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The article “do you love what you do?” by Marshall Goldsmith was a very short article but it looks at two people and how their jobs affect them. The first person the author writes about is Warren Bennis. Bennis is a professor and founding chairman of the leadership institute at the University of Southern California and a visiting professor at Harvard business school and Harvard Kennedy School and an author who has sold over a million copies of his books.  Marshal Goldsmith tells us about a time when Professor Bennis was giving a lecture on leadership and started to ponder all the his own journey and someone asked him “do you love what you do?” Professor Bennis replied” I don’t know”.  Mr. Goldsmith then goes into looking at how the work week has changed. Back in the eighties professionals worked a forty hour week and had four weeks of vacation and now professional work 60 to 80 hours a week they have cell phones pda’s and emails and are always in contact. Mr. Goldsmith say if you don’t love what you do this could make for a professional hell. Mr. Goldsmith also goes on to say” life is to short it’s not worth it. In the new world we don’t have to love everything that we do, but we need happiness and meaning in most of our professional work. The second person Mr. Goldsmith talked about was Vicky. Vicky was a coaching client who was “very creative and entrepreneurial”. Vicky took a job with a conservative company who want someone that could shake things up and when she started to shake things u p the company decided that was not what they wanted. This job become frustrating for her and was affecting her life she decided to leave.  When Vicky asked herself if she loved what she did the answer was no and she made the change.

I think that Marshall Goldsmith wrote a great article on 2 people and how their work affects them. In Mr. Goldsmith article Do You Love What You Do he showed how two people worked their lives to get to prominent position only to realize they weren’t really sure it was what they wanted.  The first person Mr. Goldsmith wrote about was Mr. Bennis who couldn’t even say if he loved what he did even though he worked long and hard to get there. The second person who was written about was Vicky. Vicky was hired to help shake things up at a large conservative company. This was not a good fit for her or the company and it put tremendous stress on her. I think Mr. Goldsmith shows how people start working to advance their career but may not enjoy what they do.

 

Goldsmith, Marshall

Do You Love What You Do

Fast Company no9 88 2005