The Stress-Meaning Paradox: Lessons from Jess Annison

In this episode of Meaningful Work Matters, host Andrew Soren engages with Jess Annison, a UK-based positive psychology practitioner, leadership coach, and career consultant. Annison, who recently completed her master's thesis in applied positive psychology, shares her research on the intricate relationship between stress and meaningful work.

With a background in organizational change and major projects, including work on the London 2012 Olympic Games and as director of change for Europe's largest open-access university, Annison brings a wealth of practical experience to her academic pursuits. Her passion for helping people find meaning in their work, coupled with her firsthand experience of the stresses that can accompany deeply meaningful roles, led her to explore this complex topic.

The Complex Relationship Between Stress and Meaningful Work

Annison's research, published in Frontiers in Psychology, reveals a nuanced and bidirectional relationship between stress and meaningful work. Using a grounded theory approach, she identified six "complex handshakes" or ways in which stress and meaningfulness interact:

These relationships highlight the intricate nature of meaningful work, which Annison describes as having "intricate tensional knots." She emphasizes that "nothing in life is so simple that it's ever wholly great," underscoring the importance of acknowledging both the benefits and potential drawbacks of meaningful work.

Stress as a Component of Work Experience

Annison frames stress within the context of the job demands-resources theory, where stress arises when job demands exceed an individual's resources to cope. She explains that while some stress can be beneficial, chronic or acute stress can lead to various mental and physical health problems.

"Stress is when we experience challenging circumstances or demands that exceed our resources, that exceed our ability to cope.”

This definition helps listeners understand that stress is subjective and can vary based on individual perceptions and available resources.

Challenges and Considerations

The research highlights several challenges associated with meaningful work:

• Potential for overwork and burnout due to deep care for the work

• Difficulty maintaining work-life balance

• Risk of exploitation when passion is used to justify poor working conditions

• Stress potentially diminishing the perceived meaningfulness of work

Annison cautions against viewing meaningful work as a "silver bullet" for workplace well-being and emphasizes the need for awareness of these potential downsides.

Annison's Research Findings

Annison's qualitative study revealed that the relationship between stress and meaningful work is often simultaneous and complex. Participants reported experiencing both positive and negative effects concurrently. For example, meaningful work might exacerbate stress while also helping to alleviate it at the same time.

One participant aptly summarized this complexity: "A few things in life are easy and worth doing," which became the title of Annison's research paper. This phrase encapsulates the idea that worthwhile endeavors often come with challenges.

Practical Applications and Implications

To navigate the complex relationship between stress and meaningful work, Annison suggests:

For individuals:

• Reflect on personal experiences of stress and meaning in work

• Journal or discuss with a mentor to gain clarity

• Make adjustments to reduce stressors or boost coping resources

• Ensure meaningful work is part of a broader meaningful life

For organizations and leaders:

• Be mindful of unintended consequences of promoting meaningful work

• Provide space for discussions about stress and meaning

• Balance high-pressure periods with time for recovery

• Role model good practices in managing work-life boundaries

Conclusion

Jess Annison's research provides valuable insights into the nuanced relationship between stress and meaningful work.

By acknowledging both the benefits and challenges of deeply engaging work, individuals and organizations can better navigate the complexities of creating fulfilling career experiences while maintaining well-being.

Resources for Further Exploration

• Jess Annison's website: www.jess-annison.com

• Research paper: "Few Things in Life Are Easy and Worth Doing: A Grounded Theory Study of the Relationship Between Stress and Meaningful Work" (available through Frontiers in Psychology)

• Upcoming book: "Career Crafting: How to Conquer Your Mid-Career Crisis and Create Your Most Meaningful Work Life" (release date: early 2025)

Unlearning Silence: Lessons from Elaine Lin Hering

In this episode of Meaningful Work Matters, host Andrew Soren speaks with Elaine Lin Hering, author of the new book "Unlearning Silence: How to Speak Your Mind, Unleash Talent, and Live More Fully."

