Unlock the secrets to finding meaningful work

Garreth Hanley:
This is INTHEBLACK, a leadership, strategy, and business podcast brought to you by CPA Australia.

Jacqueline Blondell:
Hello. I'm Jacqueline Blondell, and welcome to another episode of INTHEBLACK Career Hacks. In this series, we bring you the latest strategies and tips to help supercharge your career. Today, we're talking to Brian Klindworth. Brian is a career coach who helps clients find meaning in their work. In developing his coaching method, Brian draws on a decade of professional experience as a recruiter, as well as his own career's many twists and turns. Welcome to the podcast, Brian. It's great to have you with us.

Brian Klindworth:
Thank you, Jackie. I'm delighted to join you.

Jacqueline Blondell:
Let's kick off with how you would define meaningful work.

Brian Klindworth:
For mine, it's all about rebalancing what people do in their job. Most people are overbalanced towards doing what they're good at, and meaningful work just has a little bit more of what a person loves doing, a little bit more of what allows them to have an impact that matters to them, and hopefully, it's all wrapped in a pretty bow and structured so that they can remain connected to the activities and people outside of work that are really important to them, as well.

Jacqueline Blondell:
So it's a lot about balance. When people think about meaningful work, they always think it's working for a charity. That's not it, is it?

Brian Klindworth:
It can be, but it's certainly not confined to that. Work is, for mine, just a form of contribution. And so when you're thinking about making an impact to others, and an impact that is meaningful or important to you, that's not necessarily confined to working for a not-for-profit or charity.

Jacqueline Blondell:
Meaningful work seems to be a bit of a hot topic. Why now?

Brian Klindworth:
I think we had such a prolonged period where so much of what we took for granted was taken away from us, and we were held on pause for so long that it really made us question many things in our life, particularly in Melbourne with the lockdowns through COVID. And then we had this opportunity to articulate or define what was important or what really mattered because so much was taken away.

And then we returned to work, and I call it the second negotiation, where we work then started to say, "No, well, we actually want you to come back to the office or do this or do that," and people had to really double down on, "Well, actually, that's not meaningful. That's not important to me because, if I stay home, I can have dinner with my family or I can do exercise," or whatever it might be. So I think it's meaningful because people are having to review and revise or recommit to those ideas and plans that they may have come up with during the COVID lockdowns.

Jacqueline Blondell:
So let's talk about factors involved in finding it. Say we've come through a period where we realise that what we're doing now isn't quite right for us. What factors are involved in the search for meaningful work?

Brian Klindworth:
Oh, I'm a huge fan of encouraging people to come back to what they love doing. And it's amazing how uncomfortable it makes many people because we don't talk about love. It's a bit risky, but most people have something in their job that they actually love doing, they just don't experience it very often, or it might be that what they love doing is experienced somewhere else. So for me, I love helping people gain insights and better understand themself.

The other part is around that meaning. So what's the impact you want to have that makes a difference? And for me, when an individual is more connected to themself and then more able to connect with their team, their family, et cetera, that's really powerful in terms of the impact that they can then go on and have. So both of those things represent what I love doing and having an impact that matters to me.

Jacqueline Blondell:
Does everyone need that meaning or can people operate on autopilot?

Brian Klindworth:
Autopilot is a beautiful, safe, numb place to live the four to six out of 10 life where it's good because we're optimistic, and we have to feel good about ourselves, but for mine, it's an awful standard and absent of meaning. And in my whole working life, something like 80% of people would leave their job tomorrow. And I think a big part of that is because their work does lack meaning. There's not enough of what they love doing or the ability to have an impact that matters to them. So it's not needed, but certainly, everyone would benefit as a colleague, as a boss, as a partner, as a son or daughter of. It's huge, Meaning is really important.

Jacqueline Blondell:
With your recruitment background, is there an idea that people that connected with the jobs that they enjoyed because they're good at them made it more meaningful and the worker-employer relationship lasted longer?

Brian Klindworth:
Recruitment's a pretty conservative vehicle often to help people make changes from what they're currently doing to a competitor, often. And so the conversation around meaning wasn't as large as, "I'm in a difficult or uncomfortable place. I want to get away from it and I'm hoping that where I go to is better." There often wasn't a big exploration of meaning at that time, and that's part of the driver for why I've gone into career coaching to help people be able to articulate what matters to them so that they can then see how their skills and tools that they have, professional tools, if you like, align to doing something different, and how they build the networks, and tell the stories to be able to demonstrate their value and make a move towards meaning.

