Be Someone Who is Engaged with Work, Not Someone Who Avoids Work

What You Will Learn Most people who are occupied in a job are very likely to resent it and even make this resentment known by being distracted or looking disinterested. If you want to succeed, you need to engage yourself in your work and be grateful for it; this is also the trick to enjoying your work. People who are enthusiastic about their work make you feel happy for having met them. You have the choice: you can be engaged in your work and enjoy it, or you can avoid work and despise it.

All around us there are people who have jobs, but who resent the fact that they have to be working. I understand this phenomenon because it is something I have witnessed throughout my career, amongst all sorts of people, in virtually every single industry. A job needs to engage you and should never be something that you resent, or do not enjoy doing. A job needs to be something that you get excited about, and are always happy to be doing.

I became aware of how prevalent this attitude is on a recent trip.

A few days ago I was on a flight from Los Angeles to Chicago, where I was going to attend a recruiting conference. When the flight took off, the stewardesses went around and served everyone drinks and then closed a curtain and took their seats in the back of the cabin. There they started discussing some airlines union and some events occurring in the aviation industry, and they were clipping coupons.

“Those pilots that lost their jobs and flew 100 miles past Minneapolis and forgot to land the plane…do you know what they were doing?” one stewardess asked the other.

“A friend who knows a stewardess that was on that plan told me they were surfing the Internet and that is why they did not notice where they were. They were so engrossed in the Internet.”

“I heard the same thing.”

There is Internet on many airplanes now, and from what I have heard, once the flight takes off, many pilots like to take out their notebook computers and start surfing the Internet. Based on this “inside information” I learned on the flight, apparently a couple of pilots had been more interested in surfing the Internet than they had been in flying a giant airplane, and they had hurtled past their destination at over 500 miles an hour. They had not even heard air traffic control for an hour. Apparently the situation became so serious that the air force had prepared to send fighter planes into the air, in order to intercept the airplane. This was all because the pilots were doing something other than their jobs.

There was a woman sitting next to me who overheard this conversation as well, because the stewardesses were speaking so loud:

“I have a friend who is an executive at Virgin Atlantic. He was traveling between between London and New York a few weeks ago and he got in trouble for not being logged in during the flight, and sleeping instead. They now expect their executives to be working during the flight if it is during business hours, not napping and enjoying themselves. Can you believe the nerve? He is so upset he is going to look for another job.”

The woman seemed to be saying that she thought it was something of an “outrage” that people who were being paid while flying should also be expected to do work while in transit. Apparently, before there was Internet on airplanes, the executives who were flying around on company business could be out of touch, and no one would know whether they were working or not. Now, with Internet on airplanes, the executives can all be connected with their bosses and others with Instant Messenger, email and so forth, and they are expected to be working if they are flying during business hours. This woman essentially seemed to be upset that these executives were expected to both work and get paid for working.

For at least two hours, behind a curtain in the back of the airplane, the two stewardesses sat there clipping coupons and discussing the union, unfair working conditions and so forth. Since I was seated at the very back of the plane with them, I could hear their entire conversation, and all their gripes about management. I asked one of the stewardesses for a glass of water at one point during the flight and she sighed and put down a giant arrangement of coupons she had been working on. She then got up and continued talking to the other stewardess without saying a word to me, handed me the water and sat down again with her coupons.

I looked at the coupons she was clipping and noticed that she had put some major effort into the work. In fact, after being rudely handed my water, I realized that the two stewardesses were actually trading coupons:

“I do not eat cheese because I am lactose intolerant. Do you have anything you can trade me for this Kraft Cheese coupon?” one asked.

“Of course. Do you wear contacts or not? I have a coupon for contact lens solution,” the other chimed in.

These two stewardesses had come to work with giant coupon collections to trade back and forth during their work. I could only assume that they were being paid while flying, and that they had coordinated turning the little airplane galley into their own personal trading post.

When I fly by carriers like Singapore Airlines, the stewardesses are circulating all the time. If they see someone who looks like they are trying to take a nap, they will offer a pillow or a blanket. If someone has finished a drink, they will offer a refill. They are constantly picking up trash, making sure the bathrooms are cleaned and more. In short, the stewardesses are engaged with their work, and even seem to like their jobs.

An airplane is a little ecosystem, and for the people who work there it is an office as well. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized how many people out there simply are not doing their jobs, and are not grateful for the work that they have. Pilots surfing the Internet, stewardesses clipping coupons, executives being expected to work while flying–and everyone complaining about work, these are all examples of people who are not engaged with their work.

