Are You The Mission Or An Enabler?
A little while back I did a post called Is Your Job Total B.S.? It discussed a Bloomberg article about David Graeber’s book, Bullshit Jobs.
In sum Graeber, asserts that most jobs today are total B.S., especially what he calls the “exploding administrative sector”.
I received some awesome comments on that post as is often the case but this time it had my mind wandering further down the path of exploring this topic. After all, we in the personal finance community spend a good deal of time thinking and writing about jobs.
Perhaps some of you have heard the semi-famous story of John Kennedy and the NASA janitor. I’m not sure if it’s true or folklore, but it goes like this.
When visiting NASA in 1962 President Kennedy approached a janitor and said “Hello, what do you do here?” The janitor responded “I’m putting a man on the moon!”.
The story is often used in motivational talks and leadership training classes as a classic case of belief in oneself and one’s contribution to society. The janitor, as the lesson goes, clearly saw his connection to the overall mission.
While his broom strokes were not directly putting a man on the moon, he was keeping the facilities clean so the folks who were more directly putting a man on the moon could do their job better.
He was, what I call, a few “Kevin Bacon degrees of separation” away from the core mission. But still part of the mission.
Enablers
At my job, we use the term “enablers” to describe jobs that are not directly doing the mission of our agency, but that support it in some way. The NASA janitor by my agency’s lingo was an enabler.
After thinking about the modern “bloated administrative sector” and the endless jobs within, I started thinking whether people get more satisfaction out of a job if they’re an enabler, or the core mission.
I spent most of my career, maybe two-thirds, doing the core mission that my agency exists to do. To be frank, those were my best years.
After numerous moves up in seniority and taking on bigger and more difficult projects, I then found myself in management. I was now managing the people who performed the core mission. But in no way could I classify my daily activities in those management jobs as the actual core mission.
My agency doesn’t exist to do performance appraisals, or to approve promotion packets. But there I was, spending most of my days doing those very things.
And that is clearly what started me down the road to disengagement, dissatisfaction, and ultimately going part time.
Exceptionalism Envy
One comment that stood out in that last post I did was from The Physician Philosopher:
“I think the idea in this book may come from American Exceptionalism where we feel the need to be “special” and really “accomplish things” in life. There is nothing wrong with just having a job.”
That one really got me thinking. Could it be that the constant “Look at me I’m crushing it!!” exposure of online entrepreneurs, and the more visible and celebrated successes in America like Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos be planting a seed of “exceptionalism-envy” in the psyche of Americans?
More directly, are people who are not “crushing it” at something being looked down upon?
Side Hustles
If you think about side hustles in the traditional sense, they’re almost always “the mission”. Me, I create graphic arts and sell them. You may do woodworking and sell cool end tables. That’s the mission – to sell end tables!
Or maybe you teach guitar lessons. Again, the mission is to teach someone how to play guitar and you’re doing that directly. If you become so busy that you have to hire a second teacher and start running a small guitar lesson company, now you’re spending part of your time managing it.
Is that when the train starts to go off the rails?
Does job dissatisfaction and unhappiness creep in when one starts getting separated from the core mission?
Is work happiness that simple? Is that also the reason those who strike out on their own as online entrepreneurs or just being self-employed tend to enjoy their jobs more? Not because they work for themselves, but because they’re probably more often than not doing the core mission directly?
Your turn financial warriors – At your job, are you the mission or an enabler?. More importantly, if you’ve done both in your career were you happier doing the mission?
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Great thought provoking article.
Large organisations tend to be more productive than individuals working alone. But the division of labour that comes with it has been well known to destroy your soul – Adam Smith knew that.
Working in the exploding administrative sector is often a good choice though – in my old company the minimum pay grade for auditor type jobs was the same as the top engineer could expect to reach after 20+ years. As a result, many of my ex-colleagues are Policy Quality Improvement Consultants or some nonsense like that. Hey – the pays better and you probably don’t have as much work to do as the lead engineer.
Bullshit jobs? Make one up yourself here: http://www.bullshitjob.com/title/
I need to go back and read Adam Smith, I think I read it in college. And THANKS for that link – I love it! I just tried and got “Dynamic Identity Designer”. Sounds exotic!
