Welcome to the meaningful Work Matters podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Soren, founder of Udaemonic by Design. On this podcast, we'll dive into the world of meaningful work, explore its complexities, and examine its impact on people and the organizations they're a part of. Each episode features insightful conversations with cutting edge experts who are successfully navigating the challenges of meaningful
work. We hope to offer you ideas, frameworks, and tools to unlock potential and design work that's fulfilling, impactful, and supports everyone's well being. Subscribe or follow us now in let's make meaningful work matter. Frank Martella it is so wonderful to be able to have you on meaningful work matters. I am quite excited for this conversation. Your research on meaningful work has been quite an inspiration in terms of the way that I've thought about meaningful work, the way might
have thought about broad purpose more generally. The research that you've done has certainly been very useful in surveying the field and helping those of us who work in study in this space have an understanding of the huge breadth of work that's here, let alone you are prolific in all sorts of wellbeing territory and are a wonderful person within the positive psychology community more broadly. So I'm thrilled to have you on the podcast. Welcome. Yeah, great to be here and great to talk
about this topic that we both are excited about. Perhaps we can start by you just introducing yourself a little bit, telling us a little bit about you and what makes your work meaningful. Yeah, so I work as assistant professor here at Aalto University in Finland, and I do, like my research is mainly about having about meaningfulness, well being, happiness, these kind of topics, both in life in general, but then
especially in the work context. So I've been like, and I've been studying this, like, both from the point of view, like organizational research, but also from the psychological point of view, and also done some philosophical work on the topic because I feel that the topic, like meaningfulness, is something that you have to approach from many different angles to get it right or get broad enough lens on it. And I
guess, like, what makes my own work meaningful. I guess myself, I enjoy quite much thinking about these deep questions, so I'm quite grateful to be able to do that as my work. Like, I'm quite happy every morning when I'm able to start it with opening my laptop, having a coffee next to me, and starting to write some scientific or popular article. So I wouldn't know what would be more exciting thing to do as a work. So I guess that's one part of the meaningfulness of my
own work. And then the other part is I feel that through doing this work, I'm able to contribute to something in the world. So, like, contributing to the scientific community, but also then trying to contribute to the general population through these ideas about how to make one's work more meaningful. Thank you very much for that introduction. And I feel like it segues pretty perfectly into some of the research that you've done on what constitutes
meaningful work. Now, you and Pessi did this great, comprehensive review of all of the research that had been done on meaningful work back in 2018. And one of the key things that you definitely discovered in that process is that there are a lot of different ways that people have defined and measured meaningful work.
And, of course, one thing that we know about that literature is that since 2019, the year after you published that article, literally half of everything that has been written on the topic of meaningful work has been published since then. So I'm sure that there's many more than the, I think, 36 different definitions that you came up with at that point of meaningful work that are now floating around
in the literature on the topic. Maybe can you just start by telling us a little bit about what you found in that article and any other kind of work that you've done related to it since? Yeah, and that was actually, that was kind of like a parallel article that I was writing with Liz Mike Steger about definitions of meaning in life at the same time. So I was like, that point, I was kind of, like, starting my career in the topic. So then I was, like, trying to figure out, what are we actually
talking about when we talk about meaning in life? What are we actually talking about when we talk about meaningful work? And trying to make sense of that. And then I had this feeling that, hey, actually, this one researcher seems to be talking about this thing. This other researcher seems to be talking about something completely different. And because of that, they are kind of, like, poking past each other.
