Let's create joyous work

Here is the tension that has dominated my thinking for more than a decade - work in the status quo modern organisation sucks, I think it should be a lot better, and I think it could be joyous.

When I share this tension, it is sometimes met with derision. It starts a debate that seeks to bring me into one of a few prevailing views, often that “work is not meant to be joyous and that’s what makes it work”, or occasionally, that I’ve got it wrong and “work actually doesn’t suck at all.” If you believe I have it wrong, that in fact, there is no problem and the status quo modern organisation does not need to change, then I won’t attempt to change your mind.

But if you are one of the 80% who are not fully engaged at work (ADPRI), the 77% of people who report burnout in their job (Deloitte), the 60% who are ‘emotionally detached’ at work (Gallup), the 44% of people highly stressed today (Gallup), or the 19% who are ‘miserable’ at work (Gallup), then you might have a different reaction. If your response is, "About time, let’s go!" Then know that I am one of you, and there are exponentially more of us than any one person realises, we’ve all just been waiting for a catalyst, a force to push against the malaise that is work in the modern organisation.

Joyous Work is the vehicle for my efforts in this space. It is new and I invite you to shape it with me. I do not know what it should look like yet; if I did it would be an indulgence in certainty that feels great but would almost definitely lead to a lesser outcome (more on how this plagues the modern organisation in a future post).

For now, I share with you a hypothesis that for me, has graduated to a belief, and underpins all of Joyous Work:

I believe the majority of root causes that make work less joyous and less effective are due to insufficient understanding of the organisation as a complex system, which makes it difficult to propose and implement changes that are system-aware.

A lack of system-awareness is what generates soul-crushing volumes of emails and instant messages, back-to-back-to-back meetings, ambiguous priorities, decision paralysis, excruciatingly slow response time to market developments, cyclical restructures and redundancies, 329 page pre-read documents, and more unpleasant flavours of pain, ineffectiveness, and inefficiency.

With system awareness, we can attack the root causes of this malaise. We can create joyous work. I hope you will join me and am looking forward to your feedback, provocations, vents, critique, and sparks.

- John