifest through the subconscious mind at the strangest of times. These weird moments are definitely my eureka(!) zones. With the powerful idea of storytelling as the central facet of this approach- I thought to myself. How can I motivate myself on a micro level everyday so I can achieve fulfillment in my daily work life.

Ultimately, the way I feel at work is defined primarily by me. I need to take personal responsibility for this important decision

I thought what better way than to write down my personal statement. I do this as a part of responsibilities within Business Change function. Defining a purpose of a project via Business Cases. Well, this is where a personal statement was necessary to hinge on, to align expectations when things didn't go as planned. Or when I had an unnecessary meeting to deliver an expected (but unaligned) agenda.

Step 1. Create a personal statement by answering the following question:

Q)Why do I work in this company? (Insert your company name)

A)I work here because '_______________' (Keep it short & sweet!)

Let the statement make your hair stand on end (in sheer excitement of course) when you read it. Let it empower & propel your purpose. I read mine every morning when I come to work. And it excites me to get working!

A personal statement became my north star. My guidance through the 'meh' times

'This is all great stuff, Dee. And I have assigned a personal purpose at work. Now WHAT?'

Great question, dear reader.

Let's pause now & think about our respective firms through this lens of purpose. This is where I'd like to introduce the concept of purpose alignment. Every meeting I have in my firm- I try to encourage myself to attach my personal motivation to it. Because I know it motivates me think deeply about how all of this ultimately connects to our customers. But at times however, I do wish how the corporate framework would allow itself to align with this approach. Remember, the fundamentals in this approach are not data driven. They are thoughts driven- it comes from a place of pondering. A sense of a personal endeavor.

But do corporations have time to take this pause? How is the corporate strategy aligned to all our personal purposes.

This is why I don't exactly remember the numbers shared in last week's (hypothetical but often occurring?) management update. The numbers, graphs & pivot charts are often beautiful & I appreciate the analyst's hard work that resulted in creating them. It's a data driven approach that has it's purpose in a decision room but it doesn't necessarily encourage me to deliver value to my customer.

The point is...I don't remember most presentations like these.

But then why do I remember the presentation made by Jane (invented name for article) in Marketing in February last year- it shared the story of our customer going through a life changing episode with the company. That customer was so impressed by the service received- they became our brand ambassador. The best marketing for any company is often free of charge & it flows (oh so!) beautifully. It's people like Jane that drive decision making to that next level.

Bingo! An emotive response to anything is indeed more powerful.

We connect to stories. Not data.

Presentations like these make me think deeply about the impact of my work on a customer's life. Not directly- but there's definitely an element of connection. And I wanted to define this connection between my work & our customers at a deeper level. Therefore, I also (try) to attach a story weekly of how our project responsibilities & outputs directly affects one of our customers (both internal & external).

I am not stating that data isn't important. On the contrary my intention is to align a purpose to existence of a particular (& particularly popular still?) delivery mechanism. There is a reason why data exists & why it's important. It's for decision making at the pixel level- just as each picture can be zoomed into to reveal the thousands of tiny building blocks. Data makes sense to align a micro goal. I am however urging you to look at how that affects our purpose to serve. Stories offer that much needed 'thumbnail approach' that describes that image in it's entirety- we know exactly what the larger picture holds because of the thumbnail. And that approach is driven better by a collection of personal stories.

Step 2. You know that personal statement you have already printed out whilst pausing to read this article (Go you!). I want you print out a short story, of an impact you had directly on customer this week. It could be an internal or external client. It doesn't really matter

This week my actions at work resulted in '_________________' (Customer focused- & keep it short & specific)

Think of this approach as a good ol' (self certified) pat on the back.We all need it sometimes, right? And that's it- your personal statement is now aligned with a customer success moment. That's how wonderful stories are made. Stories that define our corporate culture. There is indeed a direct co-relation between us having a personal purpose & how our clients ultimately relate to our company. We just need to pause sometimes & think about this.

Take a deep breath now. Pause. Think about how your story connects to your workplace. Start writing it now. It only takes a moment. But it will deliver an everlasting sense of fulfillment. This is my promise to you.

Go, live your story. I wish you much success, dear friend.

Dee Sethi (C) 2019