Embarking on the Quest to Find Your Right Fit in the Workplace
Every once in a while, a book comes along that rocks my world, and the book Wrong Fit, Right Fit: Why How We Work Matters More Than Ever, by Andre Martin, Ph.D., is one such volume. I had pre-ordered the book, and then it completely slipped my mind that I had done so. Thus it came as quite a surprise to receive it, and once I started reading it, I have not been able to stop thinking about it. Perhaps you too may have a similar experience if you read the book. At the very least, you might find that much of what I describe below resonates, based on your own experience.
The Elusive “Right Place to Work”
When I reflect back over a lengthy career, certain things stand out. Some of those things surface because they are still jarring, even in retrospect, while others come to mind because they’re pleasant memories that are nice to hang onto. Here are some characteristics of workplaces that constituted largely positive experiences for me (and hence the opposite of, or lack of, these things, tends to make other workplaces feel less positive):
- Collegiality. Even in what is now a far more distributed world of work, in the workplaces where I was the happiest, it had a lot to do with the people I worked with. Sometimes they were people I spent time with outside of work, and sometimes not so much, but either way, what a difference it made to be able to be around colleagues (virtually or in person) who were supportive, invested in what others around them were doing, and just plain fun to spend time with!
- Empathy. Empathy is important in all sorts of ways; in this case, I’m going to highlight how important it is in the relationship between a supervisor and those for whom they have people management responsibility. For anyone who has watched the HBO series Band of Brothers, which is based on the actual experiences of World War II Veterans (+), you may recall how relatively few of the officers who were portrayed in the series were effective as leaders. One of the many reasons why they weren’t effective was that they lacked empathy, that they did not model the selflessness that was so characteristic of those who they were there to lead, and when the stakes are literally life and death, that matters — a lot. (++) I’m happy to say that I’ve had a pretty good relationship with just about every person who has been my boss, and that has had a lot to do with them caring about me as a person (the same is true in reverse; recognizing and having empathy for the challenges your boss might be facing). There are a lot of other traits that are important in any work relationship, to be sure; empathy stands out for me.
- Purpose. Purpose is important at work in multiple ways. One is the nature of the work an organization does (often well-summarized via its mission statement). Another is the work that the employees do, and the extent to which they feel that work makes a difference, ideally in service of an organizational mission they believe in. But even in the absence of a compelling mission statement, it can make a real difference to feel like the work you’re doing is helping in some way, whether it’s making your colleagues’ lives better in some way, helping customers, or just helping the organization succeed in meeting its objectives. And sometimes, workplaces give employees a chance to volunteer their time, whether it’s via individual experiences they undertake, or as part of a group effort.
As far as “wrong fit” is concerned, Martin writes about how we all too often don’t heed our own internal compass. By way of example, I remember a job I accepted where I was brand new to the area. There were no warning signs that I can recall during the interviews, during which I had the opportunity to speak with many of the team members I would be working with, and also the person who would be my new boss. When I showed up for my first day of work a couple of weeks later, the person at the front desk asked for the name of my supervisor. When I gave them the name, I was informed that they were no longer with the company. Suffice to say, this was a huge red flag for me, and I briefly considered walking away from the job right then and there, because as it turned out, the hiring manager had already made a decision to leave the company before the interview process, and nobody ever bothered to share that information with me. I did ultimately accept the job, however, it wasn’t that long before other “wrong fit” signs became apparent. And ultimately, my time with that organization was relatively short, because I soon connected with an inspirational leader during a course, which led me to a different opportunity.
Determining What Fit Looks and Feels Like
Now let’s shift gears and see what Martin has to say about the keys to finding what feels right in the workplace. So what is “fit,” anyway? Like some of the more subjective things in life, “fit” might seem like it falls under the “I’ll know it when I see it (or feel or experience it)” category. Here is one way in which the author defines fit that especially resonates with me:
“Fit is fully realized when who talent is (all of the characteristics and experience that make them unique) and how talent prefers to work aligns with what the company values are and how they company works day-to-day.”
Another thing that has really stuck with me is the Venn Diagram below (which is Figure 1 in the book). Martin articulates three types of mismatch, as shown in the diagram:
- Person mismatch. The organization values what an employee brings to the table in terms of knowledge and skills, but doesn’t value the employee as a person. (“No one at the company ‘looks’ like me, but many people work like me.”)
- Work style mismatch. The organization cares about the employee as a person, but doesn’t agree with or value the person’s way of doing the work. (“People at the company ‘look’ like me, but don’t work like me.”)
- Total mismatch. The organization values neither the employee as a person nor the work that the employee does. (“No one at the company ‘looks’ like me or works like me.”)
As I read Martin’s description of what right fit feels like in practice, where doing your best work can almost seem effortless at times, it reminds me of what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has said and written about what it’s like to be in a state of flow. (For example, see Csikszentmihalyi’s TED Talk, and for a longer description of flow, see what I wrote on this topic, at the link below.) In a general sense, the more that a company’s employees are in a flow state, the better their chances of doing their best work. And thus it is not much of a leap to suggest that companies are wise to do all that they can to help their employees be in a flow state — that is, feel they’re in a “right fit” situation as much as possible. How many companies can actually say they make this a reality for their employees? The only honest answer is very, very few.