So because of that, I felt that I had, like, I guess, like, one reason to write this paper was just, like, trying to make sense to myself, like, what actually am I studying when I want to study meaningful work? So that's kind of the original motivation was just, like, no personal sense making of the field. But of course, okay, it might serve other people as well if I try to write about that topic. So then with Mike Stager, we wrote this piece about, like, meaning in
life and three dimensions of that. And then with Ande Birketopest, we wrote this paper about, like, meaningful work and the three dimensions to that, because that was like our way of trying to like identify the key teams that seem to be emerging from these different definitions. And my understanding of those three different dimensions of meaningful work that you came out with were basically an overall significance in
work in terms of what makes work worthwhile. And then two kind of sub components of that, one being about self realization and the other being about broader purpose. I mean, you just talked a little bit about the self realization, about being able to sit down and think about deep questions and the broader purpose in terms of how you contribute to the world more broadly with the work that you do. So that's at least my reading of the ways in which you summarized it. But maybe you
can give us a little bit of a deeper respect. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I guess, like, in the most broad terms, I guess like the meaningful work means that, you know, work that you find somehow like, valuable and significance, that you find some, something of value from there that you don't just. I guess, like, you know, one way of like conceptualizing is to say that, that you find something else from the work than just the fact that
you get money from that. You know, that if you, if the only reason that you work, the only value you find from your work is that, you know, okay, if I do this for 8 hours, I get this and this many dollars, then your work is quite meaningless. But then anything like beyond that, if you feel that, hey, this is a place where I'm able to express myself, this is a place where I'm able to connect with other people, this is a place where I'm able to contribute and help other people
and so forth. All of these are then the factors that actually make the work meaningful. And that means that they're kind of like making the work valuable as such, that there's some intrinsic value in the work itself. So that's kind of like, we were like argued that this is kind of the most broadest way of understanding meaningful work, the sense of intrinsic value of the work. And then we identified these two sub components that are quite often discussed
as key parts of this meaningful work. One of them is the self realization, which is exactly about being able to somehow do things that you yourself find interesting, feeling that you're somehow able to engage in the things that are valuable from your own point of view. So in my case, it's like, for example, the fact that I'm able to sit down and write and I'm able to have these conversations with other people who are excited about the
same topics. These are all factors that make it feel that this is something where I'm able to realize myself and my deep most interests, and then the other sub component. And then it's about this broader impact and this broader purpose of work, that feeling that when you're. That it's not only about yourself, but it's also about being able to somehow contribute to something beyond yourself, like help other people or contribute to solving some big problem of the humanity
or something like that. So in that sense, one way of, like, saying that the self realization, broader purpose that, you know, the work has to be like, has a connected connection to yourself, but then it also has to has a connection to the other people. So if both of these are present in work, then it usually feels quite meaningful. Okay, so I have a positive psychology geek question.
It was just at a conference that was at Stanford, a small kind of meeting, a consensus conference, that was all about trying to figure out what is the singular definition of purpose and how would you measure it? And this was a conference that was a meeting that was hosted by William Damon, a very prominent person in the purpose space. And folks like Carol riff were there and many others
who really focus deeply on this question of purpose. And one of the things that has always confused me is the fact that meaning and purpose seem to be constantly joined at the hip. Your definition of purpose includes meaning. Bill Damon's definition of purpose. Your definition of meaning includes purpose. Bill Damon's definition of purpose includes meaning. How do you see the relationship between those two things? Yeah, I guess, like, that purpose is a bit more like, you know,
future oriented in my mind. So, like, I kind of, like, would argue that no. And meaningfulness is the general sense of value that we find in our life as such or in our work, whether we talk about meaning in life or meaningful work. And then purpose is, like, one key way that we find this value in our life or in our work, because purpose is these more future oriented goals that I have in my life, at my work, that I find somehow valuable. And that's usually one key way of finding
meaningfulness. But then there's other ways of finding meaningfulness. You know, like, if I go and hang out with my friends in the park when it's sunny outside, that might be a meaningful moment to me, you know, being able to share that moment with good friends or family. But there isn't, like, any, like, you know, broader purpose to that. We are not, like, you know, trying to accomplish something. We are not, like, trying. Trying to build
something or anything like that. It's just the moment itself is meaningful. So in that sense, in my view, the meaningfulness is the more broader concept. It's like, includes always all of those things that make life feel valuable, all of those things that make work feel valuable. And then purpose usually is one of the key components that tends to make life meaningful and tends to make work
feel meaningful. And I guess in the work context, it's especially important because work usually involves doing something, having some projects, and because of that, you want to have that feel that the projects actually are building some value in the world in one way or
another. Mm hmm. That makes a lot of sense. I feel like Bill's definition of purpose is an active commitment to accomplishing something meaningful to the self and of consequence of the world beyond the self, which, you know, there's a lot of good parallels, but it's that active commitment part, the actual doing, which is probably something that we'll talk about much more.
I think that's the thing that separates meaningfulness and purpose from each other, that this active component of doing something that's only about purpose. But, like, meaningfulness can come from also moments which don't have, like, any active moment or active, like, purpose like that in themselves. Great. Thank you. Thank you for helping me geek out for that moment of definitional complexity. That's not an interesting conference. I would wanted to be there to hear
what people had up topic. It was really interesting. It was amazing. Your name was definitely evoked. One of the things, you know, for those who have listened to this podcast before, and if you've had read some of the things that I've written about meaning, one of the things that I'm always really curious about is the dark sides of things that we generally think of as
really, really good and that we want more of. And we know that within the meaningful work literature, lots of good things happen when people are engaged with meaningful work, but there are potentially also dark sides of that. So have you seen that in any of the literature that you've reviewed around potential dark sides? Or can you have too much meaning specifically in the work context and any kind of senses, if so, about what
safeguards us from that? Yeah, I guess, like, I would say that, you know, having too much meaning as such, like, it's not the bad thing, but sometimes it can lead to these, like, trade offs, which are like, bad. So there was this one, one paper about this, like, these zookeepers in the US, like, and then kind of the employer was like, they would like, make the work conditions, like, worse and worse.
