#Staff Column
2022.06.07
Choose the Real Work
Columnist | Introducing the columns written by member of Amorepacific Group
The Way People Work Nowadays Part 2. Choose the Real Work
Columnist | Shin Kihoon
Amorepacific Vision Support Team
Amorepacific Vision Support Team
#Previously ( Part 1. Can Work Ever Be Fun? )
In my previous column, I happened to conclude that “if work goes well, it can be as fun as playing video games,” and “if you can’t seem to find any fun at work, you need change.” With this column, I’d like to introduce to you one by one what you need to do to make the work go smoothly.
Like I said when I first begin writing the series, I don’t have a clear idea about how to have fun at work or how to ensure that the work goes well. What concerns me as I prepare the column is to hear people scorn me saying, “Mind your business!” (Though that hasn’t happened yet!) To be honest, I wrote this column because I myself want to have fun while working and to do well at work. I’d appreciate it if you could accept my view as just one of many perspectives on work.
In my previous column, I happened to conclude that “if work goes well, it can be as fun as playing video games,” and “if you can’t seem to find any fun at work, you need change.” With this column, I’d like to introduce to you one by one what you need to do to make the work go smoothly.
Like I said when I first begin writing the series, I don’t have a clear idea about how to have fun at work or how to ensure that the work goes well. What concerns me as I prepare the column is to hear people scorn me saying, “Mind your business!” (Though that hasn’t happened yet!) To be honest, I wrote this column because I myself want to have fun while working and to do well at work. I’d appreciate it if you could accept my view as just one of many perspectives on work.
For Part II, I’d like to base my statement on some of the insights I have gained from books instead of presenting my own thoughts.
#1. Get Inspired: Passion and a Sense of Purpose
The first thing you need to do to have fun or do well at work is to get motivated. Even if you’re a marketing or a data genius, you can’t make progress without motivation. You may have questions regarding if you are motivated, you will surely find work fun, but there are some people who don’t, so I’d like to begin by sharing my story.
In the past, I ran workshops for people who were looking for inspiration and went around giving talks about the vocation. The workshops were about making people reflect on why they work, how they are contributing to the company, and how their company, in turn, is exerting an influence on the society. From the very planning stage of the workshop, I became immersed in those questions. I simulated them several times with my colleagues and prepared the programs by having candid conversations with them on work. I felt great seeing people participate in these workshops with their bright faces and positive feedback. The workshops were provided to all employees in the company, and I thought the workshops help people to improve how they work and contribute to the organization.
Then, I Soon Became Exhausted
It was obviously not an easy job. I spent two to three days a week providing an eight-hour workshop and had to lead the sessions while taking heed of people’s reactions all day. I also had to identify with what people said and bring up appropriate topics to ensure that the session was following the previously set flow. (It also took a long time to commute to and from Yongin.) I am not sure why, but I got exhausted and I could not lead the workshop anymore. I could no longer empathize with people and later it even became difficult to look people in the eye.
The first thing you need to do to have fun or do well at work is to get motivated. Even if you’re a marketing or a data genius, you can’t make progress without motivation. You may have questions regarding if you are motivated, you will surely find work fun, but there are some people who don’t, so I’d like to begin by sharing my story.
In the past, I ran workshops for people who were looking for inspiration and went around giving talks about the vocation. The workshops were about making people reflect on why they work, how they are contributing to the company, and how their company, in turn, is exerting an influence on the society. From the very planning stage of the workshop, I became immersed in those questions. I simulated them several times with my colleagues and prepared the programs by having candid conversations with them on work. I felt great seeing people participate in these workshops with their bright faces and positive feedback. The workshops were provided to all employees in the company, and I thought the workshops help people to improve how they work and contribute to the organization.
Then, I Soon Became Exhausted
It was obviously not an easy job. I spent two to three days a week providing an eight-hour workshop and had to lead the sessions while taking heed of people’s reactions all day. I also had to identify with what people said and bring up appropriate topics to ensure that the session was following the previously set flow. (It also took a long time to commute to and from Yongin.) I am not sure why, but I got exhausted and I could not lead the workshop anymore. I could no longer empathize with people and later it even became difficult to look people in the eye.
Some people get energy from interacting with people, while some get stressed.
I still thought at the back of my mind that what I was doing was vital to helping other people. Without that faith, I wouldn’t have been able to survive that period. Looking back on those times, I realized that it was the format of the work that really tired me out.