Right about now, you might very well be thinking something like “right fit seems similar to what it means to have a healthy organizational culture.” And indeed, near the beginning of the book, Martin shares that when he first started working on the book, his thought process was indeed leading him in the direction of focusing on workplace culture, and what it means for a workplace culture to be a healthy one. However, once he started looking carefully at the data he had gleaned from interviewing many knowledge workers, he realized that there was something more specific happening, which he concluded had a lot to do with right fit or wrong fit in the workplace. (+++)
To sum up, Martin found as he spoke with knowledge workers that right fit is a rare commodity. Consider what the experience tends to look like for prospective employees when they’re being recruited. While the way the company works might surface during an interview, either intentionally or in answer to a question a candidate might ask, topics that tend to get a lot more attention during the recruitment process include things like the company brand, a catchy or impressive job title, or the opportunity to make more money, among other things.
He goes on to observe that based on the conversations he had with knowledge workers, it was common for people to feel like something had felt off during the interview process. All the while, there were lots of other signals they needed to process about the prospective job, some of which felt positive, and convinced them to ignore that nagging feeling in their gut. And, for the many who did find themselves in a “wrong fit” situation, “… they admitted to working harder and longer hours to make up for the feeling of misalignment, leaving them more stressed, less productive, disengaged, and lacking confidence.”
How People Describe Wrong Fit and Right Fit
Martin shares many stories gleaned from knowledge workers he spoke with in the course of preparing to write the book. What it feels like to be in a wrong fit or a right fit situation varies based on the individual and the organizational context they’re working in. Still, there is much that we can learn from hearing personal experiences. Here are examples of those stories.
Wrong Fit #1
“I didn’t feel like I was set up to succeed. I didn’t feel like they cared to onboard me. I was kind of just left to my own devices to figure stuff out … I really felt like I was watching or letting things happen that were compromising my own values … I was genuinely depressed. I slept whenever I wasn’t working. I would have panic attacks. I was so genuinely stressed all the time about everything and nothing. So it [wrong fit] took like, all of me, pretty much.”
Wrong Fit #2
“It went terribly wrong on day four … I had relocated my family across the country, was excited about the mission of the company, and then had my first status with my boss … and I came face-to-face with how she worked. I knew it wouldn’t work for me. I left there sobbing, realizing I made another horrible career move.”
Wrong Fit #3
[After being with a company for a number of years and then seeing the company’s purpose motive change ] … “I stopped doing all the citizenship behaviors inside of the team. I no longer stayed past my allotted eight hours of work or took on additional duties on the team … the team’s purpose was being compromised for an arbitrary number.”
Right Fit #1
“Right fit is seamless … I get to worry about my work and doing a good job instead of all the other stuff …” [first, the company is purpose-driven and has] … “this self-filtering thing where the people that join are so motivated by the mission that they are willing to make a little bit less money …” [and second, the day-to-day work environment is] … “anxiety free, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t hard. It is just that the ways of working are built with a vibe of ‘do your best.’ It doesn’t have to be perfect. That is very different from other places I’ve been.”
Right Fit #2
“For me, there’s two elements. There’s the head, or how, logically things have to make sense. The way decisions are made, what bureaucracy exists or doesn’t, or how work flows from team to team. Then, there’s the heart, or how you are treated by your peers and your leaders or how the system helps [or not] you personally to talk about the things you need to talk about … I grew up in a frugal house, and this company was run that way. I really felt like I was spending my own money for the company the way I would spend my own money. And, I loved that the president traveled coach, because that is how everyone did it.”
Right Fit #3
“Being new to the [travel industry], there were some true travel nerds, people who are tracking prices and types of planes … And, I liked how passionate people were about travel. They would work really hard on flights for others then hop on a plane cross-country for a day. It wasn’t my thing, but seeing people be so passionate was inspiring …” [and the multi-day on-boarding] “… When I first experienced it, it felt like a scavenger hunt around the city … nothing super-exciting. But, I came to appreciate that it was meant to show what the company was all about … creating fun and adventures.”
Attributes of the Modern Workplace
If you’re not yet sufficiently intrigued to pick up the book, based on what I’ve mentioned thus far, I’ll share a few highlights from the first chapter, in which Martin describes trends that got us to where we are now (I’m picking just a couple of the seven trends that he mentions; I suspect that one or both of these might strike a chord with you as well):
- The Rise of the Culture Deck
- The Decade of Decadent Growth
The Rise of the Culture Deck
You might very well have guessed what Martin is referencing via the term he uses to refer to this trend. Back in 2009, a presentation that originated in HR circles at Netflix eventually went viral, which came to be known simply as the “culture deck.” I no longer recall exactly when I first saw a virtual version of the deck, but whenever it was, I remember that it made a lasting impression on me, because much of what was described sounded like workplace nirvana.