Because they knew that the people are so committed to the animals, they're so committed to their current workplace that they wouldn't be quitting even though their work conditions got worse and worse. So, like, normal people with, like, less commitment to their work who would find their work less meaningful would already at that point, say that, you know, no, I quit. I go and work somewhere else.
But these people, because they found their work so meaningful, they didn't have, like, a similar choice in a sense of, like, quitting, but they were, like, too committed to the work. So I guess, like, that's one of the dark sides of meaningful work, that. That some people might be able to exploit that in situations where you're negotiating about your salary
or something like that. That makes a lot of sense. And for those who are listening, we've had an episode with Jeff Thompson, who, along with his collaborator Stuart Bunderson, talked about the zookeepers and the work on the dark sides of calling. And so take a listen to that episode. I would like to hear Jeff describe it. Yeah. And I got to think that in terms of time commitment, that if you find your work very meaningful, it might be that you
put your whole time into that, which might not. It might be that your family doesn't like that, for example, that it will be better, from their point of view, if you would find your work a bit less meaningful
and because of that, spend a bit more time with them. I guess my general answer is that the meaningfulness as such usually isn't a bad thing, but it can lead to these trade offs where, because you're so committed to the meaningfulness, that you actually then come to neglect some other dimensions of your life, which then makes it a bit worse situation. So let's just move into the realm of. From deep
thinking into practical application. I'm curious, how would you translate some of this research and guidance around meaningful work? And specifically, I guess, these kind of three dimensions that you've talked about in terms of kind of what makes work valuable for you, how do you potentially self realize, and how do you think about broader purpose? How does that translate into the actual experience of work? For if there's a leader or practitioner who's working to try to make more
meaning at work, what do you think that means? Yeah, because, like, usually I advise that. Then think about this. One topic is, like, this self realization. Another topic is this, like, this broader purpose. Like, think about these, like, how much they are, like, present in the current work and what could be made but done to make them more present in the work is quite usually a good way of, like, starting.
No matter what you're thinking about your own work and how to make your own work more meaningful, or whether you're a leader who thinks that how to make people's work meaningful. So I guess like, especially, just like this purpose, having this, like, positive impact through your work seems to be a theme that quite many people are seeking in their work life. They want to feel that, you know, their work is having some positive contribution.
And as regards that, like, one thing is, of course, like the actual contribution, sometimes you can do things that make. Make the actual contribution larger. But the other thing is also that it's like work design can make the contribution more visible. So sometimes there might be a situation that your work is contributing towards certain people, but actually you never see those people. And because of that, you cannot miss out on the purpose of your work
that is already there. So then if some design is done to the work so that it will become more visible, then that will be already helpful. I remember Adam Grant had this example of some, like, I think it was this John Deere tractor factory, that the engineers in the factory, they rarely see the customers. They weren't at the factory, but then they had this new custom.
Whenever somebody have ordered a new tractor, then it was actually somebody from the factory who came to deliver the key to the person. So they would actually see how delighted this farmer, whoever was, when they got this, their new John Deere tractor. So that was one way of making sure that people see the impact of the better and see the people who are, who they're actually helping through their work. So these kind of design things can already be quite, quite helpful.
But then, of course, like when, if you think about your own point of view, then think about your carrier, how to, how to make sure that, you know, the next steps of your carrier might be. Might go, might go in direction where there's more positive impact. Might be also a good way of like, in the long term to make sure that your
carriers contribute into something positive. Before we started recording, we were talking a little bit about Finland being one of the happiest countries, and some of the reasons for that being ultimately a lot to do with public policy. And certainly in the research that I've done on meaningful work, it seems to be very much an ecosystem solution. So there's not
a single silver bullet that makes work meaningful. There are definitely things that you can do as an individual to create a bigger sense of significance and self realization and purpose. There's definitely things that the organization can do like job design or the way that leadership happens or the kinds of values an organization might have. Do you think that there's things at the policy level, at the broader government level, that can happen to increase the
likelihood of meeting for work? Yeah, I would think so. Because now that I think about, when I've been trying to identify some, this vanguard organization which are doing things very well in terms of meaningfulness and in terms of motivating the workers and so forth, then quite often there's something, quite often this it companies tend to become companies which are doing things very well. And one reason is that the competition for the best talent is very fierce in that field.
