Why is Meaning and Purpose so important in the Professional Field?

Article by EDIT Value

Meaning is the fourth element of the PERMA model and has a crucial role in our lives. It influences our wellbeing and mental and physical health. It is known that the people who have meaning in their life, have a better health and wellbeing, they feel a life of satisfaction, they are more engaged at work and they can devote much more time for work.

Thus, we all need and want meaning, cause and purpose in life. The Meaningful Life consists in belonging to and serving something that you believe is bigger than the self. Humanity creates all the positive institutions to allow this, namely, religion, political parties, volunteers organizations and/or family.

The feeling of meaning and purpose in life has a huge impact in all areas of human activity, professional field included. Meaning and purpose at work is a crucial element that makes employees feel happy and that makes them feel that they are in the right place. With a meaningful job, people can explore their interests, passions and feel they work for a larger cause.

In this sense, Simon Sinek conceptualizes meaning and purpose as the personal “WHY”. According to Sinek, each person has a WHY, this is our purpose, cause, belief and this is our source of passion and inspiration. WHY can have different dimensions, each individual has a WHY, each team has a WHY and each organization has a WHY.

People want to work in the companies where they can share their WHY, their beliefs and values. Managers should communicate their WHY and the WHY of the organization, in order to build a good team based on common beliefs, values and motives. This question is always important for a team, it makes employees devote more and go deeper in their work and feel work satisfaction.

In conclusion, for managers, sharing the WHY allows them to reinforce the recruitment process, facilitate the strategy development and the vision of creation, facilitate communication and helps explaining to the employees and clients why the company is so special. On the employees’ side, keeping their WHY is important because it gives them the power to follow their way and, lastly, uncovering their WHY will help them to find passion in what they do and to find connections with the organization and the team.