By: Sergio Peña
On CBC Radio’s The Current, Stephanie Koonar, co-founder of PeerSpectives Consulting – a proud sponsor of BCAMA – and a Gallup Strengths Coach, sat down with host Mark Kelley to talk about why so many people feel disconnected from their jobs, and what actually makes work feel worthwhile.
Stephanie Koonar, co-founder of PeerSpectives Consulting and Gallup Strengths Coach.
Drawing on her coaching work and her own research on young people and purpose, Koonar talked through the difference between happiness and meaning, shared a simple tool for figuring out your strengths, and explained why so much disengagement at work comes down to bad management, not the job itself.
Happiness comes and goes. Meaning stays.
While researching her book, Backpack to Briefcase: A Student’s Guide to a Meaningful Career Journey – written to help young people navigate their career decisions – Koonar came across a distinction that stuck with her: happiness and meaning aren’t the same thing. Happiness is temporary, she said, but meaning lasts. People don’t reach the end of their lives asking if they were happy every single day – they ask if they made a difference. And while meaningful work isn’t always easy work, the two can coexist.
She also pushed back a little on putting all the pressure on finding meaning in one job. A lot of people just need their work to pay the bills, and that’s fine, she said. Meaning doesn’t have to come only from your paycheque – you can find it in other parts of your life too.
Figuring out what you’re actually good at
To help people work through something as personal as meaning, Koonar uses Ikigai, a concept from Japan tied to research on communities where people tend to live longer. It comes down to four questions: What do you love? What are you good at? What does the world need? What can you actually get paid for?
She’s tried this even with teenagers, in workshops with Big Sisters and Little Sisters, asking them what problem in the world they wish someone would fix. The answers come fast – homelessness, mental health, causes they already care about. Her point is that we shouldn’t wait until adulthood to start this kind of thinking. She’d like to see it show up as early as grades 9 and 10, alongside a real look at where jobs are actually headed.
People don’t quit jobs – they quit managers
When it comes to why people check out at work, Koonar leans on Gallup’s research. People who feel disconnected aren’t always miserable in an obvious way – Gallup identifies them as “not engaged.” They’re not really invested, often because they can’t see the point of what they’re doing, or they’re not using what they’re actually good at. Then there’s a worse category: the “actively disengaged,” who go past just checking out and start bringing everyone else down with them.
The fix, Koonar said, usually starts higher up. Gallup’s research shows that a manager accounts for about 70% of how engaged someone feels at work, and a lot of managers, according to Koonar, don’t even know what their people are good at. When employees can can put a name to their strengths and articulate what they are naturally good at to their managers, then their managers can actually use that information to hand out the right projects to the best suited people, and improved employee engagement usually follows.
Koonar gave her own story as an example. After a colleague ran her through a strengths assessment, she was surprised how well it explained the choices she’d made in her career. She started using that knowledge in small, everyday ways – like once agreeing to go to a networking event a coworker was dreading, because talking to people and building connections happens to be exactly where she thrives. She also brought up a client with a real talent for strategic thinking, whose manager wouldn’t let her near any strategic projects. Instead of getting stuck, the client ended up joining a nonprofit board, where she could put that skill to use on something she actually cared about.
It’s never too late to switch things up
Asked if it’s too late for someone further along in their career to look for more meaningful work, Koonar didn’t hesitate: no. She said people should pay attention when they feel unhappy at work, before that feeling turns into resentment – and admitted that sometimes the answer really is leaving your company altogether.
For new grads walking into a tough job market, her advice was part personal, part practical. Think back to moments you were proud of and try to spot what you naturally bring to the table. Then match that up with where the market is actually going. As she put it, borrowing a line from Wayne Gretzky: figure out where the puck is headed, and get there first.
Key takeaway
Meaningful work doesn’t just happen to you, and it has nothing to do with your title or your salary. It comes from actually knowing your strengths, finding a place that lets you use them, and – as Koonar’s own examples show – being willing to speak up for that fit, whether that means staying where you are or moving on.
Link to interview:
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-63-the-current/clip/16218465-do-worry-job-meaningless