School hasn't prepared you to do 'Good Work' - here's what you need to know.

Many of today’s young professionals desire a job that is meaningful and challenging - work that aligns with their values, allows for work-life balance, and promotes their development as a person and professional. But it’s probably not surprising that such an ideal alignment between what is desired and what reality presents to us isn’t as common as we might hope it’d be.

Prior to the influx of millennials into the workforce, Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner (known best for his Theory of Multiple Intelligences) studied what it means to do ‘Good Work’ and came up with a definition that has influenced work researchers for the last twenty years (some might like to know that this research was made actionable through Project Zero, and specifically The Good Project).  

As I hope to demonstrate below, we find ourselves in an unfortunate state of affairs in that our educational systems serve as an inadequate ‘training ground’ for blossoming professionals to get a sense of what Good Work feels like - a situation that has been worsening over recent decades. Simultaneously, we have seen the rise of career coaching as a way to empower and prepare young people for a fulfilling and meaningful career. And as I see it, the latter is a much needed response to the former. 

In short, I believe having been a student in a public school makes it harder for one to find fulfillment in the professional world, and career coaching is one of the best ways to fill in the gaps in skills and experiences left by public schooling.

Let’s take a deeper look.


WHAT IS GOOD WORK, AND WHY ISN’T IT HAPPENING IN SCHOOLS? 

Gardener - along with his colleagues Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced “CHICK-cent-me-high”) and William Damon - concluded that Good Work has three common characteristics: excellence, ethics, and engagement. As they examined secondary schools in the US, they found that at least one of these characteristics was missing in any given setting. Interestingly, they found that engagement was lacking in rural areas and in the midwest, excellence was the problem in inner-city schools, and in suburban and affluent urban areas, ethics were the missing component.

The aforementioned authors also determined that Good Work is most likely to occur in a professional environment that is in alignment with itself and society at large. In other words, societal values are in line with the implicit values of a given profession, and the expectations of stakeholders match those of the people practicing that profession.  

While many Americans think of school as the place where we first learn to do Good Work, most American students are not accustomed to the type of environment that fosters Good Work. One of the key premises established by the authors is that professional practitioners choose to enter their profession - we can’t do Good Work without a sense of agency and autonomy. My evidence is purely anecdotal, but it has been my experience as a teacher of twelve years that most students, if given the choice of what to do with their time, would not spend seven hours a day in school only to spend their evenings doing 2-3 hours of homework. 

Then there is the issue of alignment. If we look at a cross section of stakeholder expectations and priorities in a typical high school, it might look something like this: Teacher A creates mindless tests to cover content and ensure no student gets a bad grade, while Teacher B uses only projects for grading because she wants them to be ready for the real world, and Teacher C just wishes her students would care as much she as she does; Principal D is trying to win awards for the school, while Principal E believes the most important thing he can do for students is send them off with a good transcript, and Principal F is doing what he can to keep parents from complaining about Teachers A, B, and C; Parent X wants their kid to have less homework so he can work a job; and the Kid just wants a hot date to take to the Homecoming Dance.

Everyone is doing what they think is best, but there’s very little agreement as to what that is.

Lastly, the topic deserves at least a brief mention of the work of Doris Santoro. In her book, Demoralized: Why Teachers Leave the Professional They Love and How They can Stay, Santoro draws on Gardner et al.’s definition of Good Work to assert that the policies of public schools preclude teachers from doing Good Work because they are so deeply at odds with teachers’ values and sense of purpose.


I’ve seen this all First-hand.

What does it mean for the student’s perception of Good Work? 


The misalignment (or malalignment) that comes from a society that over emphasizes test scores and standardized curriculum has resulted in a Student who has learned to ignore his own inner drive and value system. After years of receiving the implicit message that we expect him to learn the same content and perform the same way as everyone else, he has become complacent, cynical, or outright disillusioned. He has lost his sense of curiosity, wonder, and challenge.

When it comes time for this student to enter into a career, he has experienced years of being told what hoops to jump through and is quietly on edge from the anxiety of not performing up to other people’s standards. The result is an extreme lack of clarity about what he truly loves to do and how he can offer value in the workplace in a way that no one else can. As he examines his career options, he will struggle with indecision, or default to the path of least resistance (which has dozens of aliases, e.g. “where I’ll make the most money”, “what my parents did”, “where I won’t have to do math”, etc.). He may do well on the path laid out for him, and the career that follows may even look quite successful. 

But he won’t be happy.


CAREER COACHING: A POWERFUL SOLUTION TO A GROWING DILEMMA

The good news about the dilemma described above is that we can change it. As an answer to the subliminal stripping away of personal passion that our well-intentioned school system has caused, many have turned to career coaching as a way of honoring the blossoming professional core strengths and values as they look to design their future career. 

Here are five key ways a good career coach will help guide you toward the career you were meant for, while preparing you to make great career and life decisions for years to come:   

1. Knowing yourself.

Coaching provides you with the time and guidance to reflect and articulate your values, preferences, and strengths. A good coach will offer up a variety of relevant exercises and activities designed to brush the dust off of the core parts of who you are - parts that may have gone overlooked or unrecognized. While we can get struck in thinking, “Colleges and employers want that, so I need to be that”, the right college and employers want someone who is genuine and authentic, and the right colleges and employers for you will want who you are. Being able to articulate this will help you get where you want to be.   


2. Exploring your options.

Armed with a deeper sense of self-knowledge, a coach will help you to align your personal preferences with solid career options. Furthermore, your coach can guide you to stores of information that help you understand those professions more meaningfully than a quick description on a careers website.  

3. Connecting with professionals.

Perhaps the greatest wealth of information regarding a given profession are the people currently working in those roles. A good college and career coach with help you connect with those who are walking the walk, who are willing to tell you about their work and answer your questions. Not only does this help you make better decisions when it comes to career planning, but you may meet a few individuals who later become strong advocates for you as you enter into the field.

4. Asking the right questions.

Based on all that you’ve uncovered and articulated throughout the coaching process, your coach will help you turn your preferences into powerful questions that you should ask colleges and future employers. Some of the worst job-hunting stories involve someone who thinks they are landing a dream job, then turn out to be miserable because natural light is really important to them and their work space has no windows. This is a simplistic example (and perhaps not realistic for someone looking for entry level work), but you get the idea: If you don’t know what is important to you - and furthermore, don’t ask about it - you are unlikely to get it. 


5. Exercising your right to choose.

The coaching process is designed with you as the captain. While your coach may at times act as a guide, (s)he is really there to provide options. In the case of a career coach, they also might be an expert in a certain field, which means they have even more to share regarding those options. While your coach might give you “homework”, it is always your choice to do. This can be a double-edged sword - taking full responsibility for your own choices can be overwhelming. But, you will find that overcoming the pressure to adhere to misaligned expectations, and instead find the place where you truly thrive (and can help others thrive!), is empowering. Ultimately, you will learn that you had the power to choose all along, you just needed to use it.


It may not seem like it at first glance, but each of the above is a skill that can be practiced and honed within the honor-filled relationship between a coach and a blossoming professional. By keeping agreement you make with yourself throughout the coaching engagement, these skills become habits that will serve you throughout the duration of your life.

If you are interested in learning more about working with a career coach, you can reach out to me for a free phone consultation. I look forward to hearing from you!

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