Work Satisfaction: CCI (Day 256)

A friend of mine is feeling stressed from work. He is upset because his work is not being appreciated and his words weren't being heard. It reminds me of a period in my own career that I faced a similar situation. At the beginning, I tried to work harder to change that but to no avail. My resentment grew and morale dropped to a point that I started to just cruise along.

In his book "So Good They Can't Ignore You", the author Cal Newport talks about the three key work satisfaction traits--Creativity, Control, and Impact (CCI). No matter how passionate you are, if you can't get any of that for a prolonged period of time, your enthusiasm would dissipate.

As a leader, foster an environment where team members can retain more creative freedom, more control in both time and execution, and see the impact of their work, will be a more powerful morale booster than any bump in title or pay could bring.

This could be hard to implement for some very structured enterprises. For sure, there are employees who are content to be a salary worker producing just what they are paid to do. There are also people who couldn't find fulfillment in that environment. Is that the case for entrepreneurs, too, starting a business so they can have the CCI--creativity, control, and impact--in what to do?