Jacqueline Blondell:
Let's talk about specific tools. So say someone's in a job early to mid-career, what tools do they need to start finding out what that meaning might be and then going off to actually land that meaningful job?

Brian Klindworth:
It's all life to me. I'm not a big work-life guy. I'm a huge fan of people getting clear on what they want in their life. So start with a life design that might include a timeline that helps you see the things you want to do and have an experience, and you benefit from thinking about who you want to share it with and what financial resources you need to pay for it, what health and wellbeing you need to be able to say yes to the opportunities, and even giving thought to what kind of a human you want to be, whether it's courageous, or brave, or graceful, or whatever it might be.

And with a life design, your job then becomes the vehicle that facilitates this life for you whilst building the financial resources to pay for it. So if you do the life design, then you do the job design, and that's, I think, a two-stage process, you might lean into exploring what tasks and responsibilities you can take on that better reflect or are more balanced between what you're good at, but also what you love doing and allows you to have an impact that matters.

And then that helps you answer the what will give you meaning. And then the second part is actually think about how you want to do the work. I think of that as your ideal job, because a great job done at the wrong time or in the wrong place will actually prevent you from connecting with the people and activities that matter. So it's a twofold process of defining a lot of reflective practice to get clear on the life you want to create for yourself and the job you want to create for yourself, and then you have this terrific story which guides you to the work of transition, if you like, into a meaningful job because you then know who your audience is, and therefore, how to position yourself. And that then guides things like resumes and LinkedIn profiles, et cetera to help you do the networking or applying for jobs and networking, et cetera to secure and create that new role with meaning.

Jacqueline Blondell:
I'm all right with saying that you recommend doing the life design and then working your job into that.

Brian Klindworth:
Absolutely, yes. I think, at different ages and different stages of our lives, we do put priorities on different things, and whether it is generating the financial resources to pay for the family, or there's always a concern about bankrolling someone else's life rather than participating in it. So an individual's priorities and top values are really important in guiding that.

I would say that, when people are established in their careers, they feel like they've got the most to lose, and that often keeps them disconnected from meaning because it feels too risky because, "I can't afford to take a break," or take a step laterally, or down, dare I say. And often, they don't explore it until they feel like they've got less to lose because they've paid off the high school fees, or the mortgage, or whatever it might be. And if they earn considerably less, they feel that they can still maintain their lifestyle and they often explore it later in their career.

Jacqueline Blondell:
We hope you're enjoying INTHEBLACK's Career Hacks series. If you're interested in the latest news, analysis, policy updates, and business insights, you should check out CPA Australia's With Interest Podcast. Join us as we dive into the news and delve into the business issues of the day. We talk to thought leaders from across the accounting, finance, strategy, economic, and business spectrum, and you get their expert opinions. Now, back to INTHEBLACK.

Jacqueline Blondell:
Would you apply meaning in the way that, if I learn this bit and get this bit of experience, then I can expand my horizons?

Brian Klindworth:
No. What I hear in that is ... what I think of is the qualifications or tickets you need to advance your career, which leads to the ability to solve different problems and in different amounts of income, but the life design doesn't change and the job design doesn't change because that's still built around what do you actually want in your life, and who do you want to share it with, and how fit do you need to be able to live it, et cetera, and that's not tied to any qualification.

And the challenge for people early in their career to be connected to meaning is they don't know what's meaningful to them because we don't often ask people what they love doing and encourage that, because it's too risky and we're scared that they'll make a mess of it or there's no financial security in it. And we've given up on what we love doing as the adult and the parent guiding younger people. And so they get distracted by what they're good at and pushed down the path of progress, progress, progress and life will get better and you'll have more options, and we get distracted by what we're good at and can do.

So it's different questions that are required at that stage, and that feels really brave to people early in their career because they haven't been asked that, so they don't know how to answer it. They might theoretically, but they don't know what it feels like because they haven't spent time living those things.

Jacqueline Blondell:
What few question should they be asking?

Brian Klindworth:
For an early stage of a career, I'd still be, maybe instead of thinking about your whole life, think about where you want to be in five years’ time and the things you want to do and have an experience. And then when you think about any of your school assignments, or voluntary roles, or even part-time roles, anywhere where you've held responsibility, it might be in the family unit, what are the things that you've actually loved doing? Because even within an accounting career, there's lots of different ways to leverage different skills and hold different responsibilities.

Whether you are more people-orientated and love the presentation of the numbers or building the relationship to build trust to get access to information, or whether you, perhaps, are more technical and you love learning the software side of it, or whether you love the numbers and the black and white nature of numbers really appeals, you can still be asking the same questions around what you actually love doing. And when you think about the impact you want to have, that might be around integrity and you get a real satisfaction out of your attention to detail and accuracy in presenting the numbers at month end, year-end, et cetera, so that the organisation, the leaders within it are operating with data that can be trusted, and that makes you feel good and that's an impact that you value.

