The Happiest People Pursue the Most Difficult Problems

An inspiring piece by Rosabeth Moss Kanter.

"Lurking behind the question of jobs — whether there are enough of them, how hard we should work at them, and what kind the future will bring — is a major problem of job engagement"  she writes. "Too many people are tuned out, turned off, or ready to leave. But there's one striking exception."

The fact is that the happiest people are those dedicated to dealing with the most difficult problems. Turning around inner city schools. Finding solutions to homelessness or unsafe drinking water. Supporting children with terminal illnesses. They face the seemingly worst of the world with a conviction that they can do something about it and serve others.

Ellen Goodman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist turned grief to social purpose. She was distraught over the treatment of her dying mother. After leaving her job as a syndicated columnist, she founded The Conversation Project, a campaign to get every family to face the difficult task of talking about death and end-of-life care.

Gilberto Dimenstein, another writer-turned-activist in Brazil, spreads happiness through social entrepreneurship. 

When famous Brazilian pianist Joao Carlos Martins lost the use of most of his fingers and almost gave into deepest despair, Dimenstein urged him to teach music to disadvantaged young people. A few years later, Martins, now a conductor, exudes happiness. He has nurtured musical talent throughout Brazil, brought his youth orchestras to play at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, and has even regained some use of his fingers.

For many social entrepreneurs, happiness comes from the feeling they are making a difference.

There is the same spirit in business teams creating new initiatives that they believe in. Gillette's Himalayan project team took on the challenge of changing the way men shave in India, where the common practice of barbers using rusty blades broken in two caused bloody infections. A team member who initially didn't want to leave Boston for India found it his most inspiring assignment. 

Similarly, Procter & Gamble's Pampers team in Nigeria find happiness facing the problem of infant mortality and devising solutions, such as mobile clinics that sent a physician and two nurses to areas lacking access to health care.

Rosebeth identifies three primary sources of motivation in high-innovation companies: mastery, membership, and meaning. Another M, money, turned out to be a distant fourth. Money acted as a scorecard, but it did not get people up-and-at 'em for the daily work, nor did it help people go home every day with a feeling of fulfillment.

People can be inspired to meet stretch goals and tackle impossible challenges if they care about the outcome. The inspiring story of how a new general manager of the Daimler Benz operations in South Africa raised productivity and quality at the end of the apartheid era by giving the workers something to do that they valued: make a car for Nelson Mandela, just released from prison. A plant plagued by lost days, sluggish workers, and high rates of defects produced the car in record time with close to zero defects. The pride in giving Mandela the Mercedes, plus the feeling of achievement, helped the workers maintain a new level of performance. People stuck in boring, rote jobs will spring into action for causes they care about.

Heart-wrenching emotion also helps cultivate a human connection. It is hard to feel alone, or to whine about small things, when faced with really big matters of deprivation, poverty, and life or death. Social bonds and a feeling of membership augment the meaning that comes from values-based work.

Of course, daunting challenges can be demoralizing at times. City Year corps members working with at-risk middle school students with failing grades from dysfunctional homes see improvement one day, only to have new problems arise the next. Progress isn't linear; it might not be apparent until after many long days of hard work have accumulated. It may show up in small victories, like a D student suddenly raising his hand in class because he understands the math principle.

It's now common to say that purpose is at the heart of leadership, and people should find their purpose and passion. I'd like to go a step further and urge that everyone regardless of their work situation, have a sense of responsibility for at least one aspect of changing the world. It's as though we all have two jobs: our immediate tasks and the chance to make a difference.

Leaders everywhere should remember the M's of motivation: mastery, membership, and meaning. Tapping these non-monetary rewards (while paying fairly) are central to engagement and happiness. And they are also likely to produce innovative solutions to difficult problems.Leaders deliver confidence by espousing high standards in their messages, exemplifying these standards in the conduct they model, and establishing formal mechanisms to provide a structure for acting on those standards.

Espouse: the power of message. Leaders articulate standards, values, and visions.  They give pep talks. Their messages can incite to action when that is appropriate, or they can calm and soothe people to prevent them from panicking.  In the strong cultures that develop in winning streaks, leaders’ messages are internalized and echo throughout the system.  Players on the North Carolina women’s soccer team seemed to have Anson Dorrance’s voice in their heads.  At Continental Airlines, numerous people in a variety of jobs quoted Gordon Bethune’s favorite sayings.  From the Go Forward Plan to Bethune’s weekly voicemails, people learned from what Continental leaders espoused.  The messages provided practical information, inspiration, and a feeling of inclusion, as everyone knew everyone else heard the same message.

Exemplify: the power of models.  Leaders serve as role models, leading through the power of personal example. “I don’t believe as a leader you can ever expect anybody to do things you are not willing to do yourself,” said Mike Babcock of the Mighty Ducks.  The leaders with winning streaks and turnarounds sought to exemplify the kinds of accountable, collaborative behavior they sought in others.  Certainly the personal example of truth and reconciliation, inclusion, and empowerment set by Nelson Mandela reflected one of the most remarkable and admirable personal journeys of the twentieth century.  In a different country and different way, Akin Ongor of Garanti Bank was an inspiring business role model with courage, and compassion – offering to resign when he discovered that the bank had lost $14 million due to a junior manager’s mistake that control systems had not caught because he said he “shared the mistake,” or mobilizing the bank’s employees to help in the aftermath of an earthquake in Turkey.

Establish: the power of formal mechanisms.  Leaders develop processes, routines, and structures.  They embed winners’ behavior in the culture not just through person-to-person and generation-to-generation transfers of norms, but also through the formal mechanisms that embed positive behavior in team and organizational routines.  North Carolina women’s soccer coach Anson Dorrance or Connecticut women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma had many systematic ways to forge their players into a victory machine that just kept winning – a yearly calendar of activities including off-season events, routines for practices, assessment tools, leadership seminars, a schedule of meetings.  The teams changed composition, as players turned over, but the structures and processes remained. The winning teams that resulted were not a force of nature, they were a product of professional disciplines and structures.  Nelson Mandela’s leadership in South Africa was manifested not just through his inspiring message and model but through the structure of a new government, legislation, formal events such as town meetings on a new constitution and hearings by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Leaders must deliver confidence at every level: self-confidence, confidence in each other, confidence in the system, and the confidence of external investors and the public that their support is warranted.

by   |   9:00 AM April 10, 2013