So, I got bored even though I thought I was doing something that was meaningful enough.
People say that you are motivated by two things: A sense of purpose and passion. They may sound like the same thing and they are often used interchangeably, but they are in fact two different things. When you are passionate about what you are doing, it means that you are empowered when you think about it. You get excited and motivated. You get a sense of purpose when you contribute to an individual, an organization, or the society in a way that is meaningful to you and does not harm anyone. Passion is doing something you love, and a sense of purpose is making a contribution. Passion is about what the world can offer you, but a sense of purpose is about what you can do for the world.
So, I got bored even though I thought I was doing something that was meaningful enough.
People say that you are motivated by two things: A sense of purpose and passion. They may sound like the same thing and they are often used interchangeably, but they are in fact two different things. When you are passionate about what you are doing, it means that you are empowered when you think about it. You get excited and motivated. You get a sense of purpose when you contribute to an individual, an organization, or the society in a way that is meaningful to you and does not harm anyone. Passion is doing something you love, and a sense of purpose is making a contribution. Passion is about what the world can offer you, but a sense of purpose is about what you can do for the world.
When you are motivated, you put more energy into work,
which is different from working more or working longer.
I had a high sense of purpose on running workshops but since it did not take the format I preferred, I could not be passionate about it. Similarly, you could have a strong sense of purpose in some work, while not feeling so passionate about it, or vice versa. You cannot be fully motivated in your work with just passion or just a sense of purpose. This is why we need to align our passion with the sense of purpose. Once they are aligned, you can put more energy into your work and achieve better results. Then, the better results fuel passion and the sense of purpose. When they are balanced, work becomes enjoyable. On the contrary, there is nothing more arduous than continuing work without passion or a sense of purpose.
What type of worker are you? Are you just passionate, or only have a high sense of purpose, or both? Or are you getting punished like Sisyphus, doing strenuous, fruitless work? To reset yourself and be fully inspired, you must think about your passion and the sense of purpose.
What type of worker are you? Are you just passionate, or only have a high sense of purpose, or both? Or are you getting punished like Sisyphus, doing strenuous, fruitless work? To reset yourself and be fully inspired, you must think about your passion and the sense of purpose.
1. Regain your motivation
Passion is about finding pleasure in work itself. Think back to a time when you were passionate, the type of work you found sheer joy in, and when you were fully absorbed in your work in the past. This is completely based on your feelings, so you’ll discover that you are passionate in different areas as the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) may show. You may be enthusiastic in a broad spectrum of fields, while you could be more passionate in a specific field. Below are some of the types of passion often found among people.
- Excitement from achieving success or outstanding performance (passion for achievement), thrill when you exert creative energy (passion for creativity), strong excitement when you are with people (passion for people), taking delight in learning and growing (passion for learning), or pleasure you feel when you excel at work (passion for outperforming).
2. Find the sense of purpose
There is a prerequisite to discovering a sense of purpose, which is whether the work you are doing is indeed creating value. Strictly speaking, there are moments when your work is not creating value (we’ll discuss this further later). The work also needs to be meaningful to yourself. If it is creating some value, it is entirely up to you to determine whether it is contributing to an important cause. Whenever I became drained from doing workshops, I looked into feedback comments from the participants. You, too, may find your own way to uncover the sense of purpose.
3. Find a new role
If you find what you are doing is akin to the punishment of Sisyphus, then there is no other way. You need to seek another path. You can simply take another role or other tasks you haven’t tried before within the team or find some other brand-new work the team was missing out on. Or you could look for what you can do in other departments performing different tasks.
Passion is about finding pleasure in work itself. Think back to a time when you were passionate, the type of work you found sheer joy in, and when you were fully absorbed in your work in the past. This is completely based on your feelings, so you’ll discover that you are passionate in different areas as the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) may show. You may be enthusiastic in a broad spectrum of fields, while you could be more passionate in a specific field. Below are some of the types of passion often found among people.
- Excitement from achieving success or outstanding performance (passion for achievement), thrill when you exert creative energy (passion for creativity), strong excitement when you are with people (passion for people), taking delight in learning and growing (passion for learning), or pleasure you feel when you excel at work (passion for outperforming).
2. Find the sense of purpose
There is a prerequisite to discovering a sense of purpose, which is whether the work you are doing is indeed creating value. Strictly speaking, there are moments when your work is not creating value (we’ll discuss this further later). The work also needs to be meaningful to yourself. If it is creating some value, it is entirely up to you to determine whether it is contributing to an important cause. Whenever I became drained from doing workshops, I looked into feedback comments from the participants. You, too, may find your own way to uncover the sense of purpose.
