Have you ever known in your heart that you were doing work that just wasn't right for you?
The Canada Human Resource Center says that 3 out of 4 people are not happy with their jobs.
And maybe you've met one of these people.
You come in in the morning and you say "Good morning" and you get the "Good Morning"
kind of the zombie response.
And maybe you're not happy with your work.
See I was forced to stare the situation in the face.
So, it's Sunday night and I'm feeling sick. My stomach's upset and I think I'm coming down with something.
And then it hits me: I'm not sick, I'm sick of my job.
I'm dreading work. I'm dreading Monday morning.
Especially this Monday morning.
It's performance review day. Yeah.
And so at 1 am or 2 or some ungodly hour I made a decision
I was either gonna make my job different or I needed to get a different job.
So, it's Monday I'm walking to work and I'm feeling pretty anxious about my review and bam I run into my friend Kim
We used to work together and I said "Hey Kim, how's work going?" And she said "Cal, I hate my job
but the money's good." Ouch!
She just about broke my heart.
You know so many of us
do work that we don't like
because we feel we don't have a choice.
Perhaps you felt that way at some point about your work or some other area of your life - a relationship for example -
that you know just isn't right for you. You have this feeling, this sense of misalignment
See we have an epidemic of people doing work that they weren't meant to do.
And for years, I was one of those people - take a look at this guy.
Where is this guy?
Not not happy, right?
And I felt ... like a prostitute.
And by that, I mean feeling chained to work that I hated because I needed the money.
Every morning feeling those golden handcuffs.
And so on it's Monday morning. I'm knockin on my boss's door,
Dave is his name. And I can feel the sweat trickling down the inside of my arms and my heart's pounding
and I can hear Kim's voice in my head - "I hate my job". And
I was sick of
feeling sick
on Sunday evenings.
So is the sleep-deprived wee hours I mean another decision -
this year's performance review was gonna be different.
So Dave opens his office door with those steely Scottish eyes s and he says "Cal take a seat." Oh
my god, that sounds like a pirate accent, not a Scottish accent.
And I'm too wound up to sit.
So I stepped in to close the door and I said "Dave, you know all that technical stuff I used to do
Oh, I don't want to do that anymore."
Mmm Dave looking a little perplexed
goes and sits behind his desk and he starts flipping through my employee file.
15 years of work history.
See and I had followed the formula: I worked hard, I got promoted, and yet I felt miserable.
So Dave turns another page and I can feel my shirt getting a little wetter with each moment.
And I'm thinking to myself "What have I done? What am I gonna tell my wife when they fire me?"
It'll be two months of Hamburger Helper, minus the hamburger.
And Dave turns another page at the pace of your average glacier.
See but but I had to do it.
My job was sucking the life out of me.
I'm a people person and sure I was good at the technical stuff, but I needed more - I needed to connect.
So
Sorry. I needed to connect. And so Dave said "OK Cal
now that you don't do all that technical stuff, what is it that you want to do now?"
After 15 years of these reviews I know that it's about the bottom line.
I said "Dave, I want to make my job different. I want to be the workplace happiness guy."
"Happiness guy! Really Cal."
And it seemed like such a fantastic idea to me at 2am.
And my performance has always been stellar so I think Dave's cutting me a little bit of slack here.
And he said "OK, Cal why do you want to be the workplace happiness guy?"
And again, I know I need to sound intelligent here. So feeling a little bit out of body "Well Dave, the
strategic staffing solution is going to help contribute to our overall human capital development goals." And those Scottish eyes are boring through me.
"We're going to increase productivity and
prevent the loss of good people."
Dave's not convinced.
"We're going to increase average revenue per person. We will impact the bottom line."
And there it is
that knowing smile. And
Dave said "OK, Cal, prove
that happiness increases dollars and cents. What's your plan?"
Plan! Clearly I hadn't thought that through at 2am.
Thinking. I
got nothing and Dave's watching me squirm and
finally: "Well, Dave
I'm just working on the final touches of the plan
and if you can just give me a couple days to
refine it and then I'll circle back with you and we can go through it in great detail."
"OK, Cal."
Unbelievable!
