meaning + money: two forces propelling lawyer life
It’s that “most wonderful time of year” again. As people clamor to find just the right gift for that special someone, the debate about the commoditization of the season rages on. Is it the meaning or the money that’s at the heart of the holidays?
While this question comes into sharp focus at this time -- intensifying in pitch as we contemplate our life’s course for the New Year -- it’s really a query that pertains to many aspects of our lives that we experience year round.
In a thought-provoking post over at Brand Autopsy, John Moore asks: “Does money matter more or does meaning matter more when hiring and retaining employees?” Drawing on his experience working for two values-based companies, Moore observes that people often trade in a higher salary so they can “leave a company they [don't] believe in to join a company they [do] believe in.” But, once they become “weathered and tenured employees,” making meaning alone becomes an insufficient reward. They also desire a paycheck that adequately reflects their experience and worth.
So, it seems, meaning and money are both strong business forces. In the law’s private sector, however, it’s typically the lure of big money that gets newly minted practitioners through a firm’s door. Then, once these lawyers become “weathered and tenured,” they find themselves ready and willing to sacrifice their high salaries for more meaningful work in the law or elsewhere.
I’ve previously talked about the ways law firms might acknowledge and honor this money-meaning interplay. Lending some more insight into the subject is a fascinating BusinessWeek online article called Smashing the Clock [hat tip to Pamela Slim].
It profiles Best Buy’s latest experiment in revamping its hardcore workplace culture. According to the piece, the initiative – named ROWE, for results-only work environment – aims “to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity.” Now, headquarter employees “are free to work wherever they want, whenever they want, as long as they get their work done.”
Perhaps the most inspiring part of this endeavor to infuse work with more meaning is that it started from the bottom up. It is “an idea born and nurtured by a handful of passionate employees” responding to a company that – like many law firms – has a history of being heavily afflicted by “stress, burnout, and high turnover.”