So because of that, then the companies have to provide all these policies, provide all of this very much autonomy to the employees and so forth, because that's the only way to attract the best people to their company. So in a way, I guess the bargaining power of the employees makes a difference in terms of how much meaningfulness they're able to experience. The more they have bargaining power, the more they can choose what kind of
work conditions they have. And they then make sure that the work conditions are such that they're actually able to experience more autonomy,
more self realization, and through that more meaningful work. And I guess the government policies can quite much influence the bargaining power of the different parties and I guess might be different between, for example, the US and Finland as regards how much government has done going to level to field, in that sense, to support the workers in bargaining negotiations with the employer. Well articulated. Thank you.
It's a good segue to a slightly different topic, certainly connected, but a paper that you gave me a little bit of a sneak peek of that you're working on, which is around a new model of well being that you've articulated, which I think is a very, very cool way of thinking about and framing about well being. You talk about this version of well being, having four dimensions, having loving, doing and being in each of those dimensions is very much predicated on certain kinds of human needs,
and I'd love for you to break that down for us. But I guess I use that as a bit of a segue, because the way that you start talking about that paper is the fact that there's so much more public policy interest in this topic of wellbeing, and it feels like we really need to be having good answers as to what well being is if governments are really starting to pay
attention. Yeah. And that is true that in the last bit more than ten or like 15 years, there has been quite mid but much like breakthrough in this area, that used to be the case that governments were not paying too much attention to the subject and wellbeing
research or anything like that. But I think somewhere around, like 2009, there were these few influential conferences, and then the president of France at that time, they ordered this one report about the topic, like title of Islam, like beyond GDP, how to measure national progress. And I guess it started from this realization that this GDP, which had been like since World War two, it had been the de facto goal of the governments, was to
increase the GDP. And at some point, quite many governments were realizing that even though the GDP might be still increasing, it didnt seem the case that the peoples wellbeing was increasing. And because of that, they felt that we need some more direct measures of wellbeing. I guess there was this realization going on in policy circles around 50 years ago, and that led to then many countries adopting this more, this national level well being, annual measures or something like that.
And because of that, nowadays we have much more data on the topic. And when we have data on the topic, we can have much more research results about what are actually the things that are driving well being on a national level, which again feeds more into the policy struggles that they get more interested in this. Then there's governments like New Zealand, which introduced
this well being, budgeting. So when they're making these budgeted decisions, they are not only looking at the economic impact of certain budget decision, but also the wellbeing impact of that decision to make sure that the government policies are not only serving the economy, but also serving the people. And this seems
to be going on in quite many countries right now. One of the ways in which governments around the world ultimately try to see how they stack up is things like the world happiness report, which is done often, I think, in collaboration with Gallup. And they largely fall on a model of wellbeing that's called subjective of wellbeing.
At Diener's model, which basically looks at, I think, life satisfaction, how well do you evaluate your life as well as how much basically positive emotion and how little negative emotion do you have, and kind of create a little bit of a model around that seems to be the way that many governments at this point are measuring well being. Why do we need another model of
wellbeing that. Yeah, so usually when it's measured on the government, the government or national level, usually it's like then it's this life satisfaction is the only question that they, right now seem to be, in the most cases, asking. So, for example, this world happiness report is based on just one question. So they have, like, this so called country ladder is the name of this life satisfaction question. So think about your life on a scale from zero to ten, where zero is the worst possible
life, ten is the best possible life. Where would you put yourself on this ladder? That's a question. They asked that from, like, representative sample of people in 100 and, I don't know, 40 different countries. And then they calculate the averages and then they rank the countries based on that. And I'm kind of like arguing that, you know, if you only have space for one question in a wellbeing survey, then by all means, use that one, because, like, that's the
one that we have, like, most data around. That's the question that we have, like, most consensus around. And that's a question we have, like, we know mostly about, like, what, what it influences or what is influencing it. But then I guess it still leads to a bit like a narrow view of people's happiness if you only ask about this general life satisfaction. But then there's much less consciousness about what are the other questions that we should be asking besides that.
And that's where this, my model comes in, that I'm trying to bring some structure to this question of what are the other things around well being that we should be measuring. So life satisfaction, that usually is accepted as one part of it. And then this positive emotions, negative emotions, which is part of this DNR's model, those are usually the next ones which are, like, you know, included. But then quite many researchers have been arguing that even thus, that is a bit narrow.
