Meaning at Work:
Using Group Facilitation at
Organizational Meetings to
Enhance Work Meaningfulness
6th European Conference on Positive Psychology
Moscow, June 26-29, 2012
Ib Ravn and Nina Tange
Program on Organization and Learning
Aarhus University, Denmark
www.edu.au.dk/fv
The good life
1. The pleasant life:
Positive emotions
2. The engaged life:
Flow & use of strengths
3. The meaningful life:
In the service of something
larger than yourself
4. Positive relations
5. Achievement
(Seligman, 2011)
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Research project in Denmark:
”Meetings that create value and meaning”
• Three partnerships: Bank and local and state government
agencies
• Intervention: We trained 150 managers in meeting facilitation
• Pre- and post-measurements: Does this increase meaning and
value creation?
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Meaning in meetings
• You experience meaning ”…when you find… events to be parts
of some larger whole…” (Dewey 1910: 117)
• To be involved and have a say in the organization is meaningful
because it connects you to the larger whole
• The organizational meeting is potentially a forum for connecting
to the larger whole
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Meetings often lack meaning
• Goals are unclear: Exactly what are we supposed to accomplish
(that will connect us to something larger)?
• Manager talks too much and it’s not relevant to me
• Discussions are unfocused and incoherent
• Meeting participants are passive, bored or alienated
= A meeting often disconnects employees from the larger
organizational whole.
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What is the meaning of life?
Terry Eagleton (The Meaning of Life, 2007):
1. Realize one’s virtues, potentials, strengths, needs
(Aristotle’s eudaimonia)
2. Helping others do the same: meet their needs
(love, as in the Christian caritas)
Realize your
potentials
Be valuable
to others
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Meaning in work life: Four factors
1. You realize your potentials and use your strengths
2. You use a unique combination of your strengths to make a
contribution (Drucker, 1999)
3. Your organization is valuable to its stakeholders: value creation
vs. value appropriation (Ghoshal, 2001)
4. You work with others to accomplish this: A productive
community
4. Productive
community
1. Realize your
potentials
2. Contribution
3. Value
creation
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Your time to reflect
What did you find interesting in that model?
• Talk to your neighbor (5 minutes)
• We hear some of your thoughts
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Use personal strengths and potentials (1)
Discovering strengts
.
• ”What energizes you in your
work?”
• ”When you are at your best
at work – what do you do?”
• Divide tasks according to
this
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Contribution to work (2)
Anchoring the meeting
goals
• ”How does this goal
influence your work?”
• ”How and what can you
contribute towards the
shared goal?”
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Organizational value creation (3)
Let’s hear it from the
customers
• Storytelling
• What do we do well?
• What could we do even
better?
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Productive work with others (4)
When we are at our best
Interviews for a group of colleagues:
• ”Recall when your productive work together was exceptionally
good: What did you do? What did the others do?”
• ”How have your colleagues contributed positively to your
productive work together? - Something you have been grateful
for”
• ”When did you experience positive emotions like joy, pride,
thankfulness, interest, hope, fun or inspiration – in you
productive work together?”
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What energizes you in your work?
Think 1 minute
Interview the person next to you:
• Mention one or two things and
explain why
• What strengths are you using
in these situations?
• How can you use this
knowledge in the future?
2 x 5 minutes
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More on meaning and meetings
Bains, Geoffrey m.fl. (2007): Meaning, Inc., London, Profile Business
Drucker, P. (1999): Management Challenges for the 21th Century. Harper.
Eagleton, Terry (2007): The Meaning of Life. Oxford University Press.
Ghoshal, Sumantra, Christopher A. Barlett og Peter Moran (1999): A New
Manifesto for Management, Sloan Management Review, 40(3): 9-20.
Ib Ravn (2007): ”Meetings in organizations: Do they contribute to
stakeholder value and personal meaning?” Academy of Management
Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, Aug. 3-7. (Google)
Ravn, Ib (2009): ”Meaning in Work Life.” First World Congress on Positive
Psychology, tinyurl.com/meaning-work
Ravn, Ib (2011): Facilitering: Ledelse af møder der skaber værdi og
mening. Hans Reitzel.
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