As I listened to the stewardesses talk, I could not help thinking that, instead of clipping coupons and complaining about their jobs while working, maybe they should have been doing their jobs. Maybe they should be grateful for the jobs that they have. In the course of the flight, I had encountered and learned about:

• pilots who were more concerned with surfing the Internet than flying an airplane,
• an executive with a major airline looking for a new job, because he is upset about being expected to work while flying during business hours,
• two stewardesses who came to work to trade coupons and complain about their jobs,
• a passenger next to me who was “outraged” that someone she knows who works at an airline is expected to both work and be paid at the same time.

I filed this information away and then, when my airplane landed, I picked up my bags and went to get a hotel shuttle to the airport hotel. I arrived later in the evening on a Sunday, and the airport was very quiet. The shuttles were supposed to come by every 15 minutes. I stood outside in the cold for at least 25 minutes, next to where the hotel shuttle was supposed to pick me up. After 30 minutes or so, I called the hotel:

“It says the hotel shuttle is supposed to be here every 15 minutes,” I told the front desk.

“Hold on,” the front desk told me.

The front desk came back and explained that the shuttle driver said he had been there once already within the past 15 minutes and would be back in 15 more minutes.

“You must have just missed him the first time he was there, and then ‘been distracted’ and missed him the second time he was there,” the front desk person informed me.

This did not make any sense, since I had been standing there for 30 minutes, and the shuttle theoretically should have come twice during this period of time.

Five minutes later the shuttle pulled up.

“I was right here 15 minutes ago!” the shuttle driver told me. He looked a little guilty and concerned.

“No you weren’t,” I told him. “This is a giant bus there is no way I could have missed you. I was standing right here.”

The drive to the hotel was quiet. I realized that, since it was Sunday evening, the driver probably figured no one would be arriving and took a break or something while being paid, instead of swinging around to pick me up. I figured that the airport shuttle bus driver had figured out how to not work and be paid at the same time, just like everyone else seemed to want to do.

I have been driven around in these little airport shuttles with people who are enthusiastic about their jobs before. They chat with you and talk about the city you are visiting, local attractions, how busy the airport is and more. They grab your bags and help you put them in the shuttle. They welcome you to the city you are in, recommend restaurants and send you on your way, better off for having seen them. They are excited about their jobs and the work that they are doing.

When I got to the recruiting conference I was attending I went to several presentations. At a couple of the presentations, recruiters were discussing how social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and so forth are really good tools for recruiting candidates. One recruiter got up and started talking about some incredible statistics regarding how much time the average worker spends on social networking Websites each day while at work. I do not remember how much time it was; however, it was at least an hour. The recruiter had a little graph that showed the amount of time and the number of people spending time on social networking sites, which is continually increasing as time goes on.

“Many employers have ‘gotten wise’ to this,” one recruiter said. “They are now blocking people from using various social networking sites at work.”

As I listened to this presentation, I started to think again about how many people are actually not doing work while they are at work. Instead of working, employers are dealing with the problem of people who are not doing their jobs, because they are busy screwing around on social networks. This seemed pretty amazing to me. The graphs I saw showed these statistics going up and up, as more and more people spend more and more time not working and, instead, screwing around.

The seminar I was attending lasted from Monday through Wednesday. There was an exhibit hall set up in a big auditorium for all sorts of companies that service the recruiting industry. Some of the companies there were giant businesses that had sent employees to man the booths. Others were smaller companies of a few people, and the owner of the business was typically there with a few employees.

The conference ended around 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday. When I had arrived at the conference on Wednesday morning, however, I noticed that many of the exhibitors were already taking apart their booths. By 12:00 noon more than half of the exhibitors had completely taken down their booths. I noticed a pattern with all of this: The only exhibitors who had taken down their booths were large companies that had sent employees to the conference to exhibit. Smaller companies, the ones that seemed to be run and owned by only a few people, kept their exhibits up for as long as possible, until the conference was actually over.

What this showed me is that the employees of the larger companies were trying to get out of the conference as soon as possible, so they could avoid work. Since the owners of the smaller companies were at the conference, the employees of the smaller companies had no way to avoid working.

In these few days, I saw so many people avoiding work. All around us there are all sorts of people who are avoiding work and not carrying their weight, and then there are people out there who are doing the work. Which side of the equation are you on? You need to be engaged with the work you do and you should never, ever be avoiding work. If you find yourself avoiding work, then you are probably in the wrong job. Looking for reasons not to be productive, and distracting yourself with other things is a very bad sign.