But then there's, like, no consensus at all. What are the other things that should be measuring? What we should be measuring there. And then, like, bring in my model where I try to argue that we should like these other, more other things that we measure should be based on this human needs and human nature. Okay, so let's dive in there. Tell us a bit about what. Like, one of the things that I really like about your model is that you're
trying to, you're trying to really base it on theory. It starts with some of the things that we talked about at the very beginning of this conversation, about how one of the things you love to do is ask deep questions. And I feel like one of the things I really like about your model is the fact that it's based on those deep questions is trying to. Trying to come to this question about what is well being from a theoretical standpoint.
So help us understand a little bit about those human needs that this model is based on. Yeah, but if I think about myself as a research, there seems to be a pattern here that every time I dig into some topic, I started, like, coming up with some model that, okay, meaningful work. So here's the three things that make up meaningful work. Meaning in life. So, here's the three things that make up meaning in life. Well being. So, here's the four things that define well being. So, I don't
know, that seems to me like, my niche in the. That's right. That's good. So the idea is that, you know, that when we think about human well being, we have to start from, like, no understanding what is human nature. And then I argue that there's, like, at least, like, kind of like, these four dimensions of, like, ways of being for human humans. And one of them is, like, that we are this, what so called having. So we are like, biological creatures, which means that we have certain physical needs.
So we need water, we need nutrition, we need oxygen to survive. If we don't get those things, we die out quite soon. If we are not able to breathe, it doesn't take many minutes before we die. So in that sense, that's always something that we have to remember about human beings, that we are physical beings with certain physical needs. And because of that, this having is one key
dimension of human wellbeing. But then I argue that, and I. Assume just to interrupt quickly, that, like, that having is similar to what Maslow would have talked about in terms of a fundamental, like, safety kind of need. Like, we need to. We need to feel fundamentally
like our very basic needs can be met. We've had Scott Barry Kaufman on this podcast, and he's talked a little bit about the fact that, like, that's almost like the boat that, like, the hull that, like, sits on the water, that keeps you afloat on top of the. On top of the water, you're not going to go anywhere, but if you don't have that fundamental structure, you're going to be treading
water and drown pretty quickly. Yeah. Yeah. This comes from quite much, like, inspired by Maslow, this physical needs, and it's also this kind of so called deficit need. So we don't think about it much when it's satisfied. Oxygen is not something I'm thinking constantly about, but when I'm like, if I would be underwater, not able to breathe, then there wouldn't be much other things on my mind. That would be the only thing I would be thinking about, how to get back
to the surface, how to be able to breathe again. And the same, of course, that's, like, the most dramatic case. But then, like, same goes for, like, you know, water or same goes for, like, you know, food. As long as we have them, we might not be thinking too much about them. But then when it's. When they're threatened, then we became, like, quite motivated to do something about that. But that's like, you know, not. Not enough for human life that, no, we need more than just mere survival.
And then that brings us into these other needs and other parts of the model. And one of them is like this, like, what I call loving. So, one basic fact about human beings is that we are like social creatures. We come into the world we like through other people, and we are like, no, we learn to know ourselves through other people. So the small babies, they first
start, like, realize that there's other people. And through their expressions, they actually then at one point realized, hey, they're actually reacted to something. And that something is like me. So, like, you know, we first become aware of other people before because before we become aware of ourselves. So because of that, this social needs is another key part of our well being. And for example, this. Okay,
Maslow had, like, this loving as one of the needs. But then also, like, self determination theory has been talking about this relatedness as one of these key human needs that is contributing to our sense of well being. And there we can then, if you want to make this more fine grained distinction, we can say that there might be few different social needs for human beings. So one of this need to be accepted by the other people. So being rejected by other people is usually quite a
big fear for us as human beings. And we might want to make sure that we are behaving in a way that other people accept us. But that's probably a bit more defensive at this defensive need. But then we also want to be like other people, care about us, and they're like this, like, mutual caring relationships in our lives, which is like, what the self determination there is relatedness is special about.
And then the third thing I like myself researching is this, like, this sense of prosocial impact, which seems to be quite important for us, human as well, and something that we seem to be derived by much meaningfulness and well being from. So there's, like, lots of research showing that when we're able to do something good to other people, that actually increases our own well being, then we have this having and loving covered.
But then I argue that also this doing should be something that we recognize as a very basic mode of existence for human beings. So we are not just passive creatures, but we are active creatures who are seeking something to do in the world. We are seeking some project for ourselves. We are seeking challenges. We are trying to find something interesting to do in our lives. Because of that, we have these more agentic needs to do things. And here I'm then, like using self determination theory.
