Significant work, global growth, Walmart managers, and tribalism
RWL #434
Greetings from The University of New Hampshire1! Another day, another snow storm. My driveway at the LHH is starting to feel a bit like a tunnel, the snow banks are piled so high. We’ve been getting hit about every 3-4 days for the last two weeks. More supposedly coming later this week. I really love the snow - once it is off the roads and sidewalks. But we’re starting to run out of places to put it, and that is encroaching on the roads and sidewalks! Shot above is from my beloved College Woods, and the bridge over the Oyster River that I walk across when I walk to my office. TLW and I went snowshoeing this past weekend, even as the snow was still falling. You have to lean into the winter, or the winter gets the best of you.
I’m a day late getting this RWL out - the last couple of days have been exhausting with the work to find budget savings and other things. Hopefully back on track next week. OK - let’s get to the links. As usual, willing good for all of you!
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Read
What: Martela & Pessi, Significant Work Is About Self-Realization and Broader Purpose: Defining the Key Dimensions of Meaningful Work
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00363/pdf
Why: Academic article on meaningful work. They basically embrace the 3Cs. Abstract:
Research on meaningful work has proliferated in recent years, with an increasing understanding of the centrality of meaningfulness for work-related motivation, commitment, and well-being. However, ambiguity around the main construct, “meaningful work,” has hindered this progress as various researchers have used partly overlapping, partly differing conceptualizations. To bring clarity to this issue, we examine a broad range of various definitions of meaningful work and come to argue that meaningfulness in the broadest sense is about work significance as an overall evaluation of work as regards whether it is intrinsically valuable and worth doing. Furthermore, we argue that there are two key sub-dimensions to this work significance: Broader purpose as work serving some greater good or prosocial goals (the intrinsic value of work beyond the person in question). And self-realization as a sense of autonomy, authenticity and self-expression at work (the intrinsic value of work for the person in question). Previous definitions of meaningful work feature typically one or two of these elements—significance, broader purpose, self-realization–, but in the future it would be beneficial to clearly acknowledge all three elements in both definitions and operationalizations of meaningful work.
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Watch
What: Peter Zeihan, Global Economic Growth Patterns (Or Should I Say Decline) (8 min)
(link)
Why: Demographics are changing, which will have long-term effects on economic growth. Zeihan talks about China and Europe specifically, but it applies to the rest of the world as well, including the US. One of the reasons the US has better demographics is because we have immigration. We need immigration to keep from demographic collapse. Zeihan is always interesting. Predicting the future is a bit of a fool’s errand, but at the same time, we have to give it our best shot. I wish our national conversation around immigration was more like this.
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Listen
What: The Journal, The 20,000 Steps to a Walmart Manager's Six-Figure Salary (20 min)
Why: Walmart store managers can make upper-mid 6-figure salaries (the story quotes $600K). What’s it take to get there? Not a college degree.
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What: The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast, Dumb Tribalism (60 min)
Why: An interesting discussion of tribalism in politics. Andrew Heaton is interviewed about his new book, Tribalism is Dumb: Where It Came from, How It Got So Bad, and What to Do about It. He’s very funny, but they consider a range of topics related to tribalism, including how technology (from email to social media) has triggered our craziness. Heaton is a comedian, so the whole thing is funny while being serious.
It occurred to me, after nearly 10 years of writing this newsletter, that when I write my “greetings from UNH" that people might think I am speaking on behalf of the institution. That is very funny. I’m not sure that the UNH president could pick me out in a line up. So please understand that all opinions expressed here are my own, and do not represent the institutional positions of UNH. It’s akin to me writing, Greetings from America! And someone saying I am writing on behalf of the US government. As much as I might want it to be so, no one of reasonable judgement is going to believe it to be so.