A relentless pursuit for happiness at work
Why I quit my job at a top consultancy firm, again
At the end of 2020, I finally left my job at CGI after a little over two years. And although the COVID-19 pandemic makes things not easier, I’m very happy I did. Despite my pursuit of happiness at work, I really could not find the motivation anymore to work there any longer. Some kind of force was ejecting me from their soil. A force that grew stronger by the week. What was going on?
I started at CGI in the summer of 2018 as a Director of Consulting for the Manufacturing Industry. I still remember the energy and enthusiasm I had when I was promoted to the job. To start at CGI, I had to quit Emerson, a competitor where I worked for more than 15 years. It was a difficult call to leave Emerson, I had a bright future, but I had to do it.
I remember very clearly when the “honeymoon”-feeling with CGI was gone and was replaced with a feeling of emptiness, I was unmotivated in mere months. I never experienced such an intense feeling before. Yet, it took another two years to depart from this marriage. In hindsight, I should have quit immediately as this feeling would become my energy drain. Instead, I was not considering quitting at all, let alone thinking about it. Just not yet. I guess I just was ignoring its existence, although I could feel its presence very vividly. Despite my experience, I also could not describe or pinpoint its presence. At that time, I thought it was caused by some tangible malfunctioning internals at CGI in which I was clearly dissatisfied with but was fixable.
It was until the end of 2019 after a two-week vacation in Kruger Park when I noticed my energy levels were not restored and I was looking up to work again. In fact, even looking to my future self towards retirement was looking cumbersome. How was I going to bridge that? I suddenly realized that I had a problem. The motivation that normally moved me to my work was almost gone, together with my happiness. This was the moment I accepted professional help. Logic dictates that when my employer was the problem, then they also should be the solution: by removing the problem.
Finding my energy drain, fix my motivation
According to motivation theory¹, motivation is a mindset supplied by energy and enthusiasm which brings a person his/her desire to work, that is his/her ability to achieve certain goals. In that way, motivation can be seen as a force that seduces a person in accomplishing these goals.
Within motivation theory, there are some great viewpoints on this topic. I found the following viewpoints interesting to find my energy drain:
- Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs² provides some reasons why we do things we do.
- Herzberg’s Two-factor theory³ lists hygiene factors and motivation factors. Hygiene factors such as salary, status, job security, etc. are needed to make sure we are not dissatisfied. Motivation factors are needed to keep ourselves motivated. Both factors are set by the employee.
- Vroom’s Theory of Expectancy (no source) states that people will be highly productive and motivated when people believe it is likely their efforts will lead to success and when they know that they will be rewarded for their success.
- McClelland’s Theory of Needs⁴ says that we all have three motivating drivers: achievement, affiliation, and power.
- McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y⁵ differentiates two work environments. Theory X explains the importance of heightened supervision, penalties, and bonuses to get work done. Theory Y highlights the motivation of job satisfaction and encourages workers to approach tasks without supervision.
The search for my energy drains with the use of the motivation theories was fairly simple and straightforward: strikeout the factors you’re are satisfied with and you are left with a list of the potential factors that cause your energy drains.
I immediately noticed a pattern emerging around the healthiness of the relationships I had with my managers. Maslow² calls this belongingness and love, while McClelland⁴ calls this affiliation. Great, but why didn’t I feel this affiliation, belongingness, and love with my employer? And still, I had a great need for success, status, and self-esteem.
In many companies, your motivation is managed by both yourself and your manager. In line with the suggestions from Herzberg³, Vroom, and McGregor’s⁵, you need to have a periodic discussion with your manager to align with him/her the right queues that motivate you to achieve your (personal!) goals. I had almost weekly meetings with my manager, but we could never pinpoint the right things. We always focused on tangible malfunctioning internals. Nor my manager or I could motivate me. What was wrong with me?
It turns out I did mix up my source of energy over the course of years by targeting a specific type of success as my prime source of energy. My whole career at Emerson I was delivering projects to customers. Feelings for success were delivered to me at the end of each project. I got a lot of those success feelings because I delivered a lot of projects, even in parallel. In my final two years at Emerson, I briefly changed to the role of the one responsible for the many service contracts that had to be negotiated with the customers on a yearly basis. For me, the feeling of success spiked to peak levels in those years. Targets were met, success for me was guaranteed.
Right?
Yet, I remember that I was not intrinsically happy anymore and that my motivation declined. Was it because of Emerson or my need for more and more success? In hindsight, I was addicted to a very specific type of success. When I joined CGI, this addiction was not available anymore. And although I helped a lot of people at CGI, I did not recognize this type of success as a source of energy.
When I accepted professional help at the end of 2019 I was diagnosed with severe symptoms of burnout. I had to work very hard on myself to get this feeling of emptiness out of me. I decided to use Lifebook from MindValley to get my life back in shape. Lifebook was a blessing delivered right on time for me. With Lifebook, you categorize your life into topics and for each topic, you have to define a plan for it and execute it! With the help of Lifebook, I figured out that I neglected my spiritual life: what is my purpose? If I depart on old age from this world, on what have I contributed to making a better world than I found it on the day I was born? Am I living my life? What is the meaning of life anyway? I did not have any answers to all questions, I just worked… I knew I just found the root cause of my energy drain. Apparently, I lived to work, instead of working to live.
It was the end of 2019 and I finally could see how to fix my motivation.
The mindset of athletes as key to the solution
There is so much to learn from athletes. When athletes are winning a game, they get recognition for delivering results. All of the sudden, they are the heroes. What we are sometimes forgetting, is that athletes have to work very hard to be able to deliver that result. The mindset of an athlete is not on winning that game, but on focusing on the performance of delivering that result. Winning the game is the consequence of the performance of the athlete. Athletes get their motivation on achieving the performance, not on winning the game. By setting specific goals for themselves, they improve their performance. Winning the game would then be the icing on the cake. It is very nice to win (understatement), but not their prime source of energy.
This makes sense.
But somehow, many of us nowadays are so much focused on delivering the results, rather than on our own performance that delivers the results in the first place. We therefore easily mix up results as our prime source of energy, rather than our own enjoyment of delivering a certain performance.
To fix my energy drain I had to learn to focus on my own performance again, after years of focusing on the results only. Performance is internal, it’s more about you, it is your workflow that in the end delivers results. Delivering a certain performance is your success, no matter how it is perceived by someone else. The result that your performance delivers, is what other people will judge on you on, is external and difficult to control anyway. During the years at Emerson, I learned to replenish my energy based on the success of my results instead of getting the energy from my performance.
Finally finding my motivation again
I’m grateful I found John Marshall’s book The Principles of Self-management⁷ that guided me in the right direction on how to fix my energy drains. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to refocus back on their performance. Focusing on your own performance is not easy, it requires old habits to die, you have to go cold turkey on the addiction of delivering results. The funny truth is, that you are still going to deliver those results. Except for this time around, you are going to enjoy yourself in delivering those results. The celebration of the results will be the cherry on the cake. I promise you there is light at the end of the tunnel; you will get energy from your own performance like these athletes and like I do now. Remember, it is this energy and your enthusiasm that drive your motivation. In the end, it is only you that really can motivate you. Next time around, focus with your manager on your personal goals and let your manager figure out how to make use of your enjoyment of delivering the right performance.
I regret that I mixed up the feeling of success with performance, a source of energy that drives motivation. Somehow, I felt it coming years before it, but I was never able to understand why. Even not with the help of managers at Emerson or at CGI. The unintended cutoff of success at CGI exposed my true source of energy, or better: lack of it. This mix-up was the root cause of my burnout symptoms. In that regard, the burnout symptoms came in as a blessing in disguise as I was able to fix them. Make no mistake: fixing it, takes courage, professional help, but overall: time. Time to change old habits, to heal wounds.
I quit my job at a top consultancy firm because I appreciate personal relationships with anyone to solve actual problems. Problems that matter, like the climate crisis. I quit because I fixed my energy drain and I found out that I was not getting enthusiastic for the cause they demonstrated, which is not my cause. I now believe that it is a common cause combined with personal relationships that bring genuine belongingness and love (Maslow²) and affiliation (McClelland⁴). These personal relationships are the source of personal progress like status and success, they truly deliver your full potential and ability. I learned that though the hard way at CGI that success is only the icing on the cake and that you have to enjoy every step that gets you closer to this. I would never find this spiritual path to enlightenment if I would not ask for help outside CGI. It was this help that allowed me finally to pinpoint my focus on the right things.
My hope for you is that you find the courage to ask for help rather sooner than later as I did.
What is next?
In February 2021 have started my own consultancy company. I have called it NextIndustry.Consulting. I believe that the next industry will fit in our society in terms of sustainability. It is a company that appreciates personal relationships with customers. That is curious and committed to solving actual problems. It still will be a technical company, but at least it will be personal. And I’m going to enjoy every moment of it.
You can follow me on Twitter as I continue to document my journey.
Outro by Simon Sinek
Just to wrap things up, Simon Sinek is a fantastic inspirational speaker. Here he is with an inspirational story about motivating the unmotivated. Thanks Simon for saying this message, I could not agree more with you.
References:
- Mills, R. C. (1991). A new understanding of self: The role of affect, state of mind, self-understanding, and intrinsic motivation. The Journal of Experimental Education, 60(1), 67–81.
- Maslow, A. H. (1970). Theories of Motivation. New York: Harper and. Row Publisher.
- Wall, T. D., & Stephenson, G. M. (1970). Herzberg’s two‐factor theory of job attitudes: A critical evaluation and some fresh evidence. Industrial Relations Journal, 1(3), 41–65.
- McClelland, D. C., Atkinson, J. W., & Clark, R. A. (1949). The projective expression of needs: III. The effect of ego-involvement, success, and failure on perception. The Journal of Psychology, 27(2), 311–330.
- McGregor, D. (1960). Theory X and theory Y. Organization Theory, 358(1), 374.
- Jung, C. G. (1921). Psychologische Typen: Rascher. Zürich.
- Marshall, J. C., & McHardy, B. (1999). The Principles of Self-management: The Key to Personal and Professional Success. Selecting Sales Professional.
- https://dvassallo.medium.com/only-intrinsic-motivation-lasts-92c0497cf97c
