A tectonic shift has happened and it’s impacting how we view work.
We can call it the Satisfaction Principle (or Dilemma?)
Humans are a highly pro-social species — there’s no real question about that — and as such multiple studies have shown we derive satisfaction from a feeling of “purpose” or fulfilling a clear role in our tribe or community.
But for the last 30 years western society’s sense of community has been collapsing. This was written about in the 90s in Harvard professor Robert Putnam’s book, Bowling Alone and shows up in data about declines in religious attendance, after-work social activities, and even studies on patriotism. Overall, the American community is in