More than the work not being what you want, though, there is another component that merits even more examination: That component is YOU. Your work and your satisfaction and engagement with your work will largely be a product of how you see your work. Do you see your work as good, or do you see it as bad?

When I was in college, I spent my first year in a dorm that was in the process of being scheduled for demolition, because it was so old and worn down. It had been built very cheaply and everyone used to talk about what a dump it was, how they did not want to be housed there and so forth. People used to complain about it constantly. When I found out that I had to spend my first year of college there, I had several choices: One, I could embrace it and get excited; or, Two, I could hate and despise it, like everyone else seemed to.

I made the decision to like the dorm. The dorm had a huge cavernous basement that people used to call “scary”, and all sorts of similar things. I decided that this basement would make a great running track for me, and I ran around it all winter, whenever I wanted to exercise. I never had to go to the gym. I found tons of little things about this dorm to appreciate, and probably ended up being the only person who was truly sad to see the dorm go when it was finally demolished.

Everything is like this. Your job is how you choose to see it. You can look at your job and see it as bleak, or you can look at it as fun and exciting. You can choose to work and be engaged in what you do, or you can choose to avoid work and despise what you do.

The people I encountered on my trip, and all of the people out there who are consistently avoiding work will never amount to anything. This is not how you get ahead in the world–it is how you fall back and sink into a life and career marked by frustration, pain and negativity. These are the sorts of people who cause trouble for companies, who collectively force bankruptcies, who are the first to be laid off, and who have the most unsatisfying careers and lives. Be someone who is engaged with work, not someone who avoids work.

The Importance of Culture in Organizations

What You Will Learn An organization culture relates to your success and happiness. In any business environment, when the employee and employer are on the same plane, success is much more likely. When making a lateral move, it is important to select your employer based on your preference of work culture. The key to defining job satisfaction is to determine which culture suits you the best. You need to feel comfortable and appreciated in your work environment.

Employees’ level of success and overall happiness has more to do with a particular culture (which is sometimes also referred to as the personality of an organization) than with any other factor. This article discusses (a) the importance of organizational culture, (b) why some employees do not give strong consideration to culture, (c) the reason that failure to seriously consider culture prematurely ends many careers, and (d) why making a lateral move provides the best opportunity to evaluate culture and the course of your career.Just as the work, salary, and prestige level can vary from employer to employer, the cultures within each organization can be very different. Consider the following examples:

• There are organizations in which style is definitely valued over substance.
• There are organizations in which substance is definitely valued over style.
• There are organizations in which people wander around in Birkenstocks and call each other ‘dude’.
• There are organizations in which employees are expected to call superiors ‘Mister’ and ‘Ms.’.
• There are organizations in which employees need to make appointments with superiors before speaking with them.
• There are organizations in which supervisors chew tobacco in the office and during meetings.
• There are organizations that value your having string family connections more than your work ability.
• There are organizations that are extremely secretive with their employees.
• There are organizations that believe everyone who puts in a solid effort over the course of six or seven years should be promoted.
• There are organizations in which employees work around thirty hours per week, which is considered a good effort.
• There are organizations in which employees are hired and are then almost universally encouraged to leave after five or six years of service.
• There are organizations that have been collapsing for years, but which portray themselves to employees as strong and secure.

I could go on and on. Suffice it to say, however, that your success and happiness in your career may have more to do with your thoughtful and intelligent decision to join an organization that best fits you culturally. People simply want to be around people they like, and when people like each other in the workplace, both sides of the relationship benefit.

OBSERVATION:

We all have certainly heard that Albert Einstein flunked out of grade school. Perhaps Einstein was too concerned with the theoretical rather than the practical. Whatever the reason was, Einstein simply did not experience success in the environment he was in at the time because the school, and the people in it, could not understand or appreciate where he was coming from intellectually. Do the employees in your organization understand where you are coming from? In a business environment, when the employee and the employer see eye to eye, success is far more likely than in situations where they do not.

Employees Often Fail to Give Strong Consideration to Culture When Choosing an Employer.

The problem with the way many employees manage their careers is that, when choosing a job, they are motivated primarily by prestige and money, more so than by the cultures of the organizations they are considering.

When an employee instead evaluates offers based upon where she believes she fits in the best, that employee is far more likely to find happiness and success in her career. The problem, however, is that most employees simply do not think this way, the reason being that employees are competitive by nature, and “fitting in” is not nearly as easy to quantify as things like money, company cars, etc.