3. Find a new role
If you find what you are doing is akin to the punishment of Sisyphus, then there is no other way. You need to seek another path. You can simply take another role or other tasks you haven’t tried before within the team or find some other brand-new work the team was missing out on. Or you could look for what you can do in other departments performing different tasks.
Morten T. Hansen, Great at Work: The Hidden Habits of Top Performers , 2019.
In the end, the workshops were well done, which had taken up a long time. Of course, I did not do all of that all by myself. All team members had to be involved in it to cover all participants. Unfortunately, there were no eye-catching results that we achieved after completing the workshops. What remained, after all, was the satisfaction level of the workshops and the number of employees who had taken our sessions. If anything, I was able to find out that it was not a type of work that I loved doing, and I could overcome the process of doing something that I don’t enjoy as long as I have colleagues. You could say that was some sort of accomplishment. After that, I continued doing things with a similar purpose, but I think I also began looking for a different type of work.
#2. Choose the Real Work: Real Work and Fake Work
I mentioned above that for your work to be meaningful, it has to create real value. I could say nice things like “All work is valuable and important,” but there is clearly a moment when the essence of the work becomes unclear, so I’d like to make a point here.
Real Work vs. Fake Work
There is an essence of work. For instance, if you are writing a column, typing down the actual column is the very essence of that job. To carry out the essence of the work, you need to research, ask people’s opinions, and get it reviewed by experts. Of course, they are necessary things in writing a column, but not the essence of it. So, when it comes to writing a column, you can say that writing the column is the real work and all other supplementary things are fake work (the choice of the word might seem awkward, but the point here is to better focus on the essence of the work). Likewise, you can divide your work into real work and fake work. Fake work certainly consists of necessary things to do but if you put more effort into it or overdo it, you can say that the line between the essence of the work and what is not has been blurred. When the essence has become ambiguous, you cannot get motivated. You cannot put energy into it, the work will surely not go well, and in the end, it cannot be fun at all.
These are some major types of fake work and leading causes of such work.
I mentioned above that for your work to be meaningful, it has to create real value. I could say nice things like “All work is valuable and important,” but there is clearly a moment when the essence of the work becomes unclear, so I’d like to make a point here.
Real Work vs. Fake Work
There is an essence of work. For instance, if you are writing a column, typing down the actual column is the very essence of that job. To carry out the essence of the work, you need to research, ask people’s opinions, and get it reviewed by experts. Of course, they are necessary things in writing a column, but not the essence of it. So, when it comes to writing a column, you can say that writing the column is the real work and all other supplementary things are fake work (the choice of the word might seem awkward, but the point here is to better focus on the essence of the work). Likewise, you can divide your work into real work and fake work. Fake work certainly consists of necessary things to do but if you put more effort into it or overdo it, you can say that the line between the essence of the work and what is not has been blurred. When the essence has become ambiguous, you cannot get motivated. You cannot put energy into it, the work will surely not go well, and in the end, it cannot be fun at all.
These are some major types of fake work and leading causes of such work.
Fake work 1. Showing
This is disguising the input or your attitude, instead of the result, as an accomplishment. Leading examples are working late or working on weekends or writing unnecessarily long reports. This can easily happen when the performance becomes unclear or when you work under authoritative leadership when your boss’ subjective judgement matters.
Fake work 2. Taking time
The most common example would be reviews. You review information in all kinds of ways when making a report. You hold meetings and schedule the next meeting saying we need to review the work in greater detail, and this cycle repeats. Instead of taking action, reviews, reports, and meetings become the work itself. In these organizations, making unnecessary reports under excessively strict implementation standards matters. This happens because it is comparatively easier to hold people accountable for wrong decisions, but more difficult to make people responsible for things that they did not do. This often occurs in organizations with small rewards and big penalties or organizations where the decision-making power is concentrated among higher level employees.
Fake work 3. Wasting
In Korea, a common waste is a protocol. A good example is making all students clean the school premises when a school commissioner is visiting the school. Excessive protocol is not being polite, but a combination of three factors: Overly self-conscious bosses, employees united to flatter the school executives and find an opportunity to stand out, and a lack of appropriate control and monitoring.