Jacqueline Blondell:
You mentioned later, when your career has been established for a while, what kind of questions you should be asking yourself then?

Brian Klindworth:
As we get later into our careers, whether it's 30s and you've done something for 10 years, or maybe you're in your 40s and things have shifted in family, or maybe you're getting 50, 60 and you're getting close to the empty nest and thinking about your final step in your career, it's interesting, people later in their career still benefit from asking the same questions, what do they love doing? Often, they're forgotten by that stage, but they can come back to it and revisit something that maybe happened once a year or once every six months.

But I don't think the questions change, I just think the permission that people give themselves to pursue what they love rather than meeting their obligations because, financially, they need to earn a certain amount. It's the barriers to permission or the other stories that go on around, "Do I really deserve to be happy and love what I'm doing? No one else does," "Is it fanciful to have work-life balance? Yeah, I don't know anyone that does. So if no one else can do it, I can't do it." The questions don't change, you hurdles to pursue it and engage with it is what changes at different stages of your career.

Jacqueline Blondell:
Meaning isn't the same as motivation. They're not the same thing, are they?

Brian Klindworth:
They're certainly not to me. I think that motivation is a bit old-fashioned in some ways, in that it's often external, it's temporary, it's unsustainable, and most people drop off a cliff. So picture someone who wants to fit into a wedding dress or run a marathon or someone who wants to complete the CPA so that they can get that promotion, whereas meaning taps into what we love doing and what matters to us, which is accessing our values. And when we start getting into meaning and our highest values, I believe that we start tapping into inspiration, and that comes from within, and it's something that's far more sustainable and more intense, if you like. And so there's absolute benefit in coming back to meaningful work so that you can access inspiration rather than motivation.

Jacqueline Blondell:
Let's talk about organisations and meaning now. How important is it for them to have meaning, for the business to have meaning for the employers and the employees?

Brian Klindworth:
I think it's really powerful. There's language like discretionary effort, and accelerating results, and growth, and efficiencies, and all these beautiful things. If a strong leadership is present and there's authenticity in what the organisation or team's meaning is, there's real power in that in terms of individuals being their best self and doing their best work. If the leadership isn't strong enough and the engagement into the meaningful mission or purpose isn't present, we default to the meaning of making money and it becomes transactional and becomes about money, and that doesn't feel very personable, or warm, or caring, or inclusive often. So meaning can be really profound.

Jacqueline Blondell:
When I spoke to you in the past, you mentioned that you had been made redundant a few times. What did this teach you about the importance of finding meaning in work?

Brian Klindworth:
What it taught me was that, when my reason for getting out of bed, my meaning was tied to what was defined by other people or encouraged or forced onto me, i.e. what a boss says is a good day's work or earning money to pay bills for other things, when the role was taken away because the role was made redundant, I was very lost, and that made the experience much more difficult to navigate, whereas when my meaning was based on what I love doing and having an impact that mattered to me, when the role was made redundant and taken away, I still knew what was important to me, I still knew who I was, and I was just looking for a new place or a new vehicle from which to do the work, and that made it so much easier to navigate that period of uncertainty and discomfort.

Jacqueline Blondell:
What would your advice be to others?

Brian Klindworth:
I'm a big fan that we're all human and there's this great value in acknowledging it's really uncomfortable when someone takes something so important away from us that impacts all of our life. So there's huge importance in making peace with the event, but once you've made peace with the event, then coming back to what's meaningful to you really helps you start to move forward so that you can do your life design, and do your job design, and then do the work of securing your next role, but it is absolutely that notion, that clarity around what's meaningful for you that will help drive you and help keep you inspired in a difficult time.

Jacqueline Blondell:
Thanks so much for sharing your insights with us, Brian. It was really great to talk to you.

Brian Klindworth:
Thank you for the opportunity. I've really enjoyed the chat. Thank you.

Jacqueline Blondell:
And if you're looking for more great career content, please check out the show notes for links to CPA Australia's career resources. Until next time, thanks for listening to INTHEBLACK's Career Hacks.

Garreth Hanley:
If you've enjoyed this episode, help others discover INTHEBLACK by leaving us a review and sharing this episode with colleagues, clients, or anyone else interested in leadership, strategy, and business. To find out more about our other podcasts, check out the show notes for this episode, and we hope you can join us again next time for another episode of INTHEBLACK.