In almost all respects, it is most difficult to gain the best positions with the largest, most prestigious, and highest-paying employers. Yet, the pressure to join these organizations typically commences while an individual is in school.

The problem with this type of thinking is that it can often lead employees to make horrible career decisions. If an employee is always thinking in terms of what he can do to look best to others, he will often neglect what is best for him personally. None of this is to say that there are not numerous advantages to come from being part of a truly significant organization. Nonetheless, this should not be the only consideration on which an employee bases his career choices.

OBSERVATION:

Many people, in fact, have subordinated much of their happiness in life in pursuit of money, respect, power, and admiration from their peers. This leads many people to base their entire concept of happiness on things like having the largest house, the most expensive car, and other traditional accouterments of the American Dream.

Failing to Consider Culture Ends Many Careers Prematurely–

Careers that Could Have Otherwise Been Highly Successful.

It is easy to find out an organization’s compensation structure, but this is a simple and superficial distinction to make between organizations. It is not as easy to gauge an organization’s prestige level; however, it is much more difficult to evaluate a organization’s culture and whether that working in that culture will keep you happy over the course of your career.

One of the largest mistakes employees make when evaluating competing offers from organizations is believing that money is the most important factor they should be considering. While money is certainly an important component of any analysis, it is not the most important factor. Making any career decision solely based on money can be a horrible mistake. If you properly assess all variables, including culture, and you choose the right organization, you may have a stable career and life. If you go to an organization just because of monetary considerations, you may wind up so disgruntled that you are eventually not working at all.

OBSERVATION:

On a day-to-day basis, in each of our offices, we speak with employees who began their careers with ultra-prestigious, high-paying law firms. Many of these attorneys stopped practicing law two to seven years into their careers because they became disillusioned. Most of these lawyers say things like “I would never work in another law firm. I would only work as an in-house attorney. The résumés of these attorneys are sometimes littered with one firm job after another, where the next and then the next firm were virtually identical in terms of culture to the very first firm that the attorney joined right out of law school. Of course these attorneys are not happy practicing in a law firm. They have only worked for one type of law firm during their entire career. The problem is that these attorneys have worked in a firm culture that was such a bad fit for them that they never got the opportunity to experience practicing law with a group of people they like, respect, and emotionally profit from. Not all law firms are the same. Fitting in with the community of lawyers that make up a particular firm is the key to long-term success and satisfaction in law firm life. Not fitting in is often the key to failure, and can even lead to one changing one’s career path altogether.

Consider the choice of where to live, and compare the process of making that decision with choosing to join any particular firm or organization. Some people prefer the lifestyle in New York to Los Angeles, or prefer San Francisco to Seattle. Preference for one city or neighborhood is entirely personal and individual. The considerations are whether we feel accepted and appreciated in a community and whether we see people around us that share similar goals and aspirations. Whether that community supports and enhances your lifestyle becomes a driving force in your deciding where to live. And, just like you need to feel that you can thrive in the community in which you live, you should feel that you can thrive in the environment in which you work.

You should constantly ask yourself these questions: Is this organization a place where I will feel accepted? Will I be surrounded by people with the same values and goals? Will this organization complement my lifestyle? Boiled down, what is the culture of the organization?

Making a Lateral Move is Your Best Chance to Find Your Perfect Firm Culture

Many of our candidates, when preparing for an interview, want help identifying those questions that will help them unearth the true culture at a firm. In short form, the question that needs to be answered for each lawyer and every employee is simply, “Will I like it at this firm or organization?” Unfortunately, try as we might, we cannot always answer these questions as well as we would like. The culture of a firm may vary from practice group to practice group, and it is impossible to pin down with any meaningful certainty whether or not a good firm is always a good fit. Often, the only way to learn this is to actually go to the interviews and speak with the attorneys or individuals you may be working with.

It’s important to remember that the interview process for a lateral move is much different from when a law student interviews for a summer clerkship. This is a plus. Unlike summer associate openings, which can sometimes number in excess of 100, when a law firm conducts a lateral search many candidates are interviewing for one, or possibly two available openings. In these situations the law firm is not as concerned with competing for any one particular candidate. Conversely, when a firm is in a heightened state of competitiveness, it can sometimes be more difficult for the lawyer interviewing for the job to get a sense of whether the particular law firm is comprised of people with whom the lawyer would want to spend the rest of his or her career. But this is the kind of firm you should be seeking. Keep your best interests at heart, and do everything you possibly can to ensure that you find a good fit. Obviously, your task is to get the job; however, you also need to understand the firm’s culture. At BCG we have identified several ways in which you can evaluate whether a particular firm is right for you.

