Martha Finney, Writer "Find Your Calling, Love Your Life"

Bowen:     Martha, what prompted you to write the book, "Find Your Calling, Love Your Life"?

Finney:     Well, after fifteen years of researching and reporting on human resource problems in business, it occurred to me that there had to have been the other side of the story, which is, of course, actual human resource, joyful experiences in business. I've been writing for managers for years, and I also thought it's time for me to write to individuals, most of whom are managers, as well. So my mission was to start telling the story of how things actually work well in the workplace.

Bowen:     My sense is, from your writing and conversations that we've had, that people live sort of a duplicitous life. They feel one way in their work environment, and they feel another way in their private life.

Finney:     Right. If you envision the typical movie reel, the pictures are separated out from the sound track and the sound track runs alongside of the actual filmstrip. Well, I think that the way we approach our work lives is that the work story of what we do every day is the sound track. It's part of the whole story, but it's not really an integrated part of our life story. And I have come to believe that the people who are happiest in their careers are the one's who have managed to blend the sound track of their work story into the actual narrative of their life, and they see how integrated it really is.

Bowen:     You were at the site of the Oklahoma bombing; is that correct?

Finney:     Right.

Bowen:     And you made some observations. Would you share those with us?

Finney:     Sure. Actually that was one of the instigators for putting me on this particular path of looking at folks who loved their work. I was sent to Oklahoma City the day after the bombing to report on the business management side of it -- how the companies are dealing with the upheaval. And I was dutifully doing that reporting. But between interviews, I would be walking the streets and looking at the intersections that were blocked off by police cars, etc. and I'd stand there and watch the police in action and the rescue workers in action and the firemen in action. And although, without a doubt, it was traumatic and horrible and horrifying and all those superlative words of what is terrible, there's also the sense of people being in the saddle, doing what they were trained to do, doing the thing that really excited them.

And I discovered that this is what the self-motivated worker is. And I know that, of course, to be self-motivated, it doesn't mean that you have to be a rescue worker in one of history's worst incidences. But that was, to me, an example of joy in the workplace?is these guys going to work every day, doing the worst possible job you could ever imagine, tucking their hard hat under their arms, and clanking off the site at the end of the day full. But, somehow, they were in their groove. And it really struck me that this is what it means to be in love with your work.

Bowen:     In your work, you've referenced fear and shame. "Reject fear," you say, "and learn from shame."

Finney:     Right.

Bowen:     What might you have said about anger?

Finney:     Okay. One of the reasons why we're angry at work is because we expect the workplace to be almost like a machine. It's logical, it's clean, it's well ordered, it works as long as you push the buttons in the right order and you turn it on and turn it off. We expect that. But in actuality, the workplace is full of human beings, many of whom come to the workplace from having had a terrible family history. They learn how to relate to other people based on how they were treated growing up. And they bring that pile into the workplace and treat each other accordingly. So it's not surprising that there is plenty of anger in the workplace, given profit, motivation, dysfunction that comes from the home, the fear of losing jobs. All that stuff comes into the workplace, and is absolutely there. There is no question.

But my interest is by showing that, with so many examples that I've been able to find, that there are other experiences in the workplace that you can also have. And if you find yourself in an angry situation in the workplace, if you can identify that it has nothing to do with you and your own particular set of dysfunctions, that it is a hopeful thing to be able to expect to express yourself well in another workplace environment.

Bowen:     As you write about things in your work, "Find Your Calling, Love Your Life," you talk about turning handicaps into assets, and rejecting fear and learning from shame. Talk a little bit about the concept of fear.

Finney:     Well, in "Find Your Calling, Love Your Life", the chapter, Reject Fear is one of my favorite chapters, and that's about Victoria McCurnan who is something of my idol. She loaded up her car at the age of 18 and spent three years traveling the country, came back, loaded up some suitcases, and then spent another few years traveling the world. So I have a lot of admiration for her. And what she says in the chapter is that sometimes fear is your own blanket. And she tells the story of how she, her first night on the road, she spent the night on the beach in Ocean City, and she took her blanket down to the beach to stretch out and go to sleep. And she felt this brushing against her knee, and she was convinced that she was being chased by an orangutan in her imagination and the high stress of leaving and being young. So she ran. And the more she ran, of course, the more that fuzzy, soft slapping on her knee continued faster and faster until she realized, of course, that it was the blanket that she was carrying that had hit her on the knee. So as she says, of course then, that sometimes fear is your own blanket.

And I think that a lot of the negative feelings that we bring into the workplace are negative feelings that are at least enhanced by our fears and angers and imagination that we can, at least, try to override by reasoning things through in the privacy of our own minds, even though all around us, things might be going crazy.

Bowen:     What about shame, what's the message on shame?

