The Tools to Making a Contribution to Others

they might feel hopeless. Cross currents have been fierce, to say the least. And uh, who better to talk about it than the author of Life's Great Question, Discover How You Contribute to the World. Tom Rath joins US number one New York Times bestselling author, world renowned in many ways. So happy to have him here on our program. Tom, nice to talk to you, Great to talk with you as well. All right, So I write this book. Why

write it now? Well, you know, I think there are a lot of people out there who are just trying to figure out how they can have a little bit more meaning in their work and bring a little bit more purpose into the equation and problems as we end up spending a lot of time focusing inward on our personality and our passions, and a lot then at some point we finally realize that no matter how much we do, that the world isn't going to start revolving around our

passions and our interests. And what I found is we need to do a lot more work investigating the demand side of the equation so we can figure out how our supply meets that. I think that is a really incredible UM thought. And what you just said, I mean, because I do feel like it's a it's we're at it this time tom where everybody is so focused on themselves, whether it's because of Instagram or social media or what I need, what I want UM that I think we've

lost focus of UM the world at large. Yeah, most of us want to make a real contribution to others and see how our work has meaning on a day to day basis. But a lot of the tools and books that I've been guilty of riding myself and a lot of us have worked on UM really lead people to focus inward on self development and their personality and their passions. And if you really get into the science

of it. We might be better off starting with what the communities around us, need, what the customers and clients around us need, and then working back to who we are and how we can fill those needs. All right, so give us some tips and tricks. We're gonna make people buy the books. So don't give it all away, um, but you know, give us a give us a sample. Sorry, Carol's planning at me, I am, because before we do that,

what went into putting this work together? Yeah? You know, one of the things I tried to figure out is I look at this is if there's been a lot of good work done on personality and who we are as individuals, how do you begin to quantify what the

world needs and what the demand is at there? So I went through thousands of guirreaus and labor statistics, job descriptions and essentially try to gather and code what people get paid to do and what the demand looks like and what the common themes are out there in the

job market today. And that's where I can't honed in on twelve broad contributions that people can make through the work that they do that hopefully help not only individuals but teams to sit around from the outset and have level setting conversations about how each person can maximize their

contribution to a given effort. And so when you were going through that data, Carol and I like to talk a lot about sort of wait, what moments was there something that jumped out at you where you just thought, wow, I did not see that coming, or I didn't think the data we're gonna show me that. You know that. One of the big ones is that we have to find ways to see the influence of our work on

a daily basis. So real quick example, if you're in food service, you're working in a restaurant, you're preparing food for other people. If you can see people eating and enjoying the food that you cook, you make better quality food, it's more nutritious, and you feel better about your work. And same general theme applies in call centers, it applies

for radiologists, it applies for software developers. We've essentially got to find ways to bring the face of the customer and some of the humanity back into our work and other important pieces, beginning to describe our work in ways that are much more personal and nowhere near as sterile and clinical and detached as the standard job description or resume you see out there today. It's interesting to um,

you know, you talk a lot about teams and working together. Um. I feel like that is a concept that has been around obviously for a long time, but I think we've kind of forgotten that as well. Yeah, you know, and a lot of times we bring teams together and we

have the best of intentions. You know, if I were to bring a team together, it's probably a lot of people who like doing the same things I do, passion by the same topics, and then we all hit me around running and it takes three, six, maybe even twelve months before we realized that we were all kind of doing the same thing, and we didn't sit around and

say here's how I want to cont reviewed. And so we're each moving quickly in our lanes in complementary ways, and so to some extent, just having that conversation from the outset can make things move a lot faster and smoother. And Tom, I gotta ask you, because in reading this book, one of the things that really struck me was you have very practical advice for people at work, and you know, we're all in these situations at work I mean, I have the best job in the world. I have the

best partner of the world, So no issues here. But other people I'm talking about, you know, might not have it as perfect as I do. What's your advice to them? Yeah, you know. I I think one of the things I've realized when I um AM at a cocktail party you're meeting new people is if you just ask people what they do, it yields such general and kind of generic descriptions.

