Tamara Myles
Appearances
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
I think this is such a relevant question to something that many organizations are facing today, which is this
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
challenge with building connection and building relationships, because not only are there folks who are working, like you said, in data centers that are remote, but so many of us are working in remote or hybrid jobs and not interacting with other folks or collaborating in person with other folks every day.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
And there's this well-documented crisis of loneliness or epidemic of loneliness in the US, and that's especially being felt at work. And this really speaks to the first C of meaningful work community. That's really about feeling like you belong in your organization, that you can show up as yourself, that you matter to other people who you work with.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
And when you're remote like that or isolated, it can be very hard to feel like you matter to other people and you're more than just a cog in the wheel. Dr. Vivek Murthy, who is the former Surgeon General of the US, wrote a book on this and talks pretty extensively on this issue. And we've seen leaders do this, meaning driven leaders do this successfully.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
is have to be much more intentional about how you're building connection across an organization. You can't just assume that it's going to happen as part of the day to day work. You have to build in these moments of connection. And one of the practices that Dr. Murthy talks about in his book
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
um that we found various versions of in the organizations we study he calls the inside scoop and that's setting time five or ten minutes at the beginning of every weekly team meeting and asking someone to bring in or show a photo or an object that has personal significance to them and talk about it for a few minutes it may be a picture of me on my surfing vacation in costa rica or it may be a memento that my grandmother gave me that i keep on my desk
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
And that is an intentionally designed way to help highlight people's individual selves and their authentic selves. And what he found was that after he started doing this, that people were connecting much more on an authentic level. And that was contributing to collaboration across the organization. People were happier. They were more engaged. They were staying longer.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
And so this really aligns with the research that we've done on meaning at work and is something that leaders intentionally have to plan in, which isn't something that 20 years ago we had to think about.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
That sounds like a really tough situation. I'm curious to know actually how it went. Did you go over to Singapore and did you pass the test?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
I think that's really challenging. And if I were in your position, I would have felt like a tool or a cog rather than a person who was respected for having gone through everything that you went through to get where you are. The reality is in business, things change like that and we have to adapt and there's a way to lead people through those things that's
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
more productive and potentially more meaningful. And then there are, it sounds like what maybe happened to you, ways to do it that are less productive. As Tamara said, early experiences with an organization, especially during the recruiting and onboarding, which can be the first three to six months, are very influential in the lifetime of your time within an organization.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
They set the tone for what you expect in an organization. And I think In that moment, it would have been nice for that leader to pull you aside and say, hey, I know this is a tough situation and you moved your family and you've been through all of this. And I'm going to have to ask you to take another step. And that would have been a nice recognition of your humanity and what you had been through.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
And that person would have acknowledged that they saw you as a real person. I think there's another element here, and it's one we haven't talked about yet. That's the challenge portion of meaning at work. and challenges about those opportunities to learn and grow. And we often think about that as having high expectations of people and pushing them and giving them stretch opportunities.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
And what we found is that is true and it needs to be accompanied by support from leadership. So we want high expectations and high support, right? And so I think in that case as well, instead of putting you on the defensive and saying, you know what, you have to prove this to me, It could have simply been framed in a slightly different way.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
I want to give you the opportunity to take this bigger job, this bigger role. I'd like to see you get there. And here's what I need to see to support you in doing that. And I'm going to give you a little bit of help along the way if you need it.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
Thank you.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
Thank you.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
I think you really covered it. I think this idea of the story you're telling yourself about the work that you're doing, which is something that we craft on our own, but also leaders of organizations help both by telling their own stories about what makes work meaningful for them and also about connecting us with the outcomes of our work and challenges and that sort of thing.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
But yeah, I think that recognition that People chose the job that they're in for a reason, right? Sometimes we take a job because we need to make money, right? But oftentimes we choose a particular job. We have a choice of how we make that money. And so we gravitate in a certain direction for a particular reason.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
And understanding that, asking the people in your company, what is it about your job that excites you? What makes you proud? What's one of the most meaningful moments that you've had in the last couple of months? We have a tool that we talk about in the book and is on our website called The Moments That Matter Canvas.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
And that's a really easy and powerful way to identify what's already going well, what matters to this person, and how can you give them more moments like that? How can you lean into what's already going well to the thing that already appeals to them about this job and give them more of those moments so that you block all of these benefits that we've been talking about?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
I think what's so funny about that when we teach that or when we're doing that in workshops with folks at the companies that we consult with, so often people come back and they say, oh, when somebody that works for me does well, like that makes me happy. Right. And we always push them towards a specific moment. Can you tell me a story about a specific time? What was the thing that happened?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
