By Neal Glatt

With love the theme of Valentine’s Day today, it seems appropriate to ask if you’re feeling the love.  How important is loving what we do at work everyday and loving who we work with?  Does it really matter or can it be changed?  The research may surprise you because…

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It turns out that what we’re doing doesn’t matter nearly as much as who we’re doing it with and how we accomplish our work.  Of course, the mission and purpose of our company should inspire us and make us feel our jobs are important.  Fortunately, working in the green industry means that everyday we’re enhancing the natural environment, contributing to positive health outcomes for those who experience nature, and saving the planet through sustainable practices.  Those who also do snow know that we’re saving lives and allowing society to function despite devastating winter weather.

But doing something great doesn’t create a job we love if we don’t love our teammates or our role.  Everyone needs teammates who are committed to quality and the need for strong social bonds.  In fact, those who can say they have a best friend at work are seven times as likely to be very committed to, involved in, and enthusiastic about their jobs when compared to those who feel like they simply work with co-workers.  

And those who feel like their best contributions are being routinely ignored will always be fighting feelings of depletion and frustration.  Instead, we need to work on identifying and building on strengths.  It’s not just a feel good exercise either as teams that focus on their strengths realized a whopping 29.4% more profit that traditional teams!  Quite simply, we can’t afford to ignore a strengths-based approach.

So, are you feeling the love this Valentine’s Day?  Or is it time to explore how you can better leverage your strengths, reconnect with your team, or find better alignment between your role and your purpose?  Maybe you need to forward this blog to a supervisor or direct report to start a conversation.  Or perhaps you should check out the courses here on GrowTheBench.  Or maybe you need to contact us for help.  Let’s stop working jobs we don’t love and make today the day we take a first step towards a better career.