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This is a story that I was told during my initial training in the consulting corporation where I worked for 4 years. It’s of course not specific to that place - it’s a very well known parable. I’ve met many people who never heard it, however, so here it is, with some commentary.

A man was walking past a cathedral which was under construction. He saw some stone-cutters hard at work, smoothing the surface of rough stones into flat planes that would make the walls of the cathedral.

He asked the first one: “What are you doing?”

The first man sighed, shrugged and replied, “I’m cutting some stone, just doing my job.”

He asked the second man: “What are you doing?”

The second man nodded and replied, with the hint of a smile: “I’m building a massive wall!”

Finally, he asked the third man: “What are you doing?”

The third man looked up, his eyes filled with tears, and with a worshipful tone he said “I’m building a cathedral!”

The moral of this story is clear: your enjoyment of your work will vary greatly depending on your perspective on that work.

For yourself

Within my own experience, I found that in my consulting years, when I started working at my first client, the only way I was able to cope with the often mind-numbing work I was assigned as a first task (Junior Software Engineers get all the fun bits, right?) was to frame it as part of my work at a consulting company. Even back then, I remember thinking, and saying to some of my friends, that if I was working directly for the client I would probably have quit in despair. Truth is, the financial dependence on the job would probably have kept me there, but not very long.

People are always more motivated when you let them see the big picture. Nobody wants to answer support tickets, but I’m willing to do so because I know that good support is part of the bigger picture of running a successful business. I hate cold calling, but I can motivate myself by seeing it as an integral part of the success of my company.

Whenever you feel that your job is meaningless skull drudgery, you have three choices: stop doing it (far more often an option than you’d think); be miserable; or change your perspective on it.

Most jobs have some worthwhile perspective, some purpose, unless you’re Sisyphus. Find that greater purpose and you can make even writing spreadsheets by hand motivating. And, as one of my friends used to say, if you can convince yourself that the stuff everyone else finds boring is actually a lot of fun, you’ve got an edge, because you’re willing to do (and be good at) things that few people do.

For others (effective delegation)

Similarly, if you’re going to give something boring to do to someone else, make sure you explain to them why they’re doing it, what the greater picture is - and also why they’re the one stuck with it. That will go a long way towards motivating them.

I’ve had many tasks delegated to me during four years of consultancy, and have done my share of delegating to other people. One thing I quickly understood was that effective delegation delegates the context of a task as well as the task. The worst delegations started with “Can you do this thing for me?” The best started with “We need to do X, for the purpose of achieving our objectves. It’s important for Y to get done so that X can proceed. Can you help with Y?”

In essence, always delegate the context of the task with the task. If you can even transfer ownership of the context along with the task, then you’re doing it right. I’ll write a later post on effective delegation with a bit more detail, but this is the key concept.