What kind of bricklayer are you?
One day in 1671, the architect Christopher Wren observed three bricklayers on a scaffold—one crouched, one half-standing, and one standing tall—working hard and fast.
To the first bricklayer, Wren asked, “What are you doing?” to which the bricklayer replied, “I’m a bricklayer. I’m working hard laying bricks to feed my family.”
The second bricklayer responded, “I’m a builder. I’m building a wall.”
The third bricklayer, the most productive of the three, when asked the question, “What are you doing?” replied with a gleam in his eye, “I’m a cathedral builder. I’m building a great cathedral to the Almighty.”
This is a story about how you choose to define your work. The three bricklayers may have performed the same function, yet they assigned different meanings to it.
In my organization, I might ask three analysts working on an Excel spreadsheet the following question: “What are you doing?” and receive three different answers. The first might say, “I’m debugging this spreadsheet.” The second might reply, “I’m building a model to predict the stock market.” Thinking about a metaphorical cathedral, the third might respond, “I’m finding ways to help our clients enjoy better retirements.”
In this alternate version of the cathedral story, the third analyst is undeniably happier, more motivated, and more productive than the other two—and not because she’s doing something different. It’s because she thinks about her work differently. She has given meaning to her actions.
It’s important to consider this because sometimes work is boring and there’s no way around it. Some jobs are repetitive, monotonous, and tedious, and we simply have to get them done. Most organizations have tasks like this. And they’re often critical, but thankless, high-turnover roles.
If you want to improve employee retention you can’t motivate the people in these roles by force. You must do it with empathy. You need to put yourself in their shoes and consider how you’d feel if you found yourself in this role and how you’d motivate yourself to do the task.
Tthere are probably tasks that you must do that you find boring. Everyone has parts of their roles like that. Even writing my book, which was a passion project for me, required me to find motivation to format, edit, and compile references.
The good news is that whatever the task is it’s possible to increase engagement.
In his book Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explains that when you pay attention to what you’re doing, you become more interested in your work. It’s a virtuous circle, he explains:
“If you focus attention on anything, it is likely that you will become interested in it. Many of the things we find interesting are not so by nature, but because we took the trouble of paying attention to them.”
There’s a direct link here to mindfulness, a concept familiar to those involved in meditation. It’s a bit counterintuitive, but it helps reframe the idea that “I’m focusing on something because it’s interesting” to “something is interesting because I’m focusing on it.”
One of the best ways to motivate yourself is to think like that third bricklayer, or analyst. Consider how your “boring” tasks fits into a larger, well-defined, inspiring goal.
This is a lesson I was exposed to during my first summer job, which was in general building maintenance. My friend and I worked for a real estate mogul who owned various commercial and residential buildings across the city. We swept parking lots, cleaned factories, mowed lawns, painted apartments, and so on. None of these tasks were particularly engaging. And, because this was my first job, I hadn’t developed any work ethic, which is another way of saying I was lazy. I would count the minutes between breaks. But sometimes, I would get in the groove, and time would fly.
Looking back, the number one contributor to my engagement in a task was how easy it was to notice progress. Some tasks seemed senseless—for example, sweeping a parking lot or cleaning a factory where we barely made a dent and couldn’t see progress. These tasks were impossible to complete. My friend and I could’ve spent years on them. And even if you broke down the task to a smaller area, no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t entirely remove the accumulated dirt. It was hard to measure progress, and the goal was unattainable anyway.
However, I enjoyed mowing lawns and painting apartments because the goal was clear (to finish the task), and I could track progress in real time. When you mow the lawn or paint an apartment, you can eyeball the percentage you’ve completed. That’s immediate feedback. There really is something satisfying about seeing the immediate impact of your work toward a well-defined, attainable goal.
Here are my recommendations to help you and your organization stay engaged:
“No” is the most powerful word in time management. Use the word “No” and focus on high return on time spent (ROTS) activities.
Your goals should be clear, and the rewards or feedback should be well-defined.
Use metrics that will help focus attention on progress towards goals.
Learn to differentiate between linear and non-linear goals.
Remember that any task can be enjoyable if you pay enough attention.
Seek (and provide if you’re a manager) consistent, frequent, and immediate feedback.
Set individual or organizational goals that balance challenge and capability.
Consider how granular goals fit into your great goal. (I’ve written on this before.)
Seb
When he decided to write a book on leadership and self-improvement, Sébastien Page was rejected by over 200 literary agents.
He was asked, “Why would a finance expert write about leadership?” He was told to stay in his lane.
Sébastien has more than two decades of leadership experience. As an author, he believes breakthroughs often happen when experts venture outside their field. That is why, in "The Psychology of Leadership," he went beyond finance and economics to study research in psychology.
He is currently Head of Global Multi-Asset and Chief Investment Officer at T. Rowe Price. He oversees a team of investment professionals actively managing over $500 billion in assets under management.
Sébastien won research paper awards from The Journal of Portfolio Management in 2003, 2010, 2011, and 2022 and the Financial Analysts Journal in 2010 and 2014. In addition to The Psychology of Leadership, he is the author of Beyond Diversification: What Every Investor Needs to Know About Asset Allocation (McGraw Hill, 2020) and the coauthor of Factor Investing and Asset Allocation (CFA Institute Research Foundation, 2016).
Sébastien is also a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Portfolio Management and the Financial Analysts Journal, and the Board of Directors of the Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance (Q Group). He regularly appears in the media, including Bloomberg TV and CNBC, and was recently named amongst the 15 Top Voices in Finance by LinkedIn.