Elaine, a recovering attorney turned accidental author, has dedicated her career to improving how we communicate with each other. Her work focuses on helping people show up authentically in the workplace and in life.

Unlearning Silence

Lin Hering introduces the concept of "unlearning silence" as a crucial step in creating more authentic and effective workplace communication. She defines silence in this context as feeling that there isn't enough room for one's ideas, insights, needs, goals, hopes, and concerns in a relational system, whether at work or in personal relationships.

Lin Hering explains:

"Silence is when you feel like you're not going to be well received, and so the outcome that makes more sense is to keep your mouth shut."

This silence can manifest in various ways, such as the "meeting after the meeting" phenomenon or the need for employees to censor or edit themselves.

The process of unlearning silence involves:

1. Awareness of one's assumptions about voice and silence

2. Interrogating these assumptions

3. Experimenting with new behaviors

4. Building a supportive team

The Complexity of Authenticity at Work

Lin Hering delves into the nuanced topic of authenticity in the workplace, particularly for individuals with subordinated identities. She highlights the challenges of bringing one's authentic self to work when facing an uphill battle against dominant cultural norms.

"Every organization, every team has a dominant culture," Lin Hering explains. "And it is driven by the people who carry that identity... If you carry the subordinated identity, meaning not the dominant, you are inherently pushing uphill."

This concept raises important questions about how organizations can create environments where diverse voices are truly valued and heard.

Challenges and Considerations

Lin Hering acknowledges that there can be real costs to speaking up in the workplace. She emphasizes the importance of agency in deciding when to speak and when to remain silent. The challenge lies in distinguishing between silence that is strategic and empowering versus silence that is oppressive and disempowering.

"The difference between silence that is additive or strategic and the silence that is oppressive is agency," Lin Hering notes. This nuanced understanding of silence challenges the simplistic "speak up" culture often promoted in workplaces.

Awareness and Action

Lin Hering presents a two-part framework for unlearning silence:

Awareness: Recognizing our assumptions about voice, silence, and who gets to speak in various contexts.

Action: Interrogating these assumptions, experimenting with new behaviors, and building a supportive network.

This framework emphasizes the importance of self-reflection and intentional behavior change in creating more inclusive and authentic communication environments.

Practical Applications and Implications

For individuals:

• Regularly ask yourself, "What do I think?" and "What do I need?" to reconnect with your authentic voice.

• Start with small experiments to practice using your voice in low-stakes situations.

• Build a supportive team around you, including mentors, peers, and media sources that reinforce your values.

For managers and leaders:

• Recognize that not everyone communicates or processes information like you do.

• Actively design communication and work processes that accommodate diverse styles and preferences.

• Create opportunities for new hires to act as "culture detectives," leveraging their fresh perspectives to question established norms.

Final Thoughts

Unlearning silence connects deeply to the broader themes of meaningful work, employee well-being, and organizational culture. By creating environments where people feel empowered to express their authentic selves, organizations can tap into diverse perspectives, increase innovation, and improve overall job satisfaction.

Lin Hering’s work also touches on important issues of equity and inclusion in the workplace, highlighting how dominant cultural norms can silence marginalized voices and limit the potential for true diversity of thought.

"We're co-creating culture and everyone owns it. So what is my role in creating a space where each human being experiences dignity and belonging at work and is able to do their best work?"

Resources for Further Exploration

• Elaine Lin Hering's book: "Unlearning Silence: How to Speak Your Mind, Unleash Talent, and Live More Fully"

• Ankari Williams' work on micro-activism: link

Work-Family Interface: Lessons from Joe Grzywacz

In this episode of Meaningful Work Matters, Andrew Soren spoke with Joe Grzywacz, the Associate Dean of Research and Faculty Development at San Jose State University in the College of Health and Sciences. His research expertise lies at the intersection of work and family life and their profound impact on health and well-being.