But when you step back and ask someone what they spend most of their time doing and to really paint a picture of a typical day, that's where you hear the stories from dad or mom who stays at home talking about coaching a kid soccer team and helping them with their development, or someone who volunteers is very active in their community talking about specific efforts and so I what I've learned is that the big contributions we make throughout the day, they can be very personal and take

place within a family. They can take place within a faith based group or a community group, or with more of a typical job, and even if you're working nine to five in a normal role, um it's still really important to acknowledge the small and meaningful contributions you make outside of work, because those are some of the things that people really identify with when we take from to extended interviews and kind of put together profiles of what

matters most. Well, since my partner just gave me a compliment, I'm going to toss it back because I think no one energizes others UM around our newsroom like Jason Kelly drives them a little crazy, but he's always excited and we talk about even together like just the joy in what we're doing. And I do think about, Uh, there's a line in your book when you talk about energizing specifically and you knowing you know, those those individuals who motivate um to inspire you know, or inspire others um.

You know, we have such daily routines, things we have to do every day. They can become pretty boring, but you gotta do them. But when you have somebody who just either brings joy into the workplace um or inspires you and really get you to kind of keep going and even achieve more, that's pretty remarkable. Yeah. You know, one of the things that I've seen in working with a lot of leadership teams and businesses all over the world.

Is it the one area where they're usually lacking is in that very specific domain of building strong relationships and

energizing one another. And I mean some of it, frankly could be due to the lack of gender diversity and a lot of leadership teams, but there's there's a serious gap there in terms of you have these teams that are usually pretty good at the big idea thinking and creativity pieces, and a lot of them are good at execution and they've kind of come up through the organization because of that, but they just fall flat when it comes to energizing one another and forming initial relationships. What

alone strengthening those relationships over time. But everything I've looked at in terms of research on well being and effective workplaces would suggest that that's probably the most important element

to building successful teams and organizations over time. Yeah, it's interesting, you know, in at a time and you mentioned this in the first part of our conversation, you know, at a time when we're so focused on technology and our ability to leverage that minute to minute day to day, whether it's social media or even just all the tools that we use, it feels like we do often miss the opportunities for pretty basic human connection at work. And

I guess what I take away. One of the things I take away from your book is you have to be sort of open to that to sort of understand that supply and demand equation that you talked about. Yeah,

you have. You really do need to be open to talking about the emotional aspects of why you do what you do, because until you're able to connect your daily efforts with the influence they have on other people, you're not going to be anywhere near as motivated or energized as you could just to make a difference for the people around you. So I mean, even in a small

interaction in a retail setting. Let's say, if a customer walks in who's irate about a problem that she's having, and you're able to at least get her to neutral, that's a victory worth taking a moment to recognize because you've probably changed the trajectory of that person's day. And it's those little moments that accumulate and shape our work

to a great degree. Hey, well, last question before we go, Um, So, somebody who you're saying, you know, as your book is called Life's Great Question, discover how you can contribute or how you contribute to the world. If someone needs to kind of begin on this mission, what do you suggest, Obviously take a look at your book, but what's kind of the first step that we need to make. Yeah, I think it's stepping back and asking what are the

big roles that you play in life? So for me, it's being a husband and a dad and me sure you're in a writer, and saying, how do you how do you take those rules that you're proud of and you want to play in life and connect that with who you are and your life experiences and to try

and be as efficient as possible. That's saying, based on who I am, here's how I think I could make a meaningful contribution to the world really on a daily basis, and try and make that more practical instead of a big philosophical thought about your broader purpose or mission or whatever. All Right, I really like it. Thank you so much, Tom Wrath. Congrats on the book. Life's Great Question, Discover How you contribute to the world. Check it out. It's

stop provoking. It definitely got me thinking about even you know, sort of our our day to day how we interact. I have some questions. I bet you do anyway. It's a nice way to kind of wrap up what's been another crazy day here at Bloomberg.