Are you doing Great Work? In conversation with author and coach Michael Bungay Stanier

Posted by: Krishna De | Posted on: February 6th, 2010 | 12 Comments | Posted in: Career, Coaching, Leadership brand

Are you doing great work? When I received an invitation to do a podcast interview with my internet friend Michael Bungay Stanier to talk about great work I was thrilled.

Then he emailed me the questions he wanted to cover in the interview – well really thought starters for what he wanted to explore and my heart sank. Not they weren’t great questions.

It’s just that Michael has this ability to make us think – to reflect – to self analyse. That is what makes him one of Canada’s leading coaches. Michael is on a mission to shake up peoples lives.

He made me STOP. I love what I am doing in my career right now. But just because I love it, am I doing ‘Great Work’? I am not talking about work that is technically competent, that my clients appreciate. I am talking about work that has real meaning, stretches you and makes a difference to those around you – leaving a footprint on the people in your own life or even in the world.

Michael has been interviewing people about thier Great Work including leading authorities such as David Ulrich, David Allen, Marshall Goldsmith, Jim Koezes, Henry Mintzberg, Lance Secretan, Dan Pink, Hugh McLeod, Garr Reynolds, Pam Slim – and now me!

If you are interested in leading a little about my own experiences of what great work is you can listen to the interview I did with Michael here. We cover:

• Why stability is as important as risk as the foundation for Great Work
• What dealing with the threats from the Mafia taught her about Great Work (yes really THE Mafia)
• How to become CEO of your own career – and what support structures you might up in place to allow that to happen
• How to rail against the threat of a mediocre life.

I can not believe what I revealed to Michael – because like all great coaches he left me wide open space but provoked me to think, reflect and learn.

Michael’s book ‘Find Your Great Work’ distinguishes what Great Work is – he defines:

• Bad Work as the mind-numbing, soul-sapping stuff that all systems seems to generate. The company Richer Sounds has a ‘cut the crap’ committee – and Bad Work is what they seek out to eliminate.

• Good Work as the efficient, productive, useful, comfortable day-to-day work that fills most of our lives. There’s nothing wrong with Good Work. Organizations love Good Work, it is their “cash cow”, the reliable and tested way to make money. When you think back on the week that’s just passed … and can’t remember much about how you spent those 40 or 50 or 60 hours, that’s a sign you’re doing a lot of Good Work. (It’s all rushed into your subconscious mind, as your conscious mind has decided there’s nothing much new here to remember.)

• Great Work as the work that takes you to the edge of who you are, your learning edge, the work that stretches and inspires you. People and organisations alike are ambivalent about Great Work. It’s rewarding and risky, inspiring and frightening, compelling and paralysing. It takes focus and courage to do Great Work.

So here is an exercise for you this weekend should you want to accept it – these are the questions Michael gave me – why not reflect on them yourself and do a little ‘self coaching’.

• What’s a Great Work story of your own?

• What helped you say Yes to Great Work? To what did you have to say No?

• What insights/tips/secrets/musings do you have on Great Work?

• What’s your Great Work now?

What reflections do you have about your work today – are you doing Great Work? What have you learned from this exercise?

P.S. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Michaels Great Work interviews over at his website and if you are inspired to do more great work remember you can buy ‘Find Your Great Work’ at all leading booksellers. I’ll be interviewing Michael soon – so leave me your questions for what you would like me to ask him about how to find and do great work – just leave a comment below.