Grzywacz recognized early in his career that work can be a challenge to push through, but at other times, it can be a place to flourish and do well. The key difference is how work is designed and positioned to achieve the latter.

Midlife in the United States (MIDUS)

Grzywacz has been deeply involved in a landmark research project called Midlife Development in the U.S. (MIDUS). Since it started in 1995, this national longitudinal study of health and wellbeing has aimed to understand successful aging. MIDUS is unique because it measures social, biological, economic, and psychological factors across disciplines. Today, it is one of the largest studies of its kind, funded by the National Institute on Health.

Grzywacz oversees all areas related to the topic of work within the study - a critical factor for understanding health and well-being, given that the average person spends more time at work than just about anywhere else across the lifespan.

The Design of Work

There are different ways to think about the design of work. The National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety, for example, looks at job characteristics, which, boiled down, include buckets like:

• What are the opportunities workers have on the job to exercise control or decision-making regarding their work?

• How much external pressure or demand is put on workers?

• Is what I am doing meaningful, or does what I am doing matter in a lasting way?

• Am I treated fairly and equitably?

Grzywacz notes that these job characteristics are often very different for black and brown individuals, for younger workers compared to older workers, for men compared to women, etc. The job market is segregated in many ways that tend to benefit some people and not others.

The Impact on Psychological Well-Being

Based on about 40+ years of research, there are substantial consequences when these fundamental characteristics are unmet. These characteristics are tied to a concept called cognitive reserve. If you think of your mind as a muscle, the more you use it, the longer it will stay robust and healthy.

Likewise, many of these job characteristics are linked to how well your cognitive functioning holds up later in life and how physical health plays out in the face of chronic disease.

To Grzywacz, it’s crystal clear that work underlies our health and well-being, even if it takes a bit to catch up to us.

The Work-Family Interface

The work-family interface is all about how our jobs and families intersect. Grzywacz highlights that the two influence each other in various ways - sometimes good, sometimes bad.

On the one hand, we are caretakers and loved ones within a family structure, and on the other, we are operating in an economy that likely requires us also to be a worker. We are often splitting our time to satisfy both roles.

Finding a balance between these two important roles can be a challenge for all of us at one point or another. However, as Grzywacz explains, the synergy between work and life can also be enriching. In the Western world, this works very well. For example, for those who earn a living wage, or even a climbing wage, that’s a form of work-family enrichment because our work life ends up benefitting our family life.

Those with a synergistic or enriching work and family life have higher levels of well-being - and that is associated with less chronic conditions and lower stress levels, etc. A positive work-life interface benefits individuals, their families, organizations, and society.

Cross-Cultural Differences

According to Grzywacz, the research shows that job characteristics are relatively universal across cultural contexts.

By contrast, there are distinctive cultural differences when combining work and family. In the US, we’ve lived a ‘segmented reality’ throughout the industrial area. This means we spend 8 hours a day at work, then come home and attend to home life. In the US, work tends to be viewed as a different space than our family life.

The US is relatively unique in this separation. Other parts of the world see work and family as more integrated. For example, one might say they work for their family, and their commitment to their family is reflected in their work.

The Research on Alienation

Another area of Grzywacz’s research is alienation. This refers to when a worker is separated or alienated from the more significant impact, meaning, or context of their work AND the other individuals who are part of the final product.

The evidence tells us that alienated work is linked to a variety of mental health including depression. We have only recently connected this concept to the biology of successful aging. People with higher levels of alienated work show more wear and tear on their bodies at an organ and tissue level than those who experience less alienation at work.

Final Thoughts

In wrapping up, Grzywacz offers a reflection on pursuing meaningful work. He urges listeners to consider the balance between seeking meaning in work and finding contentment with what they have. He posits that while meaningful work is important, the constant chase for the 'perfect' job can lead to dissatisfaction and overlook the value of other life domains.

For further exploration:

• Mid-Life in the United States - link