What does the Wall Street Journal know about the meaning of work?

Kudos to the Wall Street Journal for its article “I Don’t Have a Job. I Have a Higher Calling” on Wednesday, Feb. 25. It’s an issue that deserves the attention. The Journal reports how companies including Travelzoo, Google, Kohl’s, Harley-Davidson, KPMG, and Juniper Networks try to attract, motivate and retain employees by appealing to “lofty mission statements.” Travelzoo, for example, highlights the higher purposes of travel such as helping someone get over the death of a loved one or meet a future spouse. KPMG encourages its accountants to think of their work as supporting advances in medicine, governance, space exploration and diplomacy, rather than just crunching numbers.

Given than only 1/3 of workers find meaning in their jobs, it’s not surprising that the issue of meaning and work is in the news.

What is surprising is people’s reaction to the article—a chorus of raspberrys, hisses and Bronx cheers fit for Vladimir Putin at a meeting of the Give Peace a Chance Society. Some choice quotes: “Same nonsense, different century.” “What a bunch of self-deluded narcissists we’ve become.” “What a bunch of spoiled whiny brats.” “These folks actually fool themselves into their beliefs.” Even the article notes that some workers regard corporate the whole concept as “trying to put lipstick on the pig.” After all the purpose of business, as Milton Friedman famously pointed out, is to increase its own profits. To many workers, talk of a “higher” purpose at work sounds like a way to get us to work longer hours and keep us from looking for a better job. At least that’s what the comments suggest. It appears that we’re not buying the corporate nostrum of higher purpose at work.

Maybe we’re missing something. You don’t have to buy the company’s notion of higher purpose to recognize your own higher purpose for your work—or better yet, God’s higher purpose. Regardless of whether the company really does put its mission statement above its shareholder return, you might be able to find meaning in your work. For example I quit my job years ago as an IBM salesman because I figured the company’s purpose was simple to make money. I wanted something more. But if I’d really thought about my actual work, I would have found it pretty meaningful:

• I earned a paycheck to provide for my family’s needs (1 Tim. 5:8) and to give away something for others’ needs (Luke 3:10-11).
• I helped my customers solve society’s problems, for instance by reducing out-of-stock medications at local drug stores through implementing a new inventory control system (Jeremiah 29:5-7).
• I invested in the careers and lives of my co-workers by helping them learn new skills (Romans 12:6-8), advance to new jobs, and resolve conflicts at work and home (Matthew 5:9).
• I loved working with information technology, and I found it delightful for its own sake (Psalm 37:4).

So what if your company’s “higher purpose” might be nothing more than a cover up for business as usual. The higher purpose for your work doesn’t come from the company anyway, but from God (Colossians 3:22-24)

In the Theology of Work Project’s biblical research on calling, we’ve found three higher purposes for work.

1. Helping to meet the needs of the world, that is, to make the world more like what God intends it to be, no matter whether the needs are large (curing malaria) or small (making sure medicines are in stock).
2. Making use of the gifts and skills God gives you to serve others.
3. Expressing the deepest and truest desires that God has implanted in your heart.

So maybe the Wall Street Journal is on to something after all, even if the true source of meaning at work is not the corporate mission statement, but the Lord of heaven and earth.

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