The 5 Top Tests for Finding Your Purpose … or Career ‘Sweetspot’
Don’t Believe the Gobbledygook, Apply these Proven Tools
Are You Frustrated because You Don’t Feel Engaged in Your Work?
If you’re frustrated because it seems only the lucky few end up feeling engaged in their careers, you’re not alone.
According to the Gallup, only 33% — or 1 OUT OF 3 — of employees are engaged in their work today. That means two out of every three of us feel disengaged or have no sense of purpose. (Imagine what would happen if you only averaged 33% on your exams at college or university.)
It doesn’t help that most of us are never really taught how to choose a career that aligns with our sense of purpose. Nor are we trained, once we’re in a career, how to derive a sense of purpose from the work. In fact, many people still treat the idea of finding a sense of purpose as a touchy-feely nice-to-have, not a must-have.
How wonderful, then, that one of the most groundbreaking business communications of 2018 has been the now-famous Letter to CEOs from investment powerhouse Blackrock, aptly called “A Sense of Purpose.” In it, Blackrock says times have changed and society now demands that every company today — and by definition everyone in it — have a clear sense of purpose.
But how DO you find your Sense of Purpose?
This post will now take you on a quick visual tour of five top methods that you may already have come across or used. Each one has great value. But the very fact that they are five seemingly-different models means you can get easily confused. The five models seem to be saying different things. What’s actually surprising — and reassuringly helpful — is that they all essentially form ONE basic test.
By using a few simplifying graphics and the three primary colours (red, blue and yellow — see below), you’ll see that at their core they each involve one basic test.
This can help you immensely.
Here are the 5 methods: (1) Jim Collins’ Good to Great Model, in Good to Great; (2) The Japanese ‘Ikigai’ Model (‘Ikigai’ means your ‘reason for being’); (3) Sir Ken Robinson’s Model for Being In Your Element (in The Element); (4) Daniel Pink’s Model of Purpose, Mastery and Autonomy, which he presents in Drive; and (5) Cal Newport’s Model of ‘Skills Trump Passion’ in So Good They Can’t Ignore You.
Now, take this quick visual tour to see how the five methods all involve a similar, single, basic test:
1. Jim Collins’ Good to Great Model, in Good to Great
In his bestseller Good to Great, Jim Collins calls this model for finding your niche ‘The Hedgehog Concept.’ You want to focus on work that (1) you are deeply passionate about, (2) that you can be ‘best in the world at,’ and (3) that ‘drives your economic engine,’ or in other words, that you can be reasonably well paid for.
Another way to look at this is to see that the upper circle relates to your emotions (your passions), the circle on the left relates to your skills and expertise, and the circle on the right relates to what the world needs … and is willing to pay you for.
By giving each of these circles a consistent colour, you’ll see how these same three circles are at the heart of each of the five methods:
In the Good to Great model, you clearly need top skills (the blue circle), you need to be deeply passionate about the work (the red circle), and clearly it needs to be work the world needs and is ready to pay you for (the yellow circle, or in this model your ‘economic engine’).
2. The Japanese ‘Ikigai’ Model (‘Ikigai’ means your ‘reason for being’)
The next method on our tour is the Japanese ‘Ikigai’ Model. This one can intimidate at first, because it has four circles that intersect. But as you’ll see, it’s actually quite simple and very powerful.
‘ Ikigai’ means your ‘reason for being,’ and is now often depicted using the graphic to the left by Mark Winn, as illustrated on Wikipedia.
You find your ‘ikigai’ at the intersection of what you love (top circle), what you are good at (left circle), what the world needs (right circle), and what the world will also pay you for (bottom circle).
Make no mistake too. The model is not just used in Japan.
For example, Bruce Kasanoff, has now launched a new venture called ‘Ikigai Park City,’ together with a team of colleagues like Ayse Biersel, David Nour and Amy Blaschka.
The venture makes ‘ikigai’ a central theme and provides a range of personal training, programs and group events designed to help clients identify their ‘ikigai.’ Check it out.
The diagram on the right is a nicely simplified version of the classic graphic, courtesy of Bruce Kasanoff.
While it may seem a bit more complicated to work through 4 circles, the truth is this model is surprisingly similar to the Good to Great model.
We can see this easily when we see that in the Ikigai model, the yellow circle relating to the world’s needs has simply been broken up into two circles, one for what the world needs and a separate one for what you can be paid for:
The underlying similarity becomes clear. The red circle is always about how you feel — your emotions. The blue circle is all about your skills and expertise. And the yellow circle (in this case two yellow circles) are all about what the world needs and what you can be paid for.
3. Sir Ken Robinson’s Model for Being In Your Element (in The Element)
In Sir Ken Robinson’s The Element, Sir Ken describes dozens of top successful people who became successful because they were ‘in their element’ in the work and career they pursued. For example, people like Gillian Lynne, the choreographer of Cats and Phantom of the Opera, succeeded because she found both what she loved and what she was good at when she was young: dancing. Fortunately, she was also given the opportunities to pursue this career, and that was clearly crucial.
