The Nobility of Work

Noble work occurs when a person applies their values, talents and passions toward what they consider to be a meaningful purpose. In other words, they do what trips their life's trigger.

Notice there are three parts to noble work:

1. Identify your values, talents and passions
2. Decide what you consider to be a meaningful purpose
3. Apply the former toward the latter

Notice further that "noble work" is a personal matter. What is noble work for one person may not be for someone else. Also, notice that by definition noble work has nothing to do with income, title, industry, media recognition, acclaim, glamour and so on. It is based completely on your internal perspective.

The two most influential women in my life are my wife, Barb, and my mom. They are classic examples of the nobility of work. They apply their considerable values, talents and passions toward what they consider to be a meaningful purpose. And they do a magnificent job in the process. They both happen to be "stay-at-home moms."

Does this mean that if you're not a stay-at-home parent that you're not doing noble work? Of course not. Again, it's based on what you think is a meaningful purpose.

I used to be a high school math teacher. Clearly, I had colleagues who would apply their enormous reservoirs of passions, values and talents toward what they thought was a meaningful purpose. Did that mean I was automatically doing noble work as well? Nope, because I wasn't passionate about the math and soccer that I was teaching. I was far more interested in focusing on teaching leadership, teamwork, management, creativity and innovation. Some people argued with me that I was doing that indirectly, but it certainly didn't feel like it to me as I ran soccer drills and explained the quadratic equation. Today I believe I am doing noble work: applying my values, talents and passions toward working with other people to achieve whatever they want to achieve. That trips my life's trigger.

What are your values (the behaviors you believe are important), talents (the things you have the capacity to do well) and passions (the things you get excited doing)?

What do you consider to be a meaningful purpose?

How can you apply the former to achieve the latter?

Ok, one more question. What's the big deal about doing noble work? What's in it for you?

The benefit is that at the end of the day, week, month or lifetime, you can look back and say, "I mattered."

That's it. That is the big benefit of doing noble work. You will know that you mattered!

The night before he was shot, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "All I want to do is leave a committed life behind." When he died, he had accomplished what he set out to do. He had left a committed life behind.

An extraordinary career, a career of enduring greatness, is always built on doing noble work.

For a more in-depth and far better explained description of noble work, I encourage you to read, "Authentic Happiness" (The Free Press, New York, 2002) by Martin Seligman. One of my favorite quotes from this book is "The positive feeling that arises from the exercise of strengths and virtues is authentic… Positive emotions alienated from the exercise of character leads to emptiness, to inauthenticity, to depression, and, as we age, to the gnawing realization that we are fidgeting until we die."

New White Paper – Accelerate Your Strengths

On June 16th I gave a half-day seminar on “Accelerate Your Strengths: practical ideas to boost business momentum” for GE Capital. It was such an interesting project that I wrote a white paper for the group after the seminar based on what we talked about. In turn, that white paper was forwarded on to 7,000 GE employees. Consequently, I thought you might like to read the paper, except this version has all the references to GE taken out. Here is the link for the

Accelerate Your Strengths white paper: http://thecoughlincompany.com/accellerate_your_strengths.html

New Book, Find a Way to Win: Management Insights from Terry Michler, America's All-Time Winningest Soccer Coach

This book focuses on business lessons that can be learned from soccer. The foundation of the book is how Terry Michler used the powerful simplicity of Dutch soccer to win more games than any other U.S. coach in history.

On July 11th, the finals of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa between Holland and Spain was watched by more than 700 million people. While I was cheering for Holland at the beginning of the game, a major decision by their coach led me to learning a valuable lesson all over again.

Dutch soccer, which is highlighted in my book, is all based on extraordinary technical skill, efficiency, and precise attacking soccer. This is how a country with only 16 million people competes so extraordinarily well with the world's super powers in soccer including number-one ranked Brazil, whom they beat in the quarterfinals. However, in the World Cup finals Holland abandoned what made them great and instead focused on playing brutal, violent soccer. They wanted to intimidate Spain, and in the end they lost the game and the respect of so many people who love Dutch soccer. What happened and why did they do it?

They felt they couldn't compete with Spain if they allowed them to get into their normal passing game. So they consciously decided to physically attack the Spanish players with violent tackles all over the field. One Dutch player even shoved his metal cleats into the chest of a Spanish player. They received numerous yellow cards, a red card, and ridicule from the world-wide soccer press after the game.

What's the lesson to learn here for every business? Stay true to who you are. When the prize is close don't abandon what got you to be one of the best organizations in your industry. Too many companies in the past ten years have decided that what made them very, very good wasn't going to be enough to make them number one in their industry, and so they got away from their strengths. Big mistake.

I believe Holland will return to their traditional style of play, focus on precise, skillful, attacking soccer, and get away from their violent style of play. I think they learned a huge lesson. And hopefully every business that got away from its core strength in the pursuit of being bigger and more successful financially than anyone else in the industry will also return to its core and get back to winning again.

You can learn more about Find a Way to Win at http://thecoughlincompany.com/book_store.html

Republishing Articles

Each month my e-newsletter gets republished in approximately 20 blogs, on-line publications, and internal publications for businesses, universities, and not-for-profit organizations. If you would like to republish all or part of my monthly articles, please send me an e-mail at dan@thecoughlincompany.com with "Republishing Article" in the subject heading. I will send you the article in a word document. All I ask is that you include my name as the author of the article and a short paragraph at the end of the article about me with a link to my website.

Take care and have a great month!

Dan Coughlin

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