It's ok if you are just doing your job

Hello people,

And welcome to the 87 people who joined the list in the past couple of weeks. Kudos to you! You've made the right decision.

Two ideas I've been reflecting on:

Some people just want to do their job.

They don't want to wrestle with big questions about strategy. They find great fulfilment in doing what their everyday job requires, and they will get excited about little everyday events.

It's not a weakness. The job market needs hundreds of thousands of people who are just able to deliver, without investing most of their time in meetings about abstract ideas. Professionals with a passion for their everyday work can become problematic only when they can't connect their everyday job with the purpose of the company - and they get stuck in the technicalities of their practice.

You need trauma to change the culture of a company.

It needs to affect dramatically job descriptions, business priorities, sometimes even salaries. You can't change culture just by talking about "how important" a few values are.

It's like a demonstration: many people will stand in the street and shout the same message, a message they firmly believe in; those who didn't join the demonstration will keep ignoring that message. It's exactly the same with artificial company culture changes: either you believed in those values in the first place, or you will just keep walking by and ignore the pretty posters.

There's more about this in the MIT article linked below.

Scroll down to find some of the best ideas and stories I came across in the past few weeks, including why are more people dreaming about work, the connection between bathrooms and management, and a wizard who just lost his job.

A few reminders:

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All the best!

Avy

Five links to rule them all

㊀ I recently discovered that there is a bathroom-themed management style. It's called Swoop and Poop, and it's a brilliant definition for senior managers who don't know much, carelessly dump projects on the team and expect great results.

㊁ These five minutes will improve the way you write your e-mails. Listen carefully.

㊂ More and more people are dreaming about work, since the beginning of the pandemic. Surprisingly enough, you can use those dreams to learn more about how you can work better.

㊃ Are you indispensable? If not, you might soon get a pay cut, especially if you are working remotely.

㊄ "We are changing our company culture!" they said. First sign the culture will stay the same. If it's not directly connected to the business goals and routines, it won't work.

🌊 UNRELATED • After 23 years on the payroll, this city in New Zealand decided to fire their Wizard. No, he wasn't a touristic attraction. His job was to "practice acts of wizardry".

☕️ Golden stuff for those of you who, like me, love big ideas: we can look back and see a thread that connects all the places in history where there was an outbreak of genius: Ancient Greece, Florence during the Renaissance, etc. We might be ahead of a new outbreak now, but the new place is the Internet.

Hello, there!

If someone forwarded you this e-mail, thank them. They are clearly good friends.Now you should definitely join my list. Here, let me help:

Also, Tanuki Shift is my accelerated Career Change program. You can sign-up here, or share it with that friend/colleague who is desperately searching for a way out of their job.