How the right attitude can lead to great work

Mon, 04 Mar 2013

Firstly, I'd like to apologise for the 2 week gap in blog posts, caused by a week of holiday, and then starting a new job.  The first week is always exhausting - learning people's names, learning new processes, systems - even just remembering where the bathroom is.  Still, as one of my friends reminded me this morning, it gets easier - you'll never again know as little as you knew in your first week.  So, I should be able to get back to my routine of one or two blog posts each week.

I consider myself very lucky when it comes to work.  Through most of my career, I have been in jobs that give me a steady stream of problems that I enjoy being challenged to solve.  The jobs have always been integral to the success of the employer and requiring plenty of initiative - so I have never had to worry about the job getting boring, meaningless, automated or outsourced.

I regularly talk to people that would like to be in my position, so I spend time thinking about what it is that has got me here.  I'd say I've got here more by accident than any strategy, which makes it tough to distil my experience into any grand lessons.  I also recognise that I am working in the space where the problems around me can be solved using my skills and interests - if your skills or interests or the problems around you are different to mine, then it doesn't make sense to try to do the same job as me.

That said, though the answer isn't to do exactly the same courses or taking the same career path as me, I do think that successful outcomes are often explained by having a particular attitude.  And the other day I was pointed to a blog post by designer Greg Hoy that pinpoints exactly what that attitude consists of.

http://cognition.happycog.com/article/good-work-isnt-enough

I'd encourage you to read his post carefully - there's a lot in it that isn't at first reading obvious, but I'm sure with some thought, you'll realise that there are plenty of examples around you of people that benefit from the right attitude at work.