Finney:      Well, once again, this is a chapter of Chuck Bevins who came from a dysfunctional family, and he learned to really regret a lot of things that he did growing up and as a young man. And he could have chosen to carry that as baggage on his shoulders for the rest of his life, especially his career life, but, instead, he realized that he wasn't alone in those kinds of shameful issues, and a lot of people were coming to him. He's a used car salesman, of all things. And a lot of people were coming to him feeling burdened by their own mistakes that they made in life, particularly credit worthiness, and he felt that it was his calling to help his customers dilute the power of their own shame. You know, getting them in a car was the least of it. It was helping them realize that they can negotiate in the marketplace. So his greatness wasn't selling used cars; his greatness was relieving the pain of other people in the used car lot.

Bowen:     If you had written a chapter about anger, what learning might you have conveyed to us about anger?

Finney:     Anger can be a terribly debilitating emotion, especially in the workplace. I believe that, if you respond in anger, you will only disarm yourself in your own effectiveness. If you stand as the target of someone else's anger, you do the same thing.

I think that it's possible, as we claim for ourselves a more self-directed career, we can choose to shift angry reactions that we might be more vulnerable to doing in the workplace, and shift that prospective into something that's a little better. We can rise above the scenario, be a more adult person in the situation, and return to a level of professionalism that at least defuses the circumstance at the moment. I don't believe that anybody should be victim to anger in the workplace or victimize anybody else using their anger.

I also believe that anybody who's in the circumstance where they're afraid of their supervisors on any level, whether it's physical or emotional, or afraid of their co-workers, should continue to be there. There's no reason why anybody should be in a situation where they are unhappy at work. There's too much happiness going on that everybody can tap into.

Bowen:     One of the conclusions that we draw in reading your stories is that people seem to overcome adversity, whether it's fear or shame or anger, by rising to their calling...

Finney:     Right. Well, I think that your work story is an opportunity to be the hero in your own life. And I don't want to use the word "hero" in a silly way, but we're all looking for the high adventure, the great experience, where we're challenged with courage and patience, dedication, saving the world on some level; all of us are. We all identify with the hero in the movies. Well, most of us live very tame lives in most circumstances. But in the workplace, that's our opportunity to save the world in the smallest possible way. Even the waitress in the doughnut shop can save the world in some fashion.

I remember I once went to get gas during a day where I was just feeling horribly depressed and unhappy with the way I was looking, and miserable in the relationship, and I was on the verge of tears. And I went to the gas station attendant to give him my money, and I couldn't even look at him in the eye. And he just said a few kind words to me and I can't even remember what they were, but I'll never forget the moment. And, you know, I'll never forget this man. He just said, "Hey, darling," even, or something, and it was just so sweet. He has no idea that I remember him four years later when he, he was able to lift my spirits on that one day. So no matter who we are and where we are in the workplace, we do have the power to save the world on a daily level.

Bowen:     Is, is it possible that, that some people are not aware that they have a mission or that they aren't feeling motivated to save the world?

Finney:     Oh, of course. I think most of us are in that position. I think that to find your calling is an incredibly privileged place to be and I think a lot of people have a calling. How close they are to remembering what it was or discovering it is another matter altogether. I think that for a lot of people, the first step is just developing the faith that they can actually be happy and have self-respect in the workplace environment, which is what I'm doing now with Heartland. Once you get there, once you get the faith that you can be an adult and a happy one at work, then, you can start looking around for your calling.

Bowen:     It sounds sort of surrealistic to think that everyone can be tuned in and hear some magical voice to arise to their calling. How realistic is that?

Finney:     It's as realistic as you want it to be. If you are really open to the concept of having a calling and you're receptive to the inspiration to that little nudge, wherever it may come from, the chances are better, of course, that you'll have it. You'll find a calling, and it'll motivate you beyond any levels that you could think of. Writing the book, "Find Your Calling, Love Your Life," was my calling. And before I was inspired to do this, I was living pretty much hand to mouth as a free lance writer not doing very well. And all of a sudden, I had this book idea, and now I'm being published. So that's an example of how a calling just elevates your effectiveness to a whole new level, and you really become much more powerful on a broader plane.

But if you're not ready to belly-up to your calling, the best thing you can do for yourself is just restore in your own mind the expectation that you can just be happy at work. Then, find work that makes you happy, and know that there is work out there that will do that for you. I'm finding that corporations are increasingly concerned with recruitment and retention issues, obviously, because the employment, unemployment, rate is so low. So there are companies who really do care about how you feel, and they're putting in programs that will engineer that for you, and take advantage of it. Now is the time to be choosy about what you do for a living and how you feel about doing it.

Bowen:     How believable is that, I mean that there are companies out there that really care about people?