Preparation is the First Key to Evaluating Culture.

You’ve gotten an interview. Before the interview, you should research as much as possible to determine the objective factors: How big is the office? What is the salary? In our opinion, this objective fact gathering is helpful in determining how well the firm or organization is doing financially, and how it has grown over time.

Diversity. It may also be important for you to look at the firm’s or organization’s commitment to diversity. We don’t know of any organization that doesn’t have an anti-discrimination policy. However, some organizations are more proactive in this area than others. Is it important to you that there are employees of color or of various sexual orientations?

Location, location, location. Where is the office located? Of all these factors, we find that this tends to be the least important factor in evaluating culture. A California company known for having employees that wear Birkenstock sandals around the office might have a New York office with that same type of atmosphere. However, even in Hawaii or Miami, there are going to be radical distinctions amongst organizations. These distinctions are important. The city makes little difference, in regards to the type of culture that exists within the organization. There are laid-back firms and organizations in Chicago that are down the block from offices where you wouldn’t think of entering without wearing your most formal business attire. The key is identifying and understanding the various cultures of the organizations themselves.

Governance. How an organization conducts its day-to-day business is important. Employees have to run the business of their organization, and how they choose to structure the organization can say a lot about its culture. The business model often reveals the core values of the organization. Generally, organizations are governed in one of several ways:

The democratic organization allows each employee to become involved in the decision-making, regarding anything from new hires to compensation to long-term planning. For many organizations, the democracy may only include supervisors, so it is not necessarily realistic that a junior employee will be making high-level management decisions, or even weighing in with an opinion. However, many democratically run organizations do have some level of junior involvement within the organization’s governance, such as on pro bono committees or with respect to summer associate entertaining and recruiting. This type of culture is entirely inclusive, although sometimes it is the result of too much administration bogging down each individual lawyer’s already heavy workload. The values reflected here are participation and integration, which may come at the cost of expediency and/or consistency.

Many organizations govern using a small, centralized committee of decision makers, which results in greater consistency, in terms of vision and management. However, this culture is more exclusive in terms of firm governance, which may turn off the young attorney or employee who wants to be a part of the decision-making and planning efforts of an organization. In this system of governance, it’s important to find out how the leaders are chosen and the values they hold dear.

At the end of the day, however, what is more important than the method of governance is the reason behind why a particular organization chooses the business model it does. Asking an organization’s superiors why things are the way they are helps define an organization’s culture and vision for the future. If you hear that the goals of the business match yours, you have likely found a culture in which you will be succeed and be happy.

Word on the Street. You probably know the reputation of the organization where you’re interviewing. Is it known around town as a sweatshop or a quality-of-life organization? BE CAREFUL! Even if a reputation is mostly on target, you could end up joining a practice area or working with a partner that is decidedly unlike the overall firm or business culture.

“Lifestyle” or “quality-of-life” are other ways the business community may refer to a certain organization. These terms have become somewhat hackneyed of late, but still have value in terms of defining a particular organization. A quality-of-life organization is fairly self-explanatory, which is to say that the organization has placed a premium on allowing associates to have lives outside of work. What does that mean? Sometimes, it means a slightly lower billable hour requirement than at other firms. Other times, it may mean that the firm’s or organization’s management is more amenable to situations other than typical full-time associate positions, including part-time, telecommuting, flex-time, or non-partnership track. The popularity of this term has caused it to be somewhat diluted. Don’t take these types of labels at face value, and investigate what that term means within a particular firm.

Again, be careful. Sometimes attorneys and job seekers interviewing for a position swing too far in terms of evaluating. Spending all of your time in this process wondering, “What can the law firm or business do for me?” will prevent you from showing a potential employer that you are a good match for it. This is a two-way street, so showing a law firm or other organization what you are made of is just as important during an interview as evaluating the organization.

Conclusions

The key to true job satisfaction is determining which organization’s culture suits you and your career. Finding the right culture will allow you to find a job that won’t feel like work. What is going to make the difference over time is not a $5,000 per year salary differential, but whether or not you feel comfortable and appreciated in a particular environment. No matter what the reputation of the organization is, going through the process of discovering who the people are and what they think of you and your skills will be the best indicators of your potential long-term satisfaction and success.

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