No doubt being part of the core mission provides more satisfaction for me. When I moved into management, I made more money and perhaps got away from some repetitive tasks, but I moved further away from solving problems for customers. Instead I solved problems within my company.
It was a different and less satisfying mission usually.
However, I also had my secret missions – eg. giving an undereducated candidate a chance, mentoring the “weird” employee so he could become great. I loved those missions.
100% same experience for me. And like you I find that mentoring now is one of the sole joys at my job. I’m routinely mentoring 3 or 4 young’uns and I might get more out of it than they do!
Hmm.. Interesting thought piece here. One could argue that a manager/leader/administrator is doing even more for the core mission compared to the foot soldiers in the trenches because their impact is on a grander scale.
It’s also interesting how you say that both a janitor and a manager can be an enabler (but at a different capacity, obviously).
Therefore, I think it is hard to define precisely what kind of worker is working directly for the mission. Perhaps we are all enablers to a certain extent?
I see what you’re saying about impact, but I guess what I mean by ‘core mission’ is that at most companies you can define the core mission. Wrigley company makes gum. But if Wrigley has a tech department to fix computer problems for the office workers, to me they are enablers. Wrigley does not exist to fix computer problems. Wrigley will have computer problems and will have to keep folks on staff to fix them – and yes those folks are important – but that’s not why Wrigley exists. That’s how I separate mission from enabler. Admittedly it gets fuzzier in some scenarios.
“Kevin Bacon degrees of separation”
LOL!! That’s a good one. My husband keeps telling me he enjoys coding because its impact you can see. I think to him, that’s much closer to his mission than managing humans that is secondary to the code.
I used to code sometimes at my job years ago. I hated the journey, but loved when I figured it out and my code did what it was supposed to. But I had no interest in doing it full time.
Core mission, absolutely. And you hit the reason why I mostly love my job and have no plans to quit. Even on the hard days I’m aware of how important what I’m doing is for my community.
Good for you Angela! As I mentioned my best years are when I was doing the core mission and had great teammates with me. Keep that job and ride it out!!
My work has almost always been closer to the core mission than enabling others. But I think the greatest dissatisfaction comes when you don’t believe in the core mission, which would probably be easier to ignore and be happy as an enabler.
Great point. I always believed in my agencies’ mission so that hasn’t happened to me but I saw it happen to others from time to time.
For me it was actually the involvement in the FI community that made me think less about ‘crushing it at work”. We have made job our live while i think jobs themselves are just ‘enablers’, that give us the money to live the life we want. And the next step in the evolution is that we have earned/saved enough that we are no more dependent on a job to live our life!
Wow, great comment. Are jobs just an enabler in our lives? I’d say probably, yes. The core mission is life – so let’s do that the best we can!!
I think there are so many messages out there about “and you too could make six figures if you just…” It sends a message that whatever you’re PROBABLY doing in your life is not good enough. I’m not saying waster your talent or live up to your potential, but careful what you wish for. I thought being creative director at my last job was the be all, end all, and it wasn’t. You were sandwiched between meanie executive level bosses and a team which was always demanding stuff to fit their personal preference. It was hard, and I suddenly didn’t have that feeling I was so special anymore. lol!
“sandwiched between meanie executive level bosses and a team which was always demanding stuff to fit their personal preference”
Been there, done that. Except execs at my agency aren’t as much mean as they are inept. But it still sucks.
This is a great topic and article!
I have certainly done both in my career. In the military I was an infantry officer and was on the “front lines” numerous times accomplishing objects that were the mission of our higher commands. In my current role in corporate America, I am an enabler. There are pros and cons to both types of positions, but in general I think I am more of a mission person.
This may certainly stem from American Exceptionalism for sure, but I think another interesting philosophy is the American Monomyth where we see ourselves as “heroes” who can defeat the “evil” of our communities. This is very ingrained in our American culture and society dating back to the western expansion, life on the open plains, and in our modern day with comic book heroes.
Bottom line, I think we have a desire to be doing meaningful work that we feel makes a difference. This is a fun topic though, I love discussing this kind of thing!
A ground-pounder – THANKS for your service!