Where were you? Who was it? Because one of the things that we know about meaning in general is that reflection is a really powerful way to amplify it. If we take a moment to think about these things, which is so hard. When we're all very busy, we're rushing from one meeting to the next, right? I'm guilty of this all the time. Taking that moment to step back and say, hey, what did I do today?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
Or what did I do this week that was actually meaningful to me? And reflecting on that, sharing it with another person is such a powerful tool.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
I think for me, the first thing that sprung to mind was, so I, in earlier in my career, I worked in hospitality and open restaurants and nightclubs and event space in different parts of the country. And we opened a restaurant in Austin, a Mexican restaurant, and we decided that as a promotional tool, we would throw a big Cinco de Mayo block party.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
And at the time, I had somebody who was relatively junior working on my team. And I pulled her in. Her name was Alexis Landman to this project to do this for the first time. We were putting together essentially like this huge block party. We had to get city permits. We had a neighbor. Because I think I might have been there. Oh, really? It was, it would have been 08 or 09.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
It went on for 10 years. So much fun. Like it was such a great experience, but it was a massive amount of work the first year. And I was like, we're going to do this. We're going to get it done in three months. And she said to me a couple of times, no way this is going to happen. Like it's too complicated. There are too many things that have to happen.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
The city's not going to approve it or whatever. And so she very reluctantly went along with all of the things that I asked her to do to help with this. And we did end up pulling it off the first year. It was pretty successful and I ended up leaving the company shortly thereafter. And I came back the next year for the Cinco de Mayo event and she had taken it over and It was bigger. It was better.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
It was like thousands of people had come to downtown Austin for this thing. And it eventually was like 10 years that this thing ran. It was very successful. But I was just so proud of her for something she didn't think she could do. She didn't think was going to work out. And a year later, she had taken on this project. She had added her own. flair to it and it was bigger and better.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
And she went on to become a very successful marketing director of a hospitality group in Austin and is still there. And that just, I love helping people or seeing people that I work with reach their potential like that. So that's something that's really meaningful to me. I hope you had fun at the Cinco de Mayo party.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
You can go to our website, which is makeworkmeaningful.com and you can find the book there. You can also find some of the resources that we've talked about, the moments that matter canvas and some other things. And you can also find us on LinkedIn.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
I love that. And I think it really speaks to something that we're going to talk about a bit more in this interview, which is the fact that moments of meaning can happen in every job, every day, if we are able to think about it the right way, or we have a leader who's helping us think about it the right way.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
And I would say those moments of meaning can be like sparks that ignite this passion that we're talking about and ignite performance. I love that.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
And I'm also really excited to talk about a little bit more about your framework because we talk about agile methodology in the book and how it was a really successful way to connect software developers with their customers, with the people that were impacted by their work and create more meaning for them by giving them more of a sense of contribution.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
Thank you for sharing that. And I think that really resonates with one of the examples that we talk about in the book. Just to frame that, where our book is focused on meaning at work and how leaders help people find meaning at work. And we focused on that for a couple of reasons. One, because meaning is the upstream factor that drives all of the outcomes that we want.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
Individually, we get higher job satisfaction, well-being. We're more engaged and productive. We even take those feelings home with us. And at the organizational level, people are more productive. They show greater innovation and creativity. And we can actually track increased bottom line revenue to more meaning at work as well. And so it's really a win for folks.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
And also there's this idea that to have meaningful work, you need to work in a helping profession or at a nonprofit, as a nurse, as a doctor, something like that. And those are all wonderful things. And having social impact is great. And we're huge proponents of that. And meaning can happen in every job, every day.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
These moments that are meaningful to us across three main sources of meaning, which are community, contribution, and challenge. And community is the belief that you matter to other people in your organization, that you can show up authentically there and belong. Contribution is this belief that your work matters to others, that what you're doing is having a positive impact on other folks.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
And challenge is the opportunity to learn and grow and thrive. improve your capabilities, work towards your full potential. And to take them out of order a little bit, I think what you're talking about with Agile and how we talk about it in the book is around contribution.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
And specifically, it can feel pretty meaningless when you spend two years developing a piece of software and then you have to shelve it when it comes out because it's obsolete or it's not helpful. And so Agile coming in and replacing that model was really powerful, both to get software out faster that was more effective,
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
But specifically we tell this story of someone who was a software developer at a trucking company and essentially sat in a back office, was using a waterfall process and was an order taker, basically. Like somebody was telling him what to build for the truck tracking software and fleet management software. And he was building it and then just never saw what happened to it after he shipped it.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
And he, this guy hated his job. He couldn't see why it mattered. It just felt meaningless to him. And then someone came in, switched to an agile process. And as part of that, one of the first things that they did was take him out into the field and have him do user interviews with truckers, with people who were managing the fleet so that he understood why his work mattered.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
And all of a sudden, just understanding the impact of his work had a huge effect. It was much more meaningful to him and really changed his perspective on things.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Wes Adams and Tamara Myles on How to Create Meaningful Work | EP 589
Ignited.