#103: A Word About Work
What's with all the work phrases
On January 31st, I’m co-hosting an event with
on Career Values. If that is your jam, we spots left and we’d love to have you join. You can register hereHello, and welcome to this week’s newsletter. Here’s what we got this week:
A Word About Work
Words You Should Follow
My Recent Work
🏢 1.A Word About Work 🏢
One of the former marketing leaders I used to work with used to say “marketing is just words, but words matter.” This is why we have fields like copywriting, researchers and professors studying linguistics, and political consultants who message test every single word that spews out of a politician’s mouth before it comes out.
A good word or phrase that resonates can launch a politician's career, help an author make the NY Times Bestseller’s list, and make a tweet, Tik Tok video or post go viral. Over the past 3 years, we’ve seen this first hand numerous times when it comes to dialogue and discourse around the workplace. Case in point: Great Resignation, Quiet Quitting, and apparently now, quiet hiring
For those who don’t click on the link, the latest phrase to make it into the work industrial complex lexicon is quiet hiring. My goal is not to dissect what it means or if it’s true (this is a fair and honest take on all of it) but rather, to break down why this keeps happening and what it means.
As a species, we as humans are constantly trying to make sense and meaning out of things. For example, if you’ve ever been in the early days of dating someone, and gotten a text from them that you didn’t know what it meant, chances are you pondered it for a long time, or sent a screenshot of it to the group chat to figure out what it means. As a result, you now have a framing or language for what you think it means, and now perhaps greater permission for how to respond.
But what happens when you are trying to make meaning out of something but there isn’t something there to assign meaning to, or maybe when you don’t have a group chat to get advice from?
Back in 2014 when I was in my final year of business school, I was reflecting about how all of the challenges I faced or questions I had were commonly held questions and challenges of all first year MBA students, but yet, there were only two ways to learn them: 1) the hard way (experience) and 2) if you had a mentor who could guide you.
While these were helpful (if you had them) they weren’t sufficient. This was perplexing to me, in that thousands of people graduate from MBA programs each year, and in a world where you could literally find information on anything (this was still true back in 2014) nobody was talking about these topics in an accessible way. At the time, the MBA media was dominated by media companies that wanted to talk about the rankings, improving your GMAT score, or why you should go to HBS instead of Stanford GSB.
So I started MBASchooled, as a guide to helping students and aspiring students to understand A) what it was actually like to go to business school and B) how an MBA can help you grow your career.
The website never became a massive hit, but post by post, I grew a readership, and over time it allowed me to build expertise and gain resonance with a crowd. People started sending me notes about how the articles were helpful to applying to school and navigating the experience. Schools started asking me to come speak to their students, and Deans and leaders started reaching out to advise them on how to think about key issues. Eventually, I wrote a book and founded a podcast all on these topics.
Today, I still think MBA media mostly covers a lot of the same topics as it did in 2014, but there is more attention being paid to the topics that I initially set out to talk about. Furthermore, there are a lot more people and students willing to share their story and experience about being in business school and their career.
While I think it would be wrong for me to claim credit for this, I think I did push the overton window forward in my specific area, and in conjunction with media, technology and culture, gave a language and framework for people to start talking about these topics. This to me, is why words matter - they give people the framing and permission to take their thoughts and assign feelings and actions toward them.
After talking with thousands of employees about the work, careers, and leadership, I think we’re still at a deficit for ideas, frameworks and thinking fit for today’s world about work, careers, and leadership. This is not a criticism of, but rather, an observation that while business and society has evolved significantly, the words, language, and frameworks we’re using to think about these topics have vastly remained the same. This has significant implications for how we prepare and help young adults join the workforce, managers lead teams, and leaders grow organizations.
Which takes us back to quiet quitting, great resignation, and quiet hiring.
Ann Helen Peterson said, “We come up with terms to try and make the illegible legible — or, to play with the metaphor a bit, to create a grammar and structures that makes what’s happening feel understandable in some way,”
Regardless of what you think of the term about quiet quitting, one of the reasons it caught on is that for lots of people, it made the illegible legible. Bad bosses, toxic workplaces, terrible teammates have been around for decades.
