When you want to be fulfilled Part Five: 5 ways you can think about making an impact
As we're coming to the end of another year, this will be my last blog of 2022. I am taking the next two weeks off to celebrate the Christmas holiday with our family and the New Year's holiday with our friends and dog, Max. Maxilicious, as we call him, continues to bring joy to our lives every day with his unconditional love, animated excitement to see me even if I was only gone for 30 minutes, and perpetually alerting us whenever someone delivers a package, rings the doorbell, or dares to park across the street.
This week, I am bringing to an end my five-part series on achieving fulfillment at work. Our last component of fulfillment is impact. It doesn't matter who I speak to, regardless of country, level, industry, or discipline, one of the most desired outcomes and feelings we want to have about work is the ability to make a difference or have some positive impact in the work we do.
Gallup conducts annual workplace surveys on many different topics and trends. One study they did in 2015 focused on what mattered most to people across the globe. They found what mattered most, regardless of where someone lived in the world, was a "good job".
Gallup defines a "good job" as one with 30+ hours of work a week with a consistent paycheck from an employer. A great job is a job in which you believe your boss cares about your development, you can use your strengths every day at work, and you believe your work contributes something.
It is the contribution piece that drives most of us. Yes...a paycheck is essential, benefits and perks are great, and flexibility is coveted and, now, expected. All of these items matter, but what differentiates our work is the impact and difference we can make.
What constitutes "impact" can be different for each one of us. For some, it is truly impacting the world or community we live and work in. If we can draw a line between our work and some larger societal issue, we feel fulfilled. Some of us feel our impact is through leadership, mentorship, and enabling others to grow. Some feel fulfilled if they can help their clients or customers save money, have a good experience, or make something easier for them. Some may feel the impact of helping companies be more efficient or compliant or create a fair and equitable environment.
This feeling of fulfillment through impact is highly personal. I, personally, take great pride in bringing clarity to ambiguity. Ambiguity is a fact of life, but I find living in the gray can cause a lot of angst. One of my main missions is to remove angst and my second mission is to bust silos. We all have varying levels of stress and angst so if I can minimize that in the workplace for someone, then I feel pretty good about that.
So, how do we define and make an impact at work? I know all of you have your own thoughts about this. I recommend looking into the following areas for this part of fulfillment.
Start with values and strengths.
If you have read my book or any of my blogs, you know I am big on self-reflection. Whether we feel we have made an impact ties to what we value in our own lives. Maybe we rocked that spreadsheet but that isn't what drives us or aligns with our values or strengths so we may not feel like it was big deal or had any kind of impact. Think about your values and strengths (what you like to do and what you are good at). This will be your starting point for figuring out how to make an impact.
Focus on your job.
It may not seem so apparent in some of our jobs, but if we focus on what we are doing and do it well, I will guarantee you that you are making a difference. We all have a role to play in our organizations; we are on the payroll to contribute. I know IT support specialists who take great pride in helping people fix their computer issues, account representatives who love to not just earn business but the trust of their clients, HR professionals who love it when they can coach a manager through a tough situation, and finance professionals who can clarify the budget to help others plan better. My mom gave me a quote recently that has stuck with me from one of her favorite authors, John Ortberg. "If you can't get out of it, get into it." If you dive into your job and commit to quality, you will see an impact!
Tie into the bigger picture.
As a manager, one of our responsibilities is to help our team members align their work with the large business strategy and goals. This alignment will create a sense of importance and significance. Part of feeling we are contributing is to know the larger issues, problems, and strategies we are contributing to. This one may seem obvious, but, trust me when I say that it can be often skipped or overlooked. We can get so swept up in closing help tickets, resolving customer issues, and pursuing sales, that we don't take the time to understand nor put front and center that these activities do more than just save or make money, they also are intended to serve the greater mission of the organization.
Measure.
I have had many conversations with people about measuring the impact of their work. Reflecting and measuring what we do can also help us objectively see we have made an impact. Some people felt they simply can't measure their work because they don't have hard numbers behind what they accomplished. Impact and results don't always have to be quantifiable. Getting clearer on roles and responsibilities, coaching someone in their career, working across silos, and enhancing understanding can all yield great results even if you can't measure their output scientifically. Especially as many of us are preparing for reviews or conversations to close out our performance, we can measure our efforts in numbers and in other ways.
Look outside of work.
We have been talking about fulfillment at work. But, sometimes, looking for other ways to give back and contribute outside of work can lead to feeling fulfilled on the job. Building connections, volunteering, or donating to causes can help us feel good. Being a parent, caring for an elderly parent, and serving as a close confidant to someone, can also help us think that we have a purpose and are contributing to someone else's life. Those feelings of fulfillment don't stop with an artificial line between our personal selves and our professional selves. We are one person; good feelings beget good feelings.
Feeling like we are contributing to something larger is critical to our sense of fulfillment. Knowing we are positively impacting something or someone else is what we desire. This is highly personal, but we can identify what matters to us, and lean into our jobs to find that connection and the resulting impact.
Let's all look to 2023 and focus on these five factors: Civility, Trust, Safety, Connection, and Impact. If we focus on these elements in our work and personal lives, we should achieve that sense of fulfillment we all crave.