Tired of the Meta Job
We work two jobs: our actual work and then office politics
Did you feel prepared when you first started your career and entered the workforce? Most of us felt like we had many of the technical skills necessary to do a job well, but we soon realized there was a whole other layer of “work” in the workplace.
We discovered we needed to know how to manage our emotions and the boss’s ego, how to have a difficult conversation with a coworker, how to set boundaries to avoid burnout, how to promote ourselves without sounding arrogant, and a host of other “soft skills” that aren’t taught in school.
In fact, most of these interpersonal skills we learn from our families (hopefully it’s a healthy, functional family!), or our schoolmates and friends, but there’s no class that teaches us how to develop these skills. So we’re left to figure out which skills work best based on personal experience. A negative interaction means we need to adjust our behavior. A positive one means we can keep interacting that way. But we don’t know what we don’t know until we suddenly need a skill we never developed.
I recently saw a humorous yet poignant Instagram post from an employee about this very issue. She describes how she loves her job, but not what she describes as the “meta job.” She hates office politics, and the interpersonal skills necessary to navigate management roles. Like so many employees, as she becomes increasingly better at her technical job, her employer wants to move her into roles where the meta job complications also increase.
She laments that she is “too transparent, too dumb, and too bad at social cues to be able to do the meta job and [she] derives zero pleasure from the meta job.”
This young employee is not alone. One of the main topics I coach with manager-level clients is their anxiety about the “meta job” at their company. They enjoy their work, but don’t know how to manage the meta job and find it stressful. Many of them want to quit because they feel so defeated.
I would argue this is one of the biggest challenges facing leaders today. While they often train their staff on technical skills, they aren’t investing in the people skills their employees need to create a healthy, thriving company culture.
In the book An Everyone Culture, authors Robert Keegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey describe the challenge this way:
“In most organizations nearly everyone is doing a second job no one is paying them for—namely, covering their weaknesses, trying to look their best, and managing other people’s impressions of them. There may be no greater waste of a company’s resources. The ultimate cost: neither the organization nor its people are able to realize their full potential.”
This meta job challenge is a significant opportunity for conscious leaders. As we build conscious cultures, we intentionally create an environment that 1) decreases the energy-draining office politics of the meta job, and 2) teaches employees these vital interpersonal skills so they can be more effective and happier at work.
It’s often said management isn’t a promotion, it’s a career change. That’s because too few people have the people skills necessary to be a manager. Management skills require understanding interpersonal dynamics, organization structure, and how to coach your team to excellence. But if these skills aren’t taught or developed, both the manager and their teams are doomed to the miserable quagmire of the meta job.
The way we work isn’t working for most these days. That’s why so many employees are quiet quitting, reducing the hours they work, or leaving their industry altogether. Conscious leaders have an opportunity to challenge the status quo and transform the way we work by creating conscious cultures that empower people to do their best work. They prioritize purpose and people alongside profit, which ultimately leads to a more successful and prosperous company.
Let’s end the meta job and create conscious cultures that help our teams thrive.
Work happy. Live happy. BE happy.
Meredith
P.S. Become a paid subscriber today and join my quarterly group coaching calls!
And check out my podcast on Spotify!
The way we work and build teams is rapidly changing. Leaders often feel unprepared to navigate the transition. As a conscious leadership coach, consultant, and communicator, Meredith helps leaders and their teams create new ways of working and relating so they can prepare for the future by consciously co-creating it.
Contact her to develop your conscious leadership and transform your organization into the workplace of the future.
You can support my work developing more conscious leadership in the world by investing in a paid subscription to this newsletter. Upgrade your subscription today!
Work, Live, BE Happy Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Connect with Meredith on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for content related to these topics.