As such, Sir Ken draws up a simple blueprint for finding the work that puts you in your element. There are four basic steps. The first is Aptitude: what are you good at? The second is Passion: do you love this? The third is Motivation: do you want to do this? And the fourth is Opportunity: where are the opportunities to pursue it?
In his inimitable storytelling style, Sir Ken sums up the four steps this way: (1) Aptitude: you say to yourself, “ I get it.” (2) Passion: your heart says, “ I love it.” (3) Motivation: your gut says, “ I want it.” and (4) Opportunity: “ Where is it?”
At first, this too might seem like a rather different way of thinking or approaching the problem. But it’s remarkably similar. We can place these four steps in the same red-blue-yellow circle framework:
As an educator, Sir Ken’s main focus is on education and how schools should focus early on identifying a student’s natural skills and aptitudes. His model thus starts with the blue circle: Does this person have the aptitude for this? Do they just seem to ‘get’ it? If so, that’s a starting point. Then he moves on to the red circle: Do they have a passion for it? And do they really want it?
If so, that leads to the yellow circle: where is the opportunity in the world to do this?
By looking at Sir Ken Robinson’s framework in terms of the red, blue and yellow circles, we can see how the valuable insights in The Element are, in a sense, universal. They are remarkably consistent with the insights and wisdom in ‘Ikigai’ and the Hedgehog Concept.
4. Dan Pink’s Model of Purpose, Mastery and Autonomy, in his bestseller Drive
Next on our tour is the very powerful framework of ‘Purpose, Mastery and Autonomy’ set out in Dan Pink’s bestseller, Drive.
Based on extensive research, Dan Pink shows that to motivate employees, you should structure their work to ensure these three factors: Purpose, Mastery and Autonomy. Purpose is the desire to do something that has meaning and importance, and if a business only values profits and not purpose it will end up with poor customer service and unhappy employees. Mastery is the need to train employees to the highest levels of competence, since competence is essential for high quality results as well as confidence and satisfaction. Finally, Autonomy relates to how the work is done: employees generally perform best when their work is self-directed.
Again, it can seem as though this model is vastly different from the previous three. But in many ways it’s not. Purpose is very much part of the red circle, how you feel about the work you are doing, whether you derive meaning from it. Mastery is clearly the essence of the blue circle. And Autonomy is really all about how you carry out your work in the world, which of course is the yellow circle:
Lastly, we come to a model that at first blush makes you think that passion and purpose have been overrated, but you’ll be surprised again.
5. Cal Newport’s Model of ‘Skills Trump Passion’ in So Good They Can’t Ignore You
In So Good They Can’t Ignore You, Cal Newport, who is now a professor of computer science, dismantles the whole ‘just follow your passion’ rhetoric that has been popular on the internet for years.
He shows how many of the people who bought into that adage ended up doing something they ‘loved’ but could not turn it into a viable career. Their careers were soon in shambles.
He then argues powerfully that the starting point needs to be your skills. The first task is to develop your skills into what Newport calls ‘career capital,’ by which he means the expertise you’ll need to open up real opportunities in the workplace.
He’s right on. But, nevertheless, the book returns full circle as Newport shows how the people who truly love their work are people who derive meaning and purpose from it.
Once again, this fits nicely into the red-blue-yellow circle model:
Newport argues that your starting point must be the developing of your skills through training and deliberate practice ( blue circle). Having higher skills levels will open up the better opportunities for you in the world ( yellow circle). And once you begin to build a niche in that area, you want to carve out specific aspects of that work or specific projects that give you a sense of mission and meaning ( red circle)
The Takeaway?
As stated at the beginning, finding the work that gives you a sense of purpose and engagement, whether we call it finding your purpose, your ‘ikigai,’ your element, or something else, is one of life’s and business’s greatest challenges.
Whenever you face such a great challenge, it helps if you can keep things simple so you focus on the essential questions.
One way to keep this huge challenge a bit simpler is to use this Red-Blue-Yellow Circle graphic. It can help keep your thinking clear while at the same time you draw on the wisdom of the various models looked at above.
To try to state the one basic test in a nutshell: you need to have a high level of skills and expertise in whatever you do ( your skills — the blue circle). You need to derive satisfaction and a sense of purpose or meaning from doing it ( your emotions — the red circle). And you need to make sure this work is a real opportunity, namely work the world needs and is happy to pay for ( the world’s needs — the yellow circle.)
To use the old adage, answering this big question is not necessarily easy, but it can be kept simple … so you stay focused on what’s essential.
I wish you the best of luck in finding the answers that are right for you.
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com on May 27, 2018.
