Nate’s Notes 109: Wharton Professor Amy Wrzesniewski | Job Crafting and Creating Meaning

Thanks for listening to this episode of Meikles and Dimes. What excellent lessons Amy shared today.

First, we tend to make a mistake in thinking that certain jobs are meaningful and other jobs are not. However, the kind of meaning people make of their work is not solely a function of what that job is. The meaning is really in the relationship between people and their work and how they relate to that work, which makes finding meaning a far more personal endeavor.

Second, it’s not just about finding fit. It’s also about creating fit. Just as there is probably some finite number of people we could build a great life with, there are also some number of jobs or careers we could make our own and find meaning in. By changing both our perception and behaviors, we can alter the meaning and significance of our jobs.

Whether we view our job as cleaning hospital rooms or as healing people, there is significant flexibility in how we can craft our jobs and derive meaning from our work.

It’s a simple idea. Please take it seriously.

Amy Wrzesniewski Bio:

Amy Wrzesniewski is a professor at the Wharton School of Pennsylvania is an award-winning professor who researches how people make meaning of their work. She has studied the experience of work as a job, career, or calling, and her research on job crafting examines how people redraw the boundaries of their jobs to change both their work identity and the meaning of the work. Amy’s work has been published in prestigious academic journals as well as mainstream outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review.

And In 2015 and 2019 Amy won the “Inspiring Yale” Award, voted by students as the most inspiring professor at Yale’s School of Management.

Amy earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Prior to joining the Wharton School, Amy was on faculty at the Yale School of Management at Yale University, and the Stern School of Business at New York University.

I hope you enjoy learning from Amy Wrzesniewski today, because I always do.