In this episode of Meaningful Work Matters, host Andrew Soren chats with Reb Rebele, a psychological scientist, author, teacher, and advisor. Rebele teaches MBA students in Melbourne, Australia and brings over a decade of experience researching positive psychology and organizational behavior at the University of Pennsylvania. Rebele dedicates their career to helping individuals, teams, and organizations improve well-being, enhance creativity and collaboration, and achieve their goals.
In Part One, Soren and Rebele explore the dynamic nature of personality and how understanding our different personality states can help us navigate the complexities of meaningful work. Rebele challenges common assumptions about authenticity and examines ways to intentionally adjust our personality expression to achieve our goals while maintaining sincerity in our work lives.
Breaking Down the Personality Box
As Rebele declares, "nobody really wants to be just one kind of person." Their research highlights how we all possess core personality traits that persist over time, yet contain multitudes of possible ways of being.
This insight challenges the traditional view of personality as fixed and unchangeable.
The data tells us that even the most introverted person experiences moments of high extroversion, and vice versa. These fluctuations stem not just from our situations, but from our goals and motivations in the moment.
When we want to connect with others, we act more extroverted.
When we pursue productivity or achievement, different aspects of our personality emerge.
The Authenticity Paradox
Rebele's work also challenges conventional wisdom about authenticity.
Rather than equating authenticity with behavioral consistency, Rebele’s research suggests that truly authentic people express different sides of themselves based on their goals and context.
Authenticity can become a restrictive box - one we place ourselves in and others place us in. When we demand constant authenticity while assuming someone embodies just one personality type, we limit their freedom to express their full range of experiences and interactions.
Managing Your Multiple Selves at Work
Understanding personality dynamics offers practical strategies for those seeking meaningful work. Rebele emphasizes how tasks that require us to act against our natural dispositions drain additional energy and resources.
Success lies not in avoiding these situations, but in managing them strategically.
Rebele goes on to share an example. "I exercise before teaching, think about my caffeine intake, and ensure I get enough rest. Without these preparations, I tend toward neurotic and withdrawn behavior." These are the kinds of deliberate efforts most of us practice to bring out the right versions of ourselves at the right time.
The Power of Restorative Niches
Personality psychologist Brian Little's concept of "restorative niches" plays a crucial role in managing our different personality states. Rebele recommends developing a recovery menu for various time frames:
Two minutes: Deep breathing, window gazing, or quick movement
Two hours: Extended breaks for deeper recovery
Two days: Weekend restoration
Two weeks: Complete vacation disconnection
This systematic approach to recovery helps professionals sustain their energy and authenticity while meeting their work's varying demands.
The Leadership Challenge
Middle managers face particularly high burnout rates because they must constantly switch between different work modes - from one-on-one support to strategic thinking to group facilitation. Yet organizations rarely provide tools to manage these transitions effectively.
Rebele recommends practical approaches like designating "maker days" and "manager days" to group tasks requiring different personality states.
Success depends on recognizing how different tasks demand different versions of ourselves and creating supportive conditions for those transitions.
Looking Ahead
By embracing our multiple selves and understanding the conditions that bring out different aspects of our personality, we gain greater agency in our professional lives. We can move beyond simplistic notions of authenticity toward a more nuanced understanding of how to show up as our best selves in different contexts.
Part 2 will explore collaboration's dark sides, generosity's pitfalls, and strategies for avoiding burnout while making a difference.
In Part Two of our conversation with Reb Rebele, we explore a paradox: while collaboration and generosity are essential elements of meaningful work, they can become counterproductive when not properly managed.
Building on our previous discussion about personality dynamics, Rebele reveals how organizational practices around collaboration and helping behaviors often undermine the very outcomes they aim to achieve.
The Hidden Costs of Being the "Go-To" Person
Rebele's research with colleague Rob Cross reveals that collaborative activities in organizations have increased by over 50% in recent years. This surge represents a fundamental shift in how work gets done.
"Even before the pandemic pushed everybody onto Zoom," Rebele explains, "time spent at work in collaborative activities had ballooned by 50% or more."
The consequences of this shift are counterintuitive.
Through network analysis studies, Rebele and Cross found that employees with reputations for being effective information sources and helpful colleagues often face the highest risk of burnout and turnover. "You become known as the really helpful, smart, good information source person. It sets the seeds for your potential demise in that organization," Rebele notes. This pattern creates a paradox where organizations inadvertently drive away their most valuable collaborators.
The rise of remote work has intensified these challenges.
Rebele points to Microsoft's research on the "triple peak workday," where employees now face three distinct peaks of collaborative activity—morning, afternoon, and a new post-dinner surge. This pattern suggests that rather than creating more flexibility, hybrid work may be expanding the collaborative demands on our time.
The Generosity Burnout Trap
Parallel to the collaboration challenge, Rebele's research with teachers showed that the most selfless educators had students who achieved less than teachers who maintained healthy boundaries.
"We think about self-development often as kind of a selfish activity," Rebele observes. "We discount the fact that if I take that time now, it might make me even better at helping people later on."
This insight challenges the common assumption that more helping is always better, and instead suggests instead that sustainable impact requires balancing generosity with self-care.
Systematic Solutions for Sustainable Collaboration
Rather than treating excessive collaboration as an individual problem, Rebele advocates for systematic organizational approaches.
One example is Dropbox's innovative experiment with a "meeting reset," where the company temporarily removed all recurring meetings from calendars and established new norms around meeting participation. This intervention allowed teams to rebuild their collaborative practices more intentionally.
Rebele also recommends practical strategies for individuals:
Creating a "help network map" to understand patterns of giving and receiving assistance across your professional relationships. This exercise reveals not just who you help, but also identifies potential resources you might be underutilizing.
Developing what Brian Little calls "restorative niches"—spaces and times for recovery between collaborative demands. These can range from two-minute breaks between meetings to longer periods of focused work.
Minutes
- Deep breaths
- Look out a window
- Quick stretch
Weeks
- Full mental rest
- New environments
- Passion project
Hours
- Proper lunch break
- Walk outside
- Exercise
Days
- Engage in hobbies
- Time in nature
- Complete disconnection
Reimagining Collaboration for Meaningful Work
The challenge, Rebele suggests, isn't to eliminate collaboration but to make it more purposeful.
"We need to manage it well, and we need to think about how to manage it together, because our default behaviors very often lead us into a place where we get more of the worst of both worlds."
This means rethinking traditional approaches to workplace interaction.
For instance, rather than defaulting to standard hybrid work policies focused on days per week in the office, organizations might consider alternative structures like monthly or quarterly in-person collaboration periods.
The goal is to create conditions where both connection and individual work can thrive.
As Rebele notes, "Collaboration is important to the organization...It's where a lot of good ideas come from. It's also really important to employees...It's the social side of meaningful work."
Looking Forward
The insights from this conversation suggest a framework for thinking about collaboration and generosity in the context of meaningful work. Rather than maximizing these behaviors, the focus shifts to optimizing them—creating sustainable practices that enhance both individual wellbeing and organizational effectiveness.
By understanding the dynamics of collaboration and generosity, we can build work environments that support meaningful connection without leading to burnout.
