40 Job Crafting: The Give & Take of What You’re Passionate About & What the World Needs

We already talked about what you are passionate about and good at. And what the world wants and needs (at least what they show us they want and will pay us for in a job). But, as the famous Rolling Stones song lyric goes, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need.” I like this quote because it works both ways. Sometimes organizations and the world don’t always know all the things they need and the same goes for us.

Reviewing job postings or project descriptions does tell us what others say they want and it definitely tell us what skills others are willing to pay for. But it only tells us the needs they are aware of. It’s possible there are other things they need, they just aren’t aware of those needs. Part of your job as a leader and expert in people analytics will be to identify what is needed that hasn’t been realized or asked for by others yet. The best way to do this is to use the steps you’ve already followed. Use your data consumer and networking skills, to keep up to date and learn from what others are doing in the world of people analytics – look for exciting new applications and ways of doing things. Use your translator skills to assess challenges and opportunities and consider how these new ways of doing things can be applied to solve those challenges, in ways not realized today. When you do these things, you become the person bringing exciting ideas and fresh approaches to the organization in addition to your great skills – this makes you not just a people analytics professional but a thought leader. Finally, consider how you can show the value of your own passions to others even if they may not be directly asking for that work. For example, I am deeply passionate about de-biasing people data and bringing fairer people practices to my work. However, I rarely get requests specifically for this kind of work or see it written in a People Analytics job posting. That’s not because it isn’t needed, organizations and employees do need this work to be done. Still, if I were to do the above exercise, it probably wouldn’t have been a commonly repeated responsibility and I might have missed it. A sad outcome indeed given that that is where my true ikigai lies. So, when I do consulting work outside of my teaching work these days, I make a point to showcase this particular passion and strength area of mine. I explain how it is my specialty and that my work is informed by and done in the spirit of increasing fairness and reducing biases in the workplace and ask if it would be okay if we proceeded with our work being done in alignment with that as well. To this date, I have not received anything other than positive responses, it has allowed me to do work that is wanted and paid for, while injecting more of what I believe the world needs (but forgot to ask explicitly for) into the work. Not, this activity of shaping how you do your work is critical, to the next incredibly important concept to having a happy and fulfilling career we will cover – job crafting. Ikigai is about aligning what you love doing, with what you are good at, what you can be paid for and what the world needs – even if the world sometimes forgets to ask for what they need in the job posting. Just because someone hasn’t written something in a job posting or put it in the project description, doesn’t mean it isn’t wanted or needed. If you are passionate and/or skilled about something, make a point to always bring it up. Maybe you’ll be told that it isn’t needed at this time, but sometimes it is – in which case you’ll be bringing something special and extra to the table that others aren’t. And, when it isn’t, you’ve at least made it known that you have that ability so that when it is needed in the future you are the person they will call.