Finney:     Okay. Companies don't care about people, 'cause companies are companies. But there are individuals within the corporation who sees the corporate benefit to developing a reputation of taking care of their employees. I'm not saying "taking care of the employees from birth to earth," as they say. But at least while the employees are there, with training programs, interpersonal relationship training, you know, all the things that you can imagine that would help you be a happier individual and a more effective employee, those programs are in place on the cutting-edge companies. They're there. The record shows it. So, no, companies don't care, but people inside the companies do because they see that it's much more cost effective to retain their employees than to lose them to high, unhappy turnover.

Bowen:     What obligation do leaders have in organizations to create the kind of environment where people can feel fulfilled and responsive to some personal calling?

Finney:     Well, again, companies don't have the obligation to fulfill an individual's calling. The individual who has a calling would be better advised to find a company who has that need, and then you have the match.

Now, in terms of obligation, if you're talking about a moral obligation or a bottom line obligation, those are two different things. The corporate bottom line obligation is that it is much cheaper to recruit and retain once. If you end up having to recruit and train and lose that person to turnover, over and over and over again, you're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in just the process of finding someone new. So the bottom line obligation, of course, is just simply the bottom line. It's more cost effective to be decent to your employees. The moral obligation, that's up to the individual leaders and how they feel about themselves when they look in the mirror every day.

Bowen:     What does that say about loyalty?

Finney:     I don't believe in loyalty anymore. What is loyalty in the workplace? What is that? I mean, I think that loyalty should be the contract between the employee and the employer, an exchange of goods and services for money. When the job is done, when it's no longer needed, that person should be able to say, "Nice doing business with you," and go somewhere else. Why should companies expect loyalty of any kind? That's just such a bazaar concept, especially in today's work environment. In retrospect, it was a bazaar concept 30 years ago, because it's those employees now who are the ones who are getting laid off. So, I wish we'd stop talking about loyalty. I do not believe in loyalty anymore. I don't think that should be part of the transaction. When you're buying a shampoo in the supermarket, you're not asking Procter and Gamble whether they're going to be loyal to you. I mean, it's a financial transaction, goods and services for money, period.

Bowen:     But yet, you know, if the consumer buys a product that's defective or unhealthy or harmful, doesn't the company have an obligation to be loyal to its customers to protect their interests?

Finney:     Well, I don't know if that's loyal, I think it's just being. I think the, the loyalty in the consumer/supplier dynamic is a two-way street. I mean, I buy Crest because I, not necessarily because... Just more habit than anything else. But it's, you know, I would expect a legitimate exchange of good and service, goods and services. The shampoo I buy should wash my hair, and until it stops doing that, I'll continue to buy that shampoo. So, yes, the company has a loyal customer. However, if it stops doing that, I'm out of there, and I'm not emotionally attached to Procter and Gamble. And I think that when you're talking about loyalty in the employment transaction, it's always the employee who's expected to be loyal to the employer. Well, I don't think so. That's not the, that's not the adult business relationship. That harkens back to the paternalistic relationship.

Bowen:     In one sense, as I hear you speak about commitment and loyalty, it sounds as if there's not an opportunity for relationship building between an employer and employee where there can be trust, where there can be commitment, where there can be personal fulfillment.

Finney:     I think that to bring the word "loyalty" into the discussion of workplace interaction is a bad idea, especially today when, there is no guarantee for job security. Loyalty, the conversation of loyalty always ends up with the employee being on the obligated side and, therefore, being on the losing side of that particular transaction. That does not mean that you can, you should not be emotionally attached to the people you work with. That does not mean, that does not preclude the idea of relationship of an emotional commitment to the welfare of your co-workers and your supervisors and your subordinates. All I'm saying is that the loyalty issue in the workplace discussion right now always ends up with the employee, the individual, no matter who they are on the rank and file, ends up being the loser because companies aren't talking about their loyalty to employees.

Bowen:     But isn't that the sort of the basis of where the anger comes from?

Finney:     I don't know. No, I don't think so. I think maybe anger,comes from, somehow, the broken promise.

Bowen:     Which is what?

Finney:      I will treat you decently. I think if you come to the workplace with your own sense of who you are and your own mission and your own ideas of what your calling might be, if you're lucky enough to have a calling, you won't stand for being treated not decently for very long. So you won't allow yourself to get as angry as a lot of people have been getting. I just think that if you remind yourself that you are an individual who deserves to be treated well, you won't be abused for very long.

Bowen:     From what we've been talking about, there appears to be a tremendous responsibility that individuals have for their own lives and, indeed, we are all responsible for our own lives.

Finney:     Right.

Bowen:     With that, with that notion in mind, what would be your message to people listening to this program?

Finney:     Seek happiness at work because it is there, and you can find it. There is no reason to be disempowered or unhappy in the workplace. If you are overwhelmed by the dynamics of what's going on around you to the point where it's totally beyond your control, the healthy thing to do is be your own representative and find a better place to be.