That is not new - but when you see an article about that topic, watch a tiktok on it or see it being posted about when you open your Linkedin account to search for a new job, it now gives makes a feeling or thought you had inside of you feel seen, which activates a resonance inside your mind, so much so that in some cases, you quiet quiet, great resign, or quiet hire.
In the infamous words of Peter Parker, “with great power, comes great responsibility.” Media and social media platforms have the ability to amplify at scale, which should be paid attention to. If not, we run the risk of falling into a circular trap of manifesting things that don’t need to be manifested (a popular HR take right now is quiet hiring = stop making fetch happen..) But in measured ways, I also think that words, speaking and frameworks, paired with media and platforms can be very powerful.
For example, let’s take the topic of career growth and development. Traditionally, most people thought about that as “up and to the right” or the ladder, but in 2007, Cathy Benko coined the term the lattice, and now we have other things like the portfolio, jungle gym, wave, and others, which now gives employees more diverse ways to think about how they can develop and grow especially if they don’t want to “climb the ladder.” I’ve seen this in my own work around the career operating system, and helping employees develop the habits and practices for intentional career growth
Another example might be layoffs. Even up until a few years ago, it was taboo to talk about getting laid off. Now, we have people today who are openly posting about it on LinkedIn, and others responding trying to help. In this case, someone having a platform and voicing their story gave permission for others to do the same, and now many others have followed suit.
It’s important to note in both of these instances, it's still only a portion of the workplace that associates with these phrases and topics. But I’d argue, much like MBASchooled, these words and phrases give a portion of people language and framing to make the illegible legible.
While not all phrases and words will resonate, I’m in favor of more words and ideas on these topics because of the deficit we currently have today.
Albert Einstein once said, “the problems of today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” Today’s world of work presents no shortages of challenges and problems - hopefully we can come up with some new and different words and thinking so we can help solve them. Until then, I’ll keep writing.
📄 2. People Whose Words You Should Follow 📄
Speaking of words, the content we consume shapes our own worldview and thinking. I want to share some of the work of people I’ve gotten to meet and be connected with over the past few years whose work I appreciate and helps inform my own thinking and seeing. I hope you check it out and find something that either helps you see something more clearly or expands your own worldview (and perhaps words) on topics related to talent, the workplace, and careers.
PS - Many of these people are solo and self-employed entrepreneurs, so if their work resonates, please do me a favor and subscribe, like, and follow them as I know they will appreciate it.
Future of Work: Anita Lettink’s Future of Work Newsletter
Future of Work: Andrew Spence’s Workforce Futurist Newsletter
Future of Work: Omar Ramirez True Understanding Podcast
Work and Careers: Paul Millerd’s Pathless Path Newsletter & Podcast
Work and Leadership:Jessica Wan’s Ampersand Manifesto Podcast
Work and Leadership: Kathy Oneto’s Sustainable Ambition
Work and Careers: Khe Hy’s Radreads Newsletter
Learning & Education:Matt Tower’s EdTech Thoughts Newsletter
3.🔈 My Recent Work🔈
Podcast: Helping Individuals and Organizations Flourish in the Changing World of Work - I joined Claire Harbour on the Disrupt Your Career Podcast to talk about how I’ve navigated 3 career transitions and what companies can do to better invest in their people.
Article: The Changing Role of The Manager - I spoke to Conor Gilligan of the Training Journal about how in the changing world of work, how the role of the manager is changing, and why we need to change the way we train and develop managers
Article: A Guide to Building Positive Relationships at Work - Here’s a in-depth but tactical guide for how you can build better relationships at work to make you more effective and productive.
Thanks For Reading, and before you go - If you’re company is looking for help in developing and retaining talent, or a speaker for your conference, I’d love to work with you: Here is how I might be able to assist:
Team Trainings & Professional Development
Support Your Offsites & Meetings
Leadership & Learning Programs
Future of Work and Talent Speaking Opportunities
Feel free to contact me directly for more details!
That’s all for this week. Have a great week!
Al