Deep Down, We Wish ‘Energizing Work’ Was More Complicated

Last week I gave a talk in Los Angeles for International Coaching Week. As I was on the plane flying home I read through my feedback forms, and noticed a couple comments indicating the participants would have liked more examples of workplaces that help people work freely in their strengths.

I’ve heard this request a lot over the last decade. It’s natural to want some kind of “use case” or “case study” so we can see HOW things work, especially something that can seem so foreign: something like organizations full of people who love their work. (Sadly, for many of us, that idea is roughly the equivalent of describing a visit to the surface of Mars.)

When I get this request in my sessions, I give examples—we have no shortage, although of course we want thousands more!—of leaders we’ve worked with who have been transformed, teams that have become unstoppable, etc. But I’ve realized something: I could spend my entire keynote slot just giving examples of how teams do this, and I’d still get this feedback on the form at the end.

Why?

It’s because there’s something else “hiding” in this request. There’s a skepticism that “it”—a workplace where people are deeply, authentically energized by work they love—could ever happen in the relatively simple manner I describe.

Over the years, we’ve been taught (both implicitly and explicitly) that organizational transformation should be hard, arduous, and slow. That individual and team development is complex and difficult. That getting people to do great work is an uphill climb.

Put simply, this is all “head trash.”

Getting people to do great work is SIMPLE. You align their work with two things:

1. What they are good at, and 
2. What they are energized by. <— more important, because we don’t focus on it EVER