Space on the back porch

Apologies – this post originally went up on LinkedIn back in late August, and … then I left it in draft here, while publishing it there. Catching up!

Anyone that’s worked for me knows I have phrases that I say I lot. Maybe mantras, or if I’m being overly generous to myself, witticisms. But if you ask them, they’ll probably tell you my most repeated mantra is: “you gotta do what makes you happy.”

This has two distinct meanings. The first, which is from a personal standpoint, is that you should find something that you really enjoy doing. One way to know “is this what I want to do” is to ask yourself, “do I enjoy it even when I fail when doing it?” There’s usually a lot of ways to fail at something, but only a few ways to succeed. The people that really enjoy a job are the ones that aren’t afraid to experiment, and aren’t afraid to fail, because they get to learn more, so they can do even better (and have more fun!) next time. Another way to know is to consider whether you feel happy going to, or coming home from, work. Some people get a lot of happiness from accomplishment, and that’s great, because you should feel happy when you come home from work. But you should really find a job where you feel happy going into work. You should be excited about the possibilities, not just the consequences.

I used to feel happy going into Amazon, and being a leader, but a lot of senior leadership’s recent decisions made me unhappy about coming into work. I enjoyed helping people, I enjoyed getting releases out, and I enjoyed helping my team get to the lowest ops load in the org. But I didn’t feel proud, or happy, talking about the job with other people. It’s one of the reasons I left, and it’s also why I’m now writing more – I know I’m reasonably good at it, but even though I’m not the best, I’m enjoying doing it. I’m enjoying writing my blog and my books, and ultimately, it’s fine with me whether or not a lot of people read them.

The second meaning of “you gotta do what makes you happy,” which is from a leadership perspective, is that unhappy people are less productive. When people are unhappy, they’re going to seek out things to make themselves happy, which means they’ll be spending some of their time watching TikTok videos, going for long lunches, reading social media, or checking up on their fantasy football team. Those people will always be less productive than their own best selves. If they’re superstars (see my earlier post about how talent is a power curve), they may be more productive – even when distracted – than anyone else on the team. But our goal, as leaders, is to get the most out of every person on the team, over the long term.

So as a leader, one of the consequences of believing that I want my people to be happy is that I never begrudge someone leaving my team. If they do, it means (hopefully) that they’re trying to follow their passion, and therefore, I SHOULD HELP THEM DO IT. I tell people to not let the fear of change dissuade them from trying another team, or another role. I’ll have an article later about how not to be afraid, but for now, focus on whether your tentativeness about changing roles is fear of the unknown, or disinterest in the new challenge. The former is normal, and you should ignore it; the latter is bad, and you should listen to it.

I’ve helped many people on my teams move on, and I’ve kept good relationships with them afterwards. Some have even come back to work for me later!

Now, you might be thinking, “what if I don’t like how hard it’s gotten for me recently?” When people come to me with this issue, I first try to understand what’s causing the stress, and see what I can do to help. Depending on the circumstances, one possible piece of feedback that I give them is that you should NOT be afraid to stick it out when things get tough. If you search for articles related to “grit” and how perseverance can lead to better long-term mental health, you’ll find things like [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886918304409], which found that “perseverance promotes greater resilience to depressive symptoms by enhancing positive self-conscious emotions (e.g., authentic pride) and positive self-valuation (e.g., sense of power).” Or, in [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-020-00343-4], where they found the “positive relationship between grit and subjective well-being is largely driven by the perseverance dimension of grit.”

In other words, if you like doing something, but it gets hard, you should try to push through it, and learn from it along the way. In the long run, you’ll probably end up happier, and proud of the fact that you persevered.

But on the other hand, if things are hard for reasons NOT related to the work, and grit’s not going to solve the problem, good leaders are able to listen, and ask good questions, and then act appropriately. Too many managers lean too heavily into the techbro-style leadership of “you just need to work harder” or “suck it up,” which can be incredibly damaging feedback.

So when I have my one-on-ones with the people that work for me, I often start with: “are you happy?” Good leaders need to create an environment where people are comfortable enough to respond with honesty. And when they ask the question, good leaders listen carefully and compassionately to the answer.