I recently heard that the area I live in is a top 10 manufacturing location in the country.  That would seem to suggest there is a lot of money coming in to the area.

In the same breath, I heard that this area rates highly in the nation in substance abuse, infant and mother mortality, and poor post-natal care.

Shouldn’t an area rich in manufacturing see some benefit in the individuals that work there?  These statistics would seem to indicate a significant gap.

In The Truth About Employee Engagement, Patrick Lencioni suggests that workers today are disengaged in their work, and find it mostly meaningless – that is they do not recognize the meaning in what they do, and therefore find the 8-12 hours they spend each day at work fairly meaningless.  It’s almost like he studied Frankl, isn’t it?

Lencioni suggests employees need to know who they are working for – in Frankl’s ideas, they need to know who they are serving as they transcend the self.  Lencioni suggests employees need to be able to measure, in behavioral terms, how they improve each day.  To me, that sounds a lot like Frankl’s noö-dynamics – the idea that we seek to continually become more than we are, and if we cannot measure that, we fall into the existential void.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that many companies quite understand that, or at least they may not be applying it.  Maybe you can help – if you find your work meaningless, rather than turning to a bottle or pill, maybe it’s time to look more deeply at these concepts – to read or listen to Frankl or Lencioni.  Or, if you do recognize there is a problem, maybe you can do something about it – for yourself, and maybe even for your co-workers.  We bring our own meaning to our work, regardless of the job.  But if you find yourself struggling to do so, maybe it’s time to talk about it, or look at some of the resources mentioned here.

I’ve received a great response to last week’s survey – THANK YOU!  If you still haven’t provided feedback, please take 2 minutes (it’s only 5 questions!) to do so here:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/X6R9DK2

Thanks! – Dan