“Everyday Awe” Helps Workers Find Meaning, Motivation, and New Perspectives
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“Awe” and “work” are two words that might not naturally appear in the same sentence – but new research from the Next Level Lab suggests that experiencing moments of “everyday awe” in the workplace can combat burnout, increase motivation, and imbue workers with a greater sense of purpose.
Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something or someone vast that goes beyond, or makes you rethink, your current understanding of the world. While sometimes these are once-in-a-lifetime experiences, it is smaller moments of “everyday awe” that enrich our daily lives and compel us to do our best in the workplace. In fact, new research from the Next Level Lab reveals the power of everyday awe for learning, performance, and motivation at work. Read on for more details about our findings and suggestions for how to use what we’ve learned to improve performance in your workplace.
“Every job I have ever done … I have had that [awe] experience, and in my opinion if you haven’t you are not paying attention.” – Mark, truck driver
“Frankly, this experience of awe is what motivates me to get out of bed each morning.” – Nandini, medical scribe
Mark and Nandini participated in an ongoing research project from the Next Level Lab that has thus far studied the responses of nearly 250 people on their experiences of awe and meaning at work. The endeavor, led by NLL Project Director Dr. Megan Cuzzolino, is investigating some of the common features of awe experiences in the context of work and their implications for improving worker engagement, motivation, and learning.
Earlier research from the NLL and elsewhere has shown that moments of awe help workers understand how their daily tasks contribute to a broader organizational mission and motivate individuals to persist through challenging professional circumstances. However, much of this earlier research has focused on specific industries, such as STEM professionals or first responders. Now, a new NLL study conducted by Cuzzolino and Jules Becerra expands our understanding of awe at work by surveying 100 United States workers across 32 different sectors. The findings reveal that people are most frequently awed by other individuals in their work context, underscoring the importance of the social environment at work. Moreover, moments of everyday awe lead to new insights and understandings and serve as a source of increased motivation, inspiration, and a sense of affirmation of one’s career trajectory. The study highlights several key implications for cultivating a “culture of everyday awe” in the workplace:
1) People are regularly awed by other individuals in their work context.
Resoundingly, the most common source of everyday awe was the behaviors or qualities of other people. Over half of participants (54%) identified moments of awe that were driven by observing the strength, courage, dedication, kindness, and/or abilities of individuals they interacted with at work. For instance, a factory worker described the awe he felt when a coworker who did not know him well courageously and skillfully “ran over [and] stuck his hands directly into hot, melted plastic” to solve a problem for him on the assembly line.
Notably, participants mentioned being awed by people across all dimensions of their work context, including organizational leaders, managers, peers, and supervisees. Others identified people external to their organization that they served through their work (e.g., students, patients, clients, or customers), such as a case manager at a non-profit who described feeling awe “while speaking to victims of [natural disasters] who show tremendous amounts of strength.”
Mark[1] is a truck driver for a food services distribution company, and previously worked as a lineman, a farmer, and a marine. When asked if he has experienced awe at work, he replies: “Every job I have ever done, whether paid or on my farm, I have had that experience, and in my opinion if you haven’t you are not paying attention. In my current job as a driver, it happens when I get out of my truck and look at the size of it, then I think of the cost, and finally the trust the owner and management have put in me to take care of it. When I was a lineman and climbing, it was the views and country I could see, and on my farm I’m still amazed to see things grow. It was one more thing I got to do, one more thing I got to see, one more skill I got to develop.”
One-third of participants (33%) also described specific interactions with other people or a more general sense of community that contributed to feelings of everyday awe at work. In these instances, awe was not necessarily elicited by the abilities or virtues of their colleagues but rather by an experience of genuine human connection. For example, a school administrator described feeling awe at a work gathering where “people were singing, dancing, and laughing … sharing a very fun time with my coworkers made me feel very close and connect[ed] to everyone.”
Key Takeaways: While there can be a tendency to view others in one’s work environment as competition, reframing these relationships as collaborative and mutually beneficial can have a significant impact. Do not assume that organizational leaders are the only people who can elicit awe: peers, supervisees, and clientele can be powerful sources of inspiration.
