Last class we had two great lectures, the first by Dr. Pereg and the second by Prof. Libai. Dr. Pereg is an organizational and occupational psychologist. Her lecture was about meaning at work and how it is crucial for every employee to have meaning in what they do, especially in current times when so many people are working from home because of COVID-19. When we speak about the meaning of work we have in mind where we are going and what we are doing. We all want to have a sense of direction. She introduced us to the topic with a meaning model called a “map of meaning”. It has two axes. Axis X is about action, it focuses on myself or others. Axis Y is called the axis of energy. This clarifies if we are looking for meaning by doing or by being. As a result, we have four quarters. Dr. Pereg calls them “sources of meaning or energy”.

The first quarter, Self-Doing, is about job crafting, ownership and autonomy. I think that putting people in charge, to be responsible for certain tasks, increases their sense of meaning at work. When managers, instead of micromanaging, give people an opportunity to find a way to perform the task better, this gives people a feeling of importance.

The second quarter, Doing-Others, focuses on service to others. This is even built into some professions, like teachers, especially in primary schools, and doctors in hospitals. In other professions, it is not so obvious, but if you think more deeply you could find, for example, that the product your company produces serves certain public needs. In this case, I think it is very effective to have meetings with people who are helped by your work (your company clients). In one company that I worked for, many of us came to the client company at the stage when our system was being set up. We closely communicated with the people who would use our system. We worked 18 hours a day for two weeks, but we were full of enthusiasm. I see this as an example of the power of direct contact with the client.

Self-Being, the third quarter, is about developing the inner self, and lifelong learning. One company that I worked for bought each employee an account on online platform Pluralsight. So we, as employees, had the possibility of improving our knowledge and skills. Although our company didn’t give us any free time for self-education, having any possibility to do it, even in our own time, was a great motivator.

The fourth quarter, Others-Being, is about unity with others. One of the companies I worked for decided to organize “happy hour” meetings at the end of every second week. Surprisingly to me, this had a great effect. We, as colleagues, became more friendly and closer to each other.

The lecture of Dr. Pereg helped me to systematize my feelings and knowledge about meaning at work. The next lecture, by Prof. Libai, who is the head of the marketing department at IDC, was about similarities between how new products grow in a market and how infections are spread.

Many people think about the growth of new products as a linear process, but this is not the case in real life. Marketers started to use the pandemic model to explain the growth of new products in the market. I observed this phenomenon when I worked for a company that was developing a platform for online casinos. In the first three years, the company had only a few clients, but these began to increase in number, and seven years later, the company had a new client every week or even more frequently.

We know that in this model social interaction is a crucial factor. Many companies ignore the importance of the word of mouth approach. However, a good reputation could be crucial, especially for B2B companies at the beginning of the process of growing their products.

Photo by Hakan Nural