Besides this, relatedness argues for autonomy and competence as the basic needs. And so they are kind of the agentic needs in our life. That we need to feel this sense of autonomy, that we are kind of like the origin of our actions, that it emanates from our own interest, from our own values, that we are able to endorse our own actions and make these choices as regards our own lives. And then this competence is about this like
chance of mastery and being able to accomplish something. So then, so those are kind of the three modes of existence which all have, like, these basic needs, basic needs attached to them. So this having, loving and doing. But then I'm like arguing that finally, that on a most basic level, we human beings are like, we are experiencing beings, we experience our existence. So we have like this. And some of these experiences are more positive, some of the experiences are more negative.
And this brings this being as one of these modes of existence. And this being itself then has like two parts with one of this more affected part, and then one is one is this more reflective part. And because of that, then, like this reflective part is covered by these measures like life satisfaction and meaning in life. And then this affected part is covered by this positive and negative effect. So the kind of like the dean or subjective wellbeing model is part of this being
in my model. So I try to play a little bit of that back. We have the having, which are really those fundamental safety security needs that are in some ways deficit needs. They shout at us when we don't have them, but when we do have them, they become a little less important, more at least salient. And then we have these other needs, like loving and doing, which are really in many ways about who we surround ourselves with and what we're identically trying to do in the world in some way, shape or
form. And then the being sounds a little bit more like it's our evaluation of it all. How do we feel? How do we think things are going in general? It's the way that we know. It's our compass on the boat, to a certain extent, yeah. And I guess the being is like three other modes of excellence are feeding into being, so that having, loving, and doing all of them are like, what these basic needs. And the more these needs are satisfied, the more we feel
life satisfaction, the more we feel positive feelings. And through that kind of being is kind of like the outcome of how much our, like, having, loving, and doing needs are satisfied. I really do like this model. I think it's helpful to be able to think about the different kinds of need satisfaction that we have when it comes to well being. And I'm not sure that we often do that very well when we just focus on dimensions of well being, whether it's the perma model or
Carol riff's model. I mean, obviously, self determination theory is very much based on human needs as well, but it's so helpful to be able to think about how do we go about satisfying those needs in both subjective, in objective ways. Yeah, yeah. And actually also applied like this, employee well being as well. Like, not the same model can be applied that context as well, because also in the employee wellbeing space, sometimes people are measuring job satisfaction,
sometimes people are measuring engagement. Sometimes people are measuring positive feelings. Sometimes they're measuring something else. So also within that space, there's quite many different measures. And I guess, like, this model can help to sort out these different things and put some structure to what are the key components of wellbeing in general, but also employee
wellbeing in particular. Yeah. So let's dig in there for a second, and you might not have a good answer, or we might be able to forge it together a little bit ourselves. But if you were to think about the workplace, what would having look like? No, I guess I think the workplace happening is a bit like, of course, having a
certain level of salary. No, I guess, like, one thing is that as modern office workers, we might not remember all of these aspects when we are working, but many people are working actually in conditions where there are these physical hazards to their work, that if they do a wrong movement, they might lose their hand or leg or
something like that. One of the things that the modern society has done, that we have all these legislations, that there would be much less of these cases and there wouldn't be this physical hazards to work and quite much an improvement to the conditions that the work life was like, for example, 100 years ago. That's great. So the workplace health and safety folks might be in that having territory. It also sounds a lot like we've talked on this podcast about the industrial labor
Organization or the International Labor Organization. The ILO, which is part of the United nations, talks a lot about decency at work. And so that's like freedom and security and equity and dignity. Those things seem very much in the having category. Yeah, I guess, like, yeah, they have been like sets like this basic. That we don't have, like, these hazards or like this, like that our sense of security is not threatened when we are working. I guess that's right.
And then, of course, like, in modern office work, like, they might be taken for granted, that we might forget that, you know, that it's these things because, like, they're so, like, self evident part of the work that, you know, when I go to the office, I don't have to worry about, you know, somebody killing me. And then let's talk about the loving, a word that is interesting. Often in organizational settings,
some people are a little skittish about talking about love at work. And yet I actually really believe that love at work is an important thing. When we think about what love can actually mean, what it can mean to have relationships where we really feel valued as valued and valuable, maybe Isaac Brillantinsky, who has been on this podcast, talks about the ways in which we feel like we matter, and maybe that's a really helpful way of thinking about loving in this particular context.