2) Another common experience of awe resulted from seeing evidence of the impact of one’s work.
Twenty-eight percent of participants reported that they derived a sense of awe from observing that their work had value and made a difference to other people. For instance, a project manager for an affordable housing organization recalled an elderly resident expressing gratitude for his new apartment: “It both broke my heart and made me incredibly proud of the work we had done to build these homes. It reminded me that although the work is stressful, there is an end user for whom it is life changing.” Many participants noted that these moments of awe served as a source of inspiration or motivation, as discussed further below.
Key Takeaway: There is great value in helping people understand on a concrete level how their daily tasks contribute to a broader organizational mission. While success metrics can be inspiring, many people find it more valuable to hear narratives about the impact of their work.
3) Participants said that the most common effect of experiencing awe was a new understanding or perspective on their work.
Sixty-one percent of participants said their awe experiences helped them understand something new or more deeply, or made them think differently about their work. Sometimes these realizations came as sudden epiphanies, while in other cases, the learning happened more gradually upon further reflection on the experience.
In many cases, these experiences were derived from awe-inspiring interactions with colleagues. For instance, an engineering director described a powerful meeting with a supervisor that “completely changed how I viewed myself near the end of my career. I instantly wanted to grow up to be as principle-driven as my manager was…leading by example became a priority for me.” Likewise, a warehouse manager who was accustomed to tightly overseeing her trainees described being in awe as she watched a new hire build “beautiful walls” of boxes with little assistance: “This was impactful for me because it challenged my usual training methods. It was amazing to watch.” These participants and many others noted that that their awe experiences facilitated new understandings about the nature of their tasks, their colleagues or clientele, or other aspects of their context that led them to approach their work in new ways.
Nandini works as a medical scribe in the emergency department of a large hospital and says that she is “in a constant state of awe and absolute amazement with the way the health care providers treat the patients’ illnesses.” Nandini says she is amazed to learn about the intricate processes going on within the human body and the skill required by the physician to rule out other problems before reaching the correct diagnosis. “I felt as if I was living in oblivion in regards to what happens beneath my skin and in my cells,” Nandini says. “This drives me academically and ignites my passion in learning more about pathological diseases and medicine as a whole. Any medical case can bring me to a state of awe and astonishment, and frankly, this experience of awe is what motivates me to get out of bed each morning.”
Key Takeaway: It is important to invite reflection on “a-ha moments” in the workplace, and more generally, to establish a culture where people feel comfortable acknowledging changes in their thinking and testing out new approaches to their work in light of these realizations.
4) Moments of awe also served as a source of increased motivation, inspiration, and a sense of affirmation of one’s career trajectory.
Another category of impact described by nearly half of participants (49%) was a sense of motivation, inspiration, and/or affirmation. Thirty-two percent of participants described feeling grateful for their professional opportunities or validated in their career path as a result of their awe experience. For instance, a graduate student who recalled being in awe of the mentorship she received from a supervisor said, “This experience just made me feel very grateful towards them and reaffirmed me that I am in the profession/place in life where I am supposed to be.”
Additionally, 29% of participants said that their awe experiences made them feel inspired or motivated to persist and strive harder, especially in the face of challenging work circumstances. An engineer explained that his moment of awe “provided me a reason to keep working on a project when I was particularly unmotivated and feeling unfulfilled. It gave me a sense of purpose. It didn’t fully pull me out of the frustration I had been feeling about my vocation recently, but it gave me something to hang on to and ponder and that was useful to me.”
Key Takeaway: Moments of awe at work help assure people that they are in a job that feels “right” for them, and can be a critical source of motivation, especially in the face of challenging or frustrating circumstances.
A full report on the study findings will be published at a later date. You can learn more about the Experiences of Awe and Meaning at Work project here.
[1] The quotes in this article are excerpted from our survey data on experiences of awe at work. Names and other identifying details have been changed.