You've walked smack bang into the middle of a series I'm doing on how religions create meaning and what we can do to make work more meaningful. My last article was on how religions use art to create meaning. You can also read my introduction here.
Religion is on the decline and with it goes a whole stack of important things that have made life more meaningful, including art, community, rituals and more.
"Work has traditionally been seen as a means for sustenance and survival—labouring the land to harvest food, then later on, as a way to produce goods and offer services in exchange for security. Because, historically, work was a necessary hardship—from Latin /labour/"toil, exertion"—it's no wonder we see it in a negative light." - Anne-Laure Le Cunff
But the world is changing, and I think work can actually be a source of significant meaning. As company builders, it's up to us to intentionally bring purpose and meaning to our work.
One way to do this is by thinking of your work as a community.
Your work as community
Communities are groups of people with a shared identity and a common purpose.
For as long as we have been on this earth, people have sought out community. All the progress made, everything we have achieved has been possible because of our ability to come together and work towards common goals. If I sent you into the bush with nothing but an axe, how long before you can come back out with an iPhone? The answer is "never".
We are drawn to each other out of necessity. We need to cooperate to survive. We also need to be with each other to build relationships, form friendships, find meaning and purpose that transcends anything we could find in solitude.
Community is everything.
For thousands of years, religions have traded in the value of community. Community is the most significant thing religions offer to their members.
Religions bring people together and give them a common purpose, something to believe in and strive for. Religions use community tools (rituals, ceremony, celebration, traditions) to reinforce their shared values and beliefs and add richness and depth to life.
With religion on the decline, we are losing the platform which provided the communities we so need. We're in the midst of a loneliness epidemic, and try as we might, technology has not been able to replace the sense of community we once got through religious affiliation.
If we begin to think of our work as a source of community, I think we can get back some of that which we have lost.
Work has the power to unite a group of people through a common purpose and a shared identity. The common purpose is your mission or your North Star - what you are trying to do in the world. Canva's mission is to empower the world to design. Blackbird's North Star is Giants Leaps Forward Made by a Passionate Few. If you craft a mission well, people will be drawn to it, and they can be inspired by it.
Shared Identity is the other key element. Because work takes up so much time in our lives, our identities are informed by the work we do. When working with other people, our identities are informed by our work and each other.
Shared identity at work isn't just desirable, it's necessary. An experiment conducted by Mark Mortensen and Michael O'Leary showed that "unshared identity arising from social distance increased coordination problems and reduced group cognition in the form of transactive memory." Translation: we're less effective at work if we don't have a shared identity.
"Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work. " Vince Lombardi
Building community at work.
This could be a whole separate post. Or a book. In fact, some of my friends have written books about this. For the purposes of this post, here's a crash course and some things you can do right now to build community at work. I'll use Canva as a case study.
Mission, vision, values: Sounds obvious but give your people a common purpose. Work with them to create these artefacts and provide them with time to become ingrained in your work. Canva's mission is Empowering the World to Design.
Share meals together: Canva has been doing this from the beginning. It isn't about offering a Google-style set of perks (although that is a benefit). It's about sitting down together and breaking bread.
Mark the seasons: Canva doesn't do Quarters. They do seasons. Every time the seasons change, they mark the occasion with a Season Opener - an event designed to inspire the team, celebrate their successes and pave the way forward. Religions have been observing and celebrating seasons forever.
Celebrate birthdays: when you walk into Canva's Sydney office the first thing you see is a big screen with the birthdays being celebrated today. They have a giant spinning wheel turned by the celebrated. They can get all sorts of treats, but the most coveted is the right to decide what the kitchen staff will serve up for lunch.
Cultivate shared identity: Canva has a strong shared identity, and they've even given themselves a name - Canvanaughts.
Encourage sub-cultures: Canva encourage special interest groups by running a Clubs and Societies program much like Universities do.
Here are some free ideas for being more intentional about building community at work.
Treat your onboarding program as a Rite of Passage.
Create rituals
Craft ceremonies
Build traditions
Think of your workplace not as a company but as a community. Be intentional about building community. You'll create a place that is inspiring to work, which adds meaning beyond a paycheque.
Work doesn't have to be transactional. With the loss of meaning on so many fronts, work should be one of the primary places we create meaning in our lives.
Next up in this series: architecture.