By checking in with my heart and
taking a stand for myself
I'm actually getting to make my job different.
Not only did Dave want me to prove that happiness matters with my small team of 14 people
he wanted me to prove it with his entire team of 700. I
guess I'd better get started on that plan.
And don't get me wrong, it takes courage to stand up for your own happiness, but you have it in you.
You know, perhaps you've followed the formula:
success in school, worked hard, got promoted.
But if you feel miserable
you can do something about it.
You know taking a stand for my own happiness
was the start of this amazing journey. For
the first time in years, I was actually excited about my work and I'm getting to help hundreds of others do the same.
We did come up with that plan that David asked for, but the best part is we actually look forward to Monday mornings.
And then there's some real tangible benefits to a company in doing this.
Research by Gallup shows that
unhappy workers cost the North American business economy
over 350 billion dollars each year.
And there's real science to happiness in the workplace.
Remember steely-eyed Dave and his team of 700 people? Well Dave's area became the place to work within our company.
We took our employee engagement score from 54% to 85% and
we did impact the bottom line.
Our employees were happier,
our clients were happy, Dave was happy because our shareholders were happy.
It was a win-win-win.
And I want to share with you a simple three-step process,
or process for my American friends,
that you can start right now in order to be happier in your work and happier in your life.
You don't need to wait for an annual review or some event
to be proactive about your happiness.
You just need to do your own personal review.
So step number one.
Check in with your heart.
How do you really feel about your work?
Are you excited, empowered, engaged?
What does your heart tell you?
See happiness is a matter of the heart and
yet so often we try and figure it out using our logical minds.
Yeah logical mind.
And step number two.
Decide to make a change. Now
I wouldn't recommend deciding at 2am like I did.
Right, but believe in yourself.
Standing up for your own happiness takes courage, but you can absolutely do it. And then step number three -
what's the one small step you can take
today towards a happier tomorrow. How do you build a bridge?
For most of us to just stop what we're doing and follow our hearts, may not be possible.
But what's the one thing you can do to move you in that direction?
So I'll give you an example.
I'm now the workplace happiness guy and and I get a call from Michael. He's my right-hand man. Cal,
I think I need to leave the company. And I was like what! I
can't lose this guy now. I need him more than ever.
And I said, "OK, Michael,
what if you don't need a different job,
what if we just make your job different. Like what if we actually get you doing work you're excited about?"
And he said "Cal, I trust you so I'll have the conversation but I don't know what that looks like." So
Michael and I
went on this discovery process, or process for my Canadian friends,
that I described to you. And
it turns out Michael's passion is
creativity and
at the time his job was scheduling of data migrations, like probably the least creative job on the planet.
And
knowing
that employee engagement increases
when we celebrate our successes, I
wanted to highlight our team's accomplishments, but I wanted to do it in a cool, impactful, meaningful fashion.
So I share this idea with Michael.
Two weeks later Michael sends me the draft to what they now call the mid-year video. I
clicked on the link
and I literally started crying.
This thing was so powerful. And so
I immediately called Michael and I said "Michael are you friggin kidding me!" And it's like "What, what, what, what - did I do something wrong?"
And I was like "No, man
this is absolutely amazing." And
you fast forward eighteen months later ...
not only did Michael not leave the company
but he's literally pinging me Saturday night at midnight saying "Cal,
I found this amazing program and wait till you see the cool things …" I was like yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah
Can we talk about this on Monday morning?
Because well, it's Saturday at midnight.
Right, but that's the point.
For Michael it no longer feels like work.
He's doing what he loves.
And
Michael didn't need to quit his job.
We just made his job different.
Mchael checked in with his heart and
then he took a stand for himself and then we came up with a plan for him. But he took that first step.
What is your first step?
What's the one thing you can do today, the first move, to increase your happiness?
Draw upon your courage.
Imagine a community
where everyone was excited about their work?
Michael and I, we got to make our jobs different
and we helped create this amazing work environment.
Imagine what it would feel like to you to be excited about Sunday night and Monday morning.
Check in with your heart.
Figure out what makes you happy and
then take your first step
towards being happier with your work and happier with your life.