Charlie “Tremendous” Jones famously said, “Five years from today, you will be the same person that you are today, except for the books you read and the people you meet.”
One of the books I’ve chosen to read is called, “Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life” by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. It’s a self-help guide that teaches you how to apply design thinking to your career and life. Here’s an excerpt from a chapter called, “How Not to Get a Job.” This passage follows a number of pages where they outline what a typical job description looks like.
“One thing that you may have noticed is the conspicuous absence of job descriptions that sound like this:
- Looking for candidates who would like to connect their Workview to their Lifeview.
- Looking for candidates who believe that good work is found through the proper exercise of their signature strengths.
- Looking for candidate with high integrity, the capacity to learn quickly, and high intrinsic motivation; we can teach you all the rest.
In our perfect world, that’s how it would work.
So here’s how it goes: Companies post these tortured job descriptions that describe almost nothing useful about the job to the potential employee. Then they surround those descriptions with ridiculous comments about superheroes and courage. None of the job descriptions we found when we went looking on the Internet seemed to address any of the issues we’ve been discussing. They didn’t speak to the deeper issues of why we work or what work is for. It’s a wonder that anyone would want to apply for one of these jobs.
Dysfunctional Belief: You should focus on your need to find a job.
Reframe: You should focus on the hiring manager’s need to find the right person.”
Now, I’ve never met Bill Burnett or Dave Evans, and I have no idea what their worldview reflects, but I completely agree with what they outline, and several specific things struck me about this excerpt:
Workview and Lifeview
The authors define Workview as simply what work means to you. Lifeview is your ideas about the world and how it works. Their book gives you a series of questions to prompt reflections and journaling for you to develop your compasses for your life’s design. Here at Crossroads Career, we want to support you with Biblical perspectives on these types of questions, so you can be navigating with trustworthy truth rather than just our own opinions. Romans 12:2 reminds us, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Proper Exercise of Their Signature Strengths
Are you really going to be able to demonstratively exercise what you do best to match up with what your employer needs most? Most people are not clear with what their signature strengths are – – we define these as your unique distinctives, and you can see more about these HERE. Ephesians 2:10 tells us, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.”
Deeper Issue of Why We Work or What Work is for
I love that they highlighted this issue. Work should be far more than just a paycheck for Christ followers. In fact, in Hebrew, the root word used in Scripture for worship is also the same root work used for work (avodah appears 145 times in the Old Testament). We should be approaching work as a deliberate act of worship to God, not just as putting in the time to pay the bills, or to selfishly use it as a way to advance our own agendas. Colossians 3:23-24 states, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.”
Reframe: Find the Right Person
Completely agree! Filling a job opening should be far more than an impersonal assessment of skills needed to do the job. I mean, you’ve gotta have that (Proverbs 22:29 says, “Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings; He will not stand before obscure men.”), but as human beings, we bring far more to a job than just our skills. We should be bringing our whole selves, in a sacrificial serving way, in collaboration with co-workers, to accomplish the tasks assigned to us. It’s waaaaay more than just skills! I believe work provides a vehicle to love God, serve our neighbors, and demonstrate the gospel. 1 John 4:17 sums it up pretty well, “And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face Him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.”
Designing Your Life’s advice? Don’t get a job by just submitting to what job descriptions say. Play the game needed (see last week’s blog on that HERE), but don’t dumb down who you are and what you think and believe.
I encourage you to let us join you in prayer for your job search (request prayer HERE) and also talk with a Crossroads Guide (submit a request HERE) about some useful questions to shape a Biblical worldview and Lifeview. Blessings!
Dave Sparkman currently serves as the volunteer Crossroads Career board chair and local ministry leader. He is also the founder and managing director of Spark Your Culture, a corporate culture consulting firm. Prior to that he worked at UnitedHealth Group, a Fortune #5 public company, serving in the role of Chief Culture Officer. His unemployment experience came from the implosion of Arthur Andersen, where he served as the West Region Managing Partner, People.
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