What People Should Be Working On

We should strive to create companies where people work on what they enjoy.

Originally published on the Strategyzer Blog.

The image above is an exercise every team member did at our 2016 Strategyzer offsite. I deeply believe that we should build companies where people work on the stuff they enjoy. When you have people working on what they enjoy, I also believe it can lead to better innovation inside the organization.

Sometimes people do things they are good at, but may not like doing. That’s not good. Then there are people doing something they like, but they might not be very good at it. That’s also not good. There are always going to be things that we don’t necessarily like doing, or that we’re not super good at because of resource constraints. However, great companies should always aspire to get their people to work on something they love doing, are good at, and that creates value for the company and market.

This goes back to a previous post I wrote about how your company culture can match people’s aspirations. It’s about growing that overlap between the culture you have, and the culture your people desire. Part of a great company culture is an organization that strives to create jobs where people get to play in the center sweet spot.