Did the reality at Netflix match what was described in the slide deck? Certainly not. And as I thought about this, I was reminded of a similar phenomenon. In 2014, the web page and accompanying video called Spotify Engineering Culture made a similar splash, albeit within a smaller circle of people consisting mostly of practitioners of Agile and Lean software development. As the person who articulated the concepts and practices in Spotify Engineering Culture, Henrik Kniberg, has pointed out on many occasions, it was never his intention to suggest that what he described represented how things “should be done,” or even that the way Spotify worked exactly matched what he described.
Ultimately, many people attempted to package and replicate the ideas from the Spotify Engineering Culture in other organizations, and some people even started referring to it as the “Spotify Model.” In much the same way, the practice of describing organizational culture in an aspirational way, as had been done in the culture deck, eventually spread to many organizations. Ultimately, the gap between the talking points in corporate messaging and the reality on the ground has become ever wider over time. As Martin points out:
“These brand campaigns made culture aspirational and the day-to-day climate less and less of a priority. We began talking more about who we aspire to be than focusing on how work was actually getting done.”
The Decade of Decadent Growth
Although it may be particularly painful to contemplate it now as we find ourselves in a period where layoffs have been all-too-common, the decade from 2010 to 2020 saw rapid growth. This growth was manifested in all sorts of ways, from companies having more money to spend, to greater opportunities for innovation, and where consumers on average had more resources available to them to spend.
I think back to a similar time a little more than a decade earlier. In the late 1990s, I had been recently transplanted to Silicon Valley, during what we now sometimes refer to as the “Internet Bubble.” Like many people in and around the Bay Area, I worked for a startup for a while. Soon after I joined one of the most successful technology companies in the Valley (Cisco Systems). I still remember looking around what was an enormous conference room on the main Cisco campus and seeing the scores of other people who like me, had just joined the company (at that point in time, it was typical for there to be hundreds of new employees each week!) I also remember thinking something along the lines of “I’ll probably never see most of these people again,” and that proved to be true, given that the main campus at that time consisted of more than 40 buildings spread across three cities.
Fast forwarding to the recent past, on a smaller scale, many companies went on a spending and hiring spree as the world emerged from the pandemic, and quite a few of those have rapidly applied the brakes over the past year or so. Thus what was true at the end of the Internet Bubble, and as the decade of the ‘10’s came to a close, has also been true in recent times — rapid retrenchment among many organizations. As Martin writes:
“… Growth puts pressure on culture. When growth is that consistent over that long a period, invariably ways of working and leadership habits are formed that don’t help in tougher times. Companies learned how to hire at a greater rate of speed but lost the muscle of deep assessment of values and skills. Leadership learned to tell glowing stories of success but lost the ability to help their talent continually grow faster than the company.”
Searching for the Right Fit
I would never suggest that finding the right fit is easy. It takes work, and it needs to begin with a self-inventory. The whole middle section of the book consists of exercises intended to guide the seeker on this journey. Martin refers to each exercise as an excursion. The names of the excursions are:
- Examine your most consistently held values.
- What is the life you are trying to build?
- What is your superpower? And what are your shadow sides?
- Are you of company, craft, or cause?
- Who brings out the best in you? What do you need in a leader?
- If you started a company, what would you do? How would you want it to feel to work there?
- What matters to you the most right now?
Conclusion
It is my hope that you have found this teaser of some of the foundational ideas expressed in Wrong Fit, Right Fit to be as thought-provoking as I have. I have barely scratched the surface with respects to the insights you can potentially gain from reading it and completing one or more of the excursions. Other topics that Martin covers include interviewing and on-boarding, buffers (techniques that can help with fit over time), and recruiting.
If you have the time and the means to do so, I hope you also read the book. And most importantly, I hope the ideas expressed in this book help individuals take inventory of what is most important to them, and also lead to dialogue that can help transform our workplaces so that fewer people find themselves in a wrong fit situation.
End Notes
(+) The Band of Brothers series is based on a book of the same name by Stephen E. Ambrose. The book (and the series) tell the story of Easy Company, beginning with the initial training of the first wave of soldiers to join in 1942, and following their journey from parachuting in to land on the beaches at Normandy, fighting across multiple countries in Europe, seeing many of their colleagues fall in action, and culminating with the capture of the Eagle’s Nest in 1945 at the end of the campaign.
(++) Having spent some time on active duty myself (US Air Force), the unique bond that members of the military often have with each other is difficult to duplicate, and it is one of the things that is missed the most by those who have the opportunity to move on to civilian life without paying the ultimate price.
(+++) To reinforce the point, Martin later references a 2020 study by MIT and Culture 500. In that study, a key finding was that there was no correlation between the cultural values that a company publishes and the extent to which the company actually lived up to those values in the eyes of its employees. Company leaders might even truly believe that they’re living up to those values, at least some of the time, but the reality is generally altogether different.
