Why We Work

by Barry Schwartz Narrated by Barry Schwartz

Overview

An eye-opening, groundbreaking tour of the purpose of work in our lives, showing how work operates in our culture and how you can find your own path to happiness in the workplace.

Why do we work? The question seems so simple. But Professor Barry Schwartz proves that the answer is surprising, complex, and urgent.

We've long been taught that the reason we work is primarily for a paycheck. In fact, we've shaped much of the infrastructure of our society to accommodate this belief. Then why are so many people dissatisfied with their work, despite healthy compensation? And why do so many people find immense fulfillment and satisfaction through “menial” jobs? Schwartz explores why so many believe that the goal for working should be to earn money, how we arrived to believe that paying workers more leads to better work, and why this has made our society confused, unhappy, and has established a dangerously misguided system.

Through fascinating studies and compelling anecdotes, this book dispels this myth. Schwartz takes us through hospitals and hair salons, auto plants and boardrooms, showing workers in all walks of life, showcasing the trends and patterns that lead to happiness in the workplace. Ultimately, Schwartz proves that the root of what drives us to do good work can rarely be incentivized, and that the cause of bad work is often an attempt to do just that.

How did we get to this tangled place? How do we change the way we work? With great insight and wisdom, Schwartz shows us how to take our first steps toward understanding, and empowering us all to find great work.

Editorial Reviews

Forbes.com

A terse and engaging book…[a] fine book.

Adam Grant

A meaningful look at why we’ve lost meaning at work, and where we can find it.

HuffPost Books

Invoking plenty of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and even a bit of Bruce Springsteen, Schwartz’s inspiring manifesto forces us to question the very nature of modern-day work… Via fascinating anecdote and plenty of data, the book forcefully claims that how we work isn’t working.

Amy Wrsesniewski

"In a masterful book that delivers a deep understanding why we work, Schwartz makes a convincing case that getting the answer wrong bears profound costs for employees and managers in any organization. A highly recommended, thought-provoking read.

Chicago Tribune

A concise 90-page treatise on work that should be required reading for every boss and manager.

Laszlo Bock

A delightful, accessible book that glides across centuries of business and industry to reveal the underpinning moral foundations of how and why we work. If you have a job, or hope to have one, read Why We Work”

Daniel H. Pink

"Barry Schwartz has long been one of the most astute — and compassionate — observers of American life. In Why We Work, he makes a compelling case for building organizations that run with the grain of human nature rather than against it. If you want to make work more meaningful, for yourself or for your team, you need to read this wise and powerful book.

Chicago Tribune

A concise 90-page treatise on work that should be required reading for every boss and manager.

Library Journal

08/01/2015
Schwartz (psychology, Swarthmore Coll.), a prolific writer (The Paradox of Choice) and popular TED talk guest, looks at why we work and what makes work "good." Written like a TED talk and copublished with TED, Schwartz's concise synthesis of this idea is filled with rapid-fire examples, psychological studies and theories, and compelling anecdotes. The author suggests that our relationship to labor is complex and not easily distilled into a "paycheck." Likewise, he asserts that the elements that give tasks meaning and create engagement (purpose, variety, autonomy, and sense of belonging) also undergird company loyalty and profitability. However, Schwartz posits that we have too long believed in the false notion of the worker as pictured by Adam Smith and Frederick Taylor. To guide thoughtful change, he provides four fundamental questions to building institutions that foster "good" work that will help both the individual and the institution to grow. VERDICT Schwartz's succinct, knowledgeable, and well-documented work expertly applies his 40 years of psychological research to the fashioning of companies that encourage us to be our best selves. It will appeal to students of business and organizational psychology.—Jane Scott, Clark Lib., Univ. of Portland, OR