Fake work 4. Bullying
This is about being hostile against colleagues, not against rival companies. Where there is a pack that makes a group and hesitates to communicate or collaborate with others, bullying can happen. Similar to taking time, this is commonly found in organizations with small rewards but big penalties.
Fake work 5. Dragging in
This is when people drag many people in to avoid taking responsibility by themselves. A good example is too many meetings or emails. The actual goal of dragging people in is not to share ideas, but rather avoiding and/or dispersing responsibility. Like the above examples, this often happens in organizations that ask for excessive responsibility for failure and under authoritative leadership.
This is disguising the input or your attitude, instead of the result, as an accomplishment. Leading examples are working late or working on weekends or writing unnecessarily long reports. This can easily happen when the performance becomes unclear or when you work under authoritative leadership when your boss’ subjective judgement matters.
Fake work 2. Taking time
The most common example would be reviews. You review information in all kinds of ways when making a report. You hold meetings and schedule the next meeting saying we need to review the work in greater detail, and this cycle repeats. Instead of taking action, reviews, reports, and meetings become the work itself. In these organizations, making unnecessary reports under excessively strict implementation standards matters. This happens because it is comparatively easier to hold people accountable for wrong decisions, but more difficult to make people responsible for things that they did not do. This often occurs in organizations with small rewards and big penalties or organizations where the decision-making power is concentrated among higher level employees.
Fake work 3. Wasting
In Korea, a common waste is a protocol. A good example is making all students clean the school premises when a school commissioner is visiting the school. Excessive protocol is not being polite, but a combination of three factors: Overly self-conscious bosses, employees united to flatter the school executives and find an opportunity to stand out, and a lack of appropriate control and monitoring.
Fake work 4. Bullying
This is about being hostile against colleagues, not against rival companies. Where there is a pack that makes a group and hesitates to communicate or collaborate with others, bullying can happen. Similar to taking time, this is commonly found in organizations with small rewards but big penalties.
Fake work 5. Dragging in
This is when people drag many people in to avoid taking responsibility by themselves. A good example is too many meetings or emails. The actual goal of dragging people in is not to share ideas, but rather avoiding and/or dispersing responsibility. Like the above examples, this often happens in organizations that ask for excessive responsibility for failure and under authoritative leadership.
Seung-hoon Kang, Revolutionizing How We Work , 2020.
Is there anything that misses out on the significance of work more than continuing to do fake work?
As I read through the above five cases, I identified with them in the beginning, but thinking of a specific person, I flared up with negative emotions. Fortunately, after a while (actually after a long while), I started to reflect on myself. “Have I ever been tempted by fake work?” I cannot be free from criticism either because I am living in the same context just as the organization I am working in. If you want to criticize people mentioned in the five cases above, take some time to look back on yourself before blaming those organizations or anyone else. It's much easier and more helpful to change yourself than to pick another person and trying the change him/her.
As I Conclude Part. II
There are many types of work and there are even more diverse perceptions on work. What’s important is what kind of meaning you give to the work you are doing. Today in the year 2022, people have more strikingly different viewpoints on work compared to that of the past. Fewer people by far see it from a religious point of view (Only 22% of people in the 20s have a religion as of 2021.), and the traditional perspective of seeing labor as a sacred duty has faded. There are also fewer people who think that they work for their livelihood and that it is unavoidable for them to work.
Nonetheless, we are all working or perhaps it’s necessary to choose a more proactive word and say, “We make a decision to work.” The meaning of work is thinning. What is really thinning, however, is not the meaning we have given to the work, but the meaning other people have so far given to it. We are in a situation where we continue to work with a lesser meaning. So, we need to think as the statement below indicates.
There are many types of work and there are even more diverse perceptions on work. What’s important is what kind of meaning you give to the work you are doing. Today in the year 2022, people have more strikingly different viewpoints on work compared to that of the past. Fewer people by far see it from a religious point of view (Only 22% of people in the 20s have a religion as of 2021.), and the traditional perspective of seeing labor as a sacred duty has faded. There are also fewer people who think that they work for their livelihood and that it is unavoidable for them to work.
Nonetheless, we are all working or perhaps it’s necessary to choose a more proactive word and say, “We make a decision to work.” The meaning of work is thinning. What is really thinning, however, is not the meaning we have given to the work, but the meaning other people have so far given to it. We are in a situation where we continue to work with a lesser meaning. So, we need to think as the statement below indicates.
Today, others do not provide meaning to work for us. Rather, we need to inspire ourselves.
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