Yeah. And I feel like, yeah, loving is a strong word, and we can call it relatedness or something like that, which is a bit more neutral and probably easier to chew in work context, but, yeah, and then I guess, like, as social beings, we need, like, to have this sense of belonging, this sense of community. And some workplaces are very good at providing that. Some other workplaces are not so good at providing that, then that usually has quite a big impact on
people's well being. So, like, when people feel that, you know, they belong, when they feel that there's people that take that other people care about them or their supervisors care about them, this has quite, like, important influence on their well being. So, yeah, I just. It is quite an important part of our well being at work as well, that whether we
call it loving or something else. But in fact, that's like, one PhD student is now starting to work with me, and she wants to do her PhD exactly on the topic of loving in leadership. And she wants to do the PhD because she feels that this is the way influenced the world, that. No, make sure that no. Loving becomes a word that can be used in the leadership context and in organizations. So I don't even remember what it means, but it's been so long since I read it. There was a book
called Love Leadership. It's John Hope Bryant, who was the one who wrote it back in 2009. I have not read it. I have no idea about it. But I always love the idea of trying to figure out how do we bring more of a sense of love into the work that we do. Yeah. And Dirk van Dierendunk, he had this one paper called compassionate love as a cornerstone of servant leadership. And actually, I'd be using that sometimes in my classes. Like, I put the students to read that because, like, and I
think, like, the bold title is some. I like the fact that, you know, he's like, servant leadership. I think, like, it's a good thing to make the students read about. But I think, like, especially, like, when he talks about in the context of compassionate love, it's like something. It's a nice intervention to the usual things that the business students are reading. Now, of course, the doing seems to be what work is largely about. We already
talked about that with regards to purpose. Feels very doing oriented. And you've talked about both impact and growth as key aspects of what doing is all about. Is there anything else that you would think in a work context the doing would relate to? Yeah. This need for competence is something usually that people are quite interested about in the work context. That's why people are looking for challenges. If the work gets too easy, then they start to
think about other options or where should they go? And I was like, no, this company is also about learning. And that's also something. I was talking with this one HR manager of big company, and she said from their internal data, they had noticed that they had these surveys. In their survey, they had some question about whether people
are learning. And she had noticed that that was the first sign to know that before somebody is going to some other company or when they're quitting their job, like, usually this learning start to drop, that they started to feel that they're not learning so much. So that seemed to be the moment when they think that, okay, I'm no longer learning here. I could go to some next place where I'm able to learn more. So that's something that people are seeking out in their work life.
Opportunity to learn new things, opportunities to grow and master new things. Let's talk about the being. How would you think about both that effective and evaluative way of thinking about evaluation and network? So I guess, of course, job satisfaction probably is the most typical way of measuring employee wellbeing, and that taps into this evaluative measure and this being in the work context. So how satisfied
are you with your work in general. So in that sense, that already is quite a typical part of any employee wellbeing survey that is out there, that they usually measure this thing. So in the same way as life context, like this, life satisfaction is usually the most typically asked question, then this job satisfaction with the work context seems to be the most typically asked question. Nick Marks, do you know Nick? Yeah. So Nick runs this company
now at this point called Friday Pulse in the UK. But he's been, you know, he has a strong, long history in thinking about wellbeing policy in the UK specifically. But what Friday pulse does is really measure the affective aspect of it. And I mean, Nick asks a very simple question every week, which is how happy were you at work this week?
Which is a way of being able to try to, in a very simple five point emoticon scale, just even think a little bit about that being sensed on a much more time bound way than job satisfaction level. And yeah, I guess as regards like a surveys, there's always this trade off. Having a broad, long survey gives you this more comprehensive picture of the situation. But at the same time, if you want to get this daily or weekly survey,
it cannot be very long. It has to have, like, only one question or very few questions because otherwise people don't fill it up. So you can get all the fill up this long survey, like, you know, once per year. But like, if you want to have a monthly or weekly survey, then you have to have it very short. And so it gets like. But then they might,
like, not help it. Having, like both, like having this once per year something longer, and then, like every week, something, something shorter might be like the best way about. Because then you have, like, these pools of, of how people are doing right now, but then at one point or another, you get also this more comprehensive view how they are doing on these different dimensions.