NOVEMBER 2015 - AudioFile

Schwartz delivers an insightful, short commentary on the nature of work and a surprising reorientation to how we understand work, especially work considered to be menial or unskilled. He narrates this extended version of his TED Talk himself, and—though he proves capable, with a steady voice and clear tone—his delivery isn’t as compelling for an audiobook as it may be for an 18-minute presentation. He doesn't have the narrative flourishes that a better narrator would utilize when shifting between points and evidence. In the end, the production is worth listening to because of its content, not its narration. L.E. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170481095
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	09/01/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Why We Work
Why do we work? Why do we drag ourselves out of bed every morning instead of living lives composed of one pleasure-filled adventure after another? What a silly question. We work because we have to make a living. Sure, but is that it? Of course not. When you ask people who are fulfilled by their work why they do the work they do, money almost never comes up. The list of nonmonetary reasons people give for doing their work is long and compelling.

Satisfied workers are engaged by their work. They lose themselves in it. Not all the time, of course, but often enough for that to be salient to them. Satisfied workers are challenged by their work. It forces them to stretch themselves—to go outside their comfort zones. These lucky people think the work they do is fun, often in the way that doing crossword puzzles or Sudoku is fun.

Why else do people work? Satisfied people do their work because they feel that they are in charge. Their workday offers them a measure of autonomy and discretion. And they use that autonomy and discretion to achieve a level of mastery or expertise. They learn new things, developing both as workers and as people.

These people do their work because it’s an opportunity for social engagement. They do many of their tasks as part of teams, and even when they’re working alone, there are plenty of opportunities for social interaction during work’s quiet moments.

Finally, these people are satisfied with their work because they find what they do meaningful. Potentially, their work makes a difference to the world. It makes other people’s lives better. And it may even make other people’s lives better in ways that are significant.

Of course, few occupations have all these features, and none, I suspect, have all these features all the time. But features of work like these are what get us out of the house, get us to bring work home with us, encourage us to talk about our work with others, and make us reluctant to retire. We wouldn’t work if we didn’t get paid, but that’s not at the core of why we do what we do. And in general, we think that material rewards are a pretty bad reason for working. Indeed, when we say of someone that “he’s in it for the money,” we are not merely being descriptive; we’re passing judgment.

These diverse sources of satisfaction from work raise some very big questions. Why is it that for the overwhelming majority of people in the world, work has few or none of these attributes? Why is it that for most of us, work is monotonous, meaningless, and soul deadening? Why is it that as capitalism developed, it created a model for work in which opportunities for the nonmaterial satisfactions that might come from it—and inspire better work—were reduced or eliminated? Workers who do this kind of work—whether in factories, fast-food restaurants, order-fulfillment warehouses, or indeed, in law firms, classrooms, clinics, and offices—do it for pay. Try as they might to find meaning, challenge, and room for autonomy, their work situation defeats them. The way their work is structured means that there really is little reason to do these jobs except for pay.

According to a massive report published in 2013 by Gallup, the Washington, D.C.-based polling organization, there are twice as many “actively disengaged” workers in the world as there are “engaged” workers who like their jobs. Gallup has been measuring international employee satisfaction for almost two decades. In total it has polled 25 million employees in 189 different countries. The latest version gathered information from 230,000 full-time and part-time workers in 142 countries. Overall, Gallup found that only 13 percent of workers feel engaged by their jobs. These people feel a sense of passion for their work and they spend their days helping to move their organizations forward. The vast majority of us, some 63 percent, are not engaged. We are checked out, sleepwalking through our days, putting little energy into our work. And the rest of us are actively disengaged, actually hating our jobs. In other words, work is more often a source of frustration than one of fulfillment for nearly 90 percent of the world’s workers. Think of the social, emotional, and perhaps even economic waste that this statistic represents. Ninety percent of adults spend half their waking lives doing things they would rather not be doing at places they would rather not be.

The questions Gallup asks capture many of the reasons for work I just listed. The opportunity to do our work “right,” to do our best, to be encouraged to develop and learn, to feel appreciated by coworkers and supervisors, to feel that our opinions count, to feel that what we do is important, and to have good friends at work are all aspects of work that the survey taps. And for the overwhelming majority of people, work falls short—very short. The question is why? This book will offer an answer.

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