How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life pdfdrive com

Apply your strengths in the way you approach your existing work.
Think
about the tasks on your plate right now. What would it take to use your
strengths more fully in the way you tackle them? For example, if you know
you’re good at finding clarity amid confusion, can you be more deliberate in
using that talent to help yourself and others stay focused on what matters? If
you have strong social intelligence, can you do more to engage a coalition of
supporters around the work you’re doing, or to address important
interpersonal angles that colleagues might otherwise miss?
Use your strengths to help you embrace new challenges.
When we take on
a new responsibility, we usually have plenty to learn—but we can still lean
on what we know we’re good at to keep ourselves in discovery mode as we
wrestle with what’s unfamiliar. For example, perhaps you’re giving a
presentation to your board for the first time. If you’re great at digging insights
out of complex data, you might choose to lead with a startling fact and build
your presentation from that starting point. But if you enjoy meeting new
people, you might decide to find out about each board member’s interests, so
you can speak directly to them in the meeting. Either way, you’ll be more
relaxed and impressive than if you completely ignored what you know you’re
good at.
These subtle tweaks can make the difference between you feeling exhausted
and having energy left at the end of the day. And over time, being aware of your
strengths puts you in a better position to create and seize opportunities that will
add to your daily job satisfaction, by taking on tasks or projects that reflect your
strengths more fully. This doesn’t mean changing jobs or taking on more work,
necessarily—it just means taking the initiative to redefine the focus of your job,
within your existing job description. It’s what management professors Amy
Wrzesniewski (Yale) and Jane Dutton (University of Michigan) call “job
crafting.”
6
Ben discovered the power of job crafting when he was working for an agency
that provided civilian oversight of the New York Police Department. An average
day might involve conducting community interviews and reviewing ballistics
reports—but in the evenings, he’d shift gears completely by performing on the

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stand-up comedy circuit. Ben enjoyed his day job, he says, but he liked it even
more when he found ways to apply his wider talents as a performer. He shares an
example: “I worked with three other colleagues, and our team had a number of
training commitments, such as giving lectures on how search-and-seizure laws
work. Any one of us could have done it, but I volunteered to give them because I
realized it was a chance for me to make use of my relative comfort with being
onstage. I could be funny and entertaining, which held people’s attention,
making the sessions more impactful. I realized that humor could be an asset to
me in any context, not just after work.” Reflecting on this, Ben says: “You need
to make a commitment to understanding yourself. Get an honest view of what’s
enjoyable to you, and then figure out how to do more of those things. That way,
you can avoid being one of those guys whose only focus at work is keeping their
heads above water.”