I really like it. I like the simplicity of the model. It makes me think a lot about Vivek Murthy, the US surgeon general has this, I think, really fantastic model that is a workplace mental health and well being model they developed a couple of years ago now and captures, I think, a lot of the dimensions of what you've described and including really thinking about a lot of those human needs that you've also described in that model itself at work. But there's something even simpler or about
thinking about, okay, do people have what they need? Are people finding a way to exist within either a loving or relational space? Are people able to do the things that they need to be able to do are people ultimately feeling like their being at work is meeting their needs? It's a very elegant model. Okay. Yeah, I have to look into that. One more thing. I want to ask you about the article that have in press, which is about the relationship between sustainability and wellbeing. I really liked
that. A final chunk of the paper. And I feel like you and Mike Steger are very much talking about those kinds of things, leading the charge in a positive psychology context in terms of helping us think a little bit more broadly about wellbeing than just at the individual me level orientation of it. Can you just say a little bit more about the relationship between
sustainability and well being? Yeah, because like I was just talking with a couple of finnish politicians about this topic like last week, and we were like agreeing that, you know, that in a way, like when we think about the politics, what is like, what is the aim of the politics in a country? And we were saying that, no, it seemed to be like, make sure that people have well being in a sustainable way, that it's
good to have well being today. But at the same time we have to do it in a way that makes sure that people can have well being also tomorrow, which of course brings in the environmental component because if you have certain planetary boundaries and certain resources and we have only one planet and it doesn't have this 1 atm with
certain levels of various gases and so forth. So because of that, when we think about well being today, we have to also think about how are we producing it in a way that makes sure that also the next generation can enjoy the same levels of well being. So I guess like this, sometimes when there's this talk about, talk about sustainability, it's talk about like there's like these three dimensions to sustain a bit. Like no ecological sustainability, social sustainability and environmental
sustainability. And I kind of argue that they are not three separate things that can be talked about, trades or between them, but its more that the well being is kind of like the intrinsically valuable outcome that we are trying to produce. And then the environment provides us with these limits that we cannot transcend because we only have this one planet and then the economy and also the social
institutions are somewhere in between. There are ways of transforming human labor and this and this environmental resources into well being. So then we have to think about how are we designing these systems in a way that the economic system and various governmental institutions that we have are producing as much well being as possible within the planetary boundaries. Its so helpful for us to be thinking about
wellbeing in this broader context. And again, just going back to the model that youre proposing around having, loving, doing and being, if we don't have a planet, we can't do any of those things. Certainly climate change is going to affect our capacity, our having kind of needs in massive ways over the next 30 to 50 years. And just the doing aspect of how do we think differently about, for example, climate change. There's a lot that we can do.
There's a lot that we can do, and doing so will ultimately get us more connected to land. It involves kind of a broader way of thinking about nature, connectedness, which in and of itself will increase our wellbeing. There's so much that's really helpful about breaking down some of these barriers, and that's just on the environmental side, not thinking about the economic side or the social side.
Yeah. And one of the motivations I think, built this model of well being is that currently, when we think about the policy context, it's quite much like measures driven. There are certain things that are measured and then these affect the decisions. And one of the successes of the cross domestic, one of the reasons that the cross domestic product is so successful is that there's a standardized way of measuring it that every
country is doing. So. We have this comparable data about what is the country's GDP now, what was the GDP ten years ago, how it's compared to other countries. And luckily, in the environmental sphere, we also have more standardized measures now, what we had 20 years ago, which is helping us to make these policies which are actually more friendly to the environment, because if you don't measure it, then you can advance it. So, like, better measures for the ecological side, but then we also
need better measures for the wellbeing side. And because of that, we should do this work of like, no conceptualizing and standardizing these measures so that we would have like this as comprehensive and as like, you know, standardized measures of well being as we have, like in the economic sphere right now. So that's the kind of psychologist I. Feel like that's the start of a whole new podcast, but less we go there.
I just want to thank you, Frank, so much for sharing your wisdom and for being able to enlighten us to think deeply about these topics, but also think pragmatically about how we can actually put them into the workplace. I'm very grateful for all the work that you have done both in the past and in the present, to ultimately help us create more meaning at work and well being in our lives in general. Yeah, thanks. It was an interesting conference. As always,
a pleasure to talk about these topics. It's meaningful both on a personal level, but hopefully it also has some positive impact in the future. Thank you, Frank. Thank you. Thank you for joining us for another. Episode of meaningful work matters. If you haven't already done so, be sure to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform. And if this episode resonated with you, please take a moment to leave us a review. Your feedback helps us
make this podcast better and reach more listeners. You can connect with me, Andrew Soren. On LinkedIn, or visit www. Dot eubd dot ca to learn more. About eudaimonic by design. Finally, if what you heard today spoke to you, tell your colleagues and people in your community about our podcast. We really appreciate your support in making meaningful work matter. See you next time.