And yes, America does have a love affair with the hero mentality, and “rugged individualism” and all that good stuff. The John Wayne will never leave our collective bloodstreams!
I think hands down, I am happier with mission work. in fact, blogs are a perfect example. They are mostly mission and passion.
I would think most doctor work is obviously mission, except for when you have to do crappy admin stuff. And yes, blogging is 100% mission!
If you are part of the core mission, you generally have a lot more to gain and a lot more to lose too. For example, in the University setting, I’d say the Professors are the mission critical people. They are paid better than administrative personnel, but there reputation and risk of harassment etc. from/to students may be higher.
Interesting point. Mission folks are the first to succeed but maybe the first to be blamed when things go wrong too. I guess the janitors don’t get blamed when Facebook doesn’t meet earning expectations.
I would say that my work part of the core mission
Docs I would assume get to spend most of their time doing the core mission. You earned it!
Definitely think my role at work is part of the core mission. Going up through the ranks I definitely played the part of the enabler though, as a scut monkey running blood work/labs in medical school, to underling in residency, to even a fresh faced new attending. Even so, predominantly doing core mission work does not prevent dissatisfaction/burnout unfortunately as a physician is currently seeing his or her role diminished in the grand scheme of things
“Scut monkey”… that’s a new one for me! I would suggest running blood work labs is still way closer to the mission than being computer tech support at a shoe factory.
I worked in public libraries. One time during an interview panel for reference librarians, another member of the panel made a comment that one of the applicants didn’t seem to aspire to greater things, i.e., Department Head. I said “What is wrong with wanting to be the best darn Reference Librarian you can be and enjoying it?” It’s a good thing that some people find fulfillment without wanting to be the leader of the pack.
Exactly! To me it’s admirable to be an expert at something and to stick with it
This is an interesting topic especially thinking of where to define the line between enabler and mission. See, I’m in the IT department on the infrastructure team for my company. Although IT seems like a more prestigious job category, I think we might be enablers. My company provides human resources software to other companies and in the infrastructure department, we just build the systems needed by the other departments. BUT, since the other departments couldn’t provide the customers with our product if we didn’t build the systems, that kinda makes us part of the mission.
I think most IT-department workers fall more on the enabling side unless the actual business for their respective company is to build/fix IT. But bottom line – most companies can’t do what they do without IT departments, so you are crucial for operations.
I’m horrible in the enabler role and I never really tried. I’ve always been on the core mission side of things. That doesn’t guarantee happiness or satisfaction, though. Things happens and unhappiness can creeps. That’s just life. I don’t think it matters that much which role you’re in.
If the job or boss sucks it probably doesn’t matter as much but for me it matters more to be doing the core mission, all other things equal.
At my day job, I would say I’m in the enabler camp, but in my side job I am definitely the mission! As a service provider (electrician) I get a great deal of satisfaction out of seeing the end product, especially when it is accompanied with a happy customer!
That’s a great hands-on job where you can see the final output. That’s missing from a lot of other jobs
I think I’d be considered an enabler simply because I don’t specifically touch the products/services my area renders. Perhaps that’s why I’ve never particularly get super connected with my job!
Enablers are people too 🙂
Great perspective!
As a journalist I was definitely the mission. Nowadays as a marketer I suppose I am an enabler. In my situation, i vastly prefer it now as I’m much better resourced, compensated, and overall it suits my life, but I am sure core mission people at my company could probably say the same thing 🙂
Great to hear you took a pay raise but I guess journalists are paid notoriously low.
Interesting how many commenters work for other people. My husband and I have a very small family business and so switch in and out of the mission/enabler role depending on circumstances. I prefer the enabler, as I view it as making the ‘train’ run as efficiently (profitably) as possible, while he steers it (through selling) to where we want to go.Great partnering!
I think people want to be part of the “tangible” . Our world is moving more and more each day into a digital presence which people don’t have that tactile and also human feedback loop on the work they do. Also I agree that tv, media and social media has created the success hype man like you mention…from Shark Tank to Gary V. You gotta be the enabler and the one making a difference or you’re just a cog in the wheel spinning around going no where…that seems to be the story anyhow.