I Don’t Care About My Job

And why doing so isn’t what is best for you or your company.

In the past year, I have used this phrase three or four times when in conversations with people with whom you would not normally utter those words. I used them with two shareholders, my boss and chairman of the board, and in a job interview.

These are normally words spoken by an employee over a beer with a friend or co-worker while either complaining about their boss or their company, talking about their job search or simply explaining that work is not the most important part of their life.

This article isn’t about all the reasons the companies cause people to feel this way about the hand that feeds them. Rather, it is about why you shouldn’t care about your job, and if you manage people, why they shouldn’t care about theirs. I write a lot about the intersection of human nature and business, and how managing and understanding the basics of human nature is critical to building a culture with structural integrity.

To illustrate this, let’s take a look at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs below:

Based on the above, I need my job to cover the most basic needs for myself and my family. Once I have that covered, I want my job for reasons of belonging and self-esteem. I use the word “want” instead of “need” because, for some people, those needs are met elsewhere, but since this blog is about business, let’s assume that your job helps contribute to the attainment of this need. If you care about meeting the basic and psychological needs above, you darn well better care about your job or you won’t have one.

However, this hierarchy means there is an inherent conflict of interest between you and your company. That is, as long as your needs trump those of the company’s, you will always be pre-disposed to make decisions in your own self-interest as opposed to what is best for the company. Examples may include:

• Not speaking up in a meeting when your opinion differs from everyone else’s
• Not calling out your boss (in private please) when he or she is making a decision that is not in line with the company’s mission
• Deciding not to stick up for a co-worker who may have his or her back against the wall
• Not pushing back on your CFO when they are making a decision on a customer that could have a ripple effect that won’t be felt until it is too late

Assuming that your company would not keep you employed if you were not effective and right for the company….stop caring about your job. Let it be known when needed that you don’t care about your job, but rather, you care about the company and will only make decisions that are congruent with the company’s goals.

If you are doing a good job in the first place, one of two things may happen when you stop caring about your job and start acting solely in the best interests of your company. First, your job satisfaction will increase because you won’t mull over throughout your entire commute home what you should have done or said in the management meeting, bitched about it to your partner all through dinner, and thought more about it while trying to be present with your children. Second, if not caring about your job doesn’t go over well in the office, you may end up eventually firing yourself and finding a company where respectful dissent is valued and encouraged because at the end of the day….what’s best for the business is ultimately what is best for all stakeholders.

Originally published at https://thefailureguru.biz on February 6, 2020.