A global Gallup poll conducted pre COVID revealed that, among the more than one billion full-time workers, only 15% felt they were properly engaged in their work.
In an article titled ‘The World’s Broken Workplace’, Jim Clifton, the Chairman of Gallup, put this staggering statistic down to outdated management practices and managers who lack motivation and training in the practice of coaching their staff.
As a baby boomer I can relate to Clifton’s assertion that to us a job was a job and seen as something separate from our home lives. We tended to view a good job as being the enabler for acquiring a decent home and enjoying a good family and social life.
Things have changed.
Controllers or high performance coaches?
Millenials (those born between 1980 and 1996) perceive less separation between their jobs and their family and social lives. Their lives are more focused on work, so these aspects are more interwoven.
More than ever nowadays, people want work that is meaningful and fulfilling; work that promotes their growth and development.
According to Clifton, providing this will require leaders to step up from being control-driven administrators to being high-performance coaches.
Work that is an integral part of one’s lifestyle
The pandemic in 2020 exacerbated this need.
The move to remote working jobs seriously undermined the effectiveness and relevance of command and control type leadership. It left many managers bereft of the skills needed to motivate and inspire their people from a distance.
The advent of the digital world has given people more work choices than ever. People are trading so-called ‘secure’ employment for the personal freedom that comes from remote freelance work.
Younger people nowadays value work that complements and promotes their lifestyle aspirations. The days of slogging through 40 years of employment, to try and assure a relatively comfortable retirement, are over.
The boundaries between work life and home life are becoming blurred. More and more, the two are seen as going hand in hand. As a result, people are looking to engage in work that they enjoy, rather than work they are forced to tolerate.
An education system that needs to catch up
Unfortunately, our education system has yet to catch up with this fundamental shift. It is still promoting the value of academic achievement over self-awareness and personal development.
Older parents who have not yet come to terms with the shift, still pressure their youngsters to follow the path that they understood to be the formula for success. In other words get a degree and then find a secure job with a reputable – and preferably big, resourceful – company.
This is, of course, well-intentioned advice but it can have the effect of setting young people up for well-paid careers that are anything but satisfying.
Let’s be frank. It is commonplace nowadays for people to be trained in a specific discipline only to find themselves in completely unrelated work some years after qualifying.
The concept of a ‘working life’
What is the solution?
In my opinion, the educational system needs to embrace the merging of what we used to call ‘work’ and ‘life’ and realise that the new paradigm embraces the concept of a ‘working life’.
The passion-driven approach to work
This raises the importance of helping young people identify what it is that they are passionate about, and encouraging them to find work that harnesses and develops those passions.
“If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.”
– Marc Anthony
Sea change needed
I believe we need a sea change in the way we conceive of the approach to work.
The old way was to consider income potential as a driver for career choice. In other words, you answer the question “What careers can make me the most money?” before selecting one that is most practical given your circumstances.
The new way is to ask “What do I really love to do?” And then to figure out a way to do that in a way that generates the money required to support one’s desired lifestyle.
Can passion translate into money?
People still heavily influenced by the old paradigm, may be inclined to prematurely write off the possibility of making money from doing what they love.
However, in the new Internet-enabled digital information world, this need no longer be a pipedream. In fact, it is entirely realistic and practical, even if you have very limited technical skills.
Life coaching – a career of the heart
Life coaching is a great example of a career that is emerging from the new world that we live in.
People with a real passion for helping others to achieve their goals, dreams and ambitions, can become certified life coaches and set themselves up to become experts in their chosen niches.
Life coaching is a career of the heart, not the head, so prior academic qualifications are unnecessary.
And life coaches, nowadays, are unconstrained by geographic location and can attract clients from around the world.
The secret lies in creating a strong personal brand in a select niche (or niches), and learning the tools and techniques that the digital world offers, to exploit it.
Like with anything in life that you want to do and do well, quality training is vital preparation.
At New Insights we offer training that is in-depth, that can be completed in your own time and at your own pace and that provides absolutely everything you need to succeed in this exciting and fast-growing industry.
What is your passion?
If you have an authentic passion for people (and given you are reading this it seems likely) then why not join us as a trainee?
Find out what it is like to enjoy work that is meaningful, fulfilling and rewarding; work that adds significant value to the lives of others, and leaves the world in a better place!
On that note, just imagine for a moment how much better the world would be if we were all doing what we loved!
Stay inspired!
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Most of what is written about in this Blog derives, or is extracted from, the widely acclaimed and internationally accredited New Insights Life Coach Training and Certification Programme.
If you have an interest in broadening your life skills and training to become a life coach, please visit our main website. Navigate from Become a Life Coach in the menu bar.
Good day, thank you for intriquing my passion once more. I should be joinging New Insights by Jan 2024, and i cannot wait to feel fufilled and helping people reaching their goals and dreams. I have recently made contact with Karen Valley and cannot wait to learn even more from her and the team. Looking forward to making this positive much needed change in my life.
Kind regards
Yolanda Koen
Thank you Yolanda, we very much look forward to that too!
Thanks Bill. Another evocative article. I’ve enjoyed the contributions over the years.
Also, a baby boomer myself, and now practically ‘retired’ as an integral Executive coach through the Centre for Coaching, University of Cape Town (2009-2010).
I’ve valued many years of successful & rewarding coaching in both corporate and NGO contexts, but now have become quite tired of the corporate world and its obsessions with controls and productivity at the expense of people (more so since the crazy, anti-human Covid plandemic protocols).
This said, I still remain open to Life and life coaching for anyone who welcomes the opportunity for sense-making, meaning-making, and a purpose-ful life (email me for an exploratory conversation at: ro***********@gm***.com).
Embrace your passion and purpose!
Thanks Roger, your occasional contributions are always a joy to read!
I feel so privileged to have the best job in the world, one about which I am deeply passionate and one which is indescribably fulfilling. How grateful I am to the New Insights Life Coach who told me about New Insights about 12 years ago, and for the last 10 years during which I have been an accredited New Insights Life Coach. Thank you for such an inspiring post, Bill.
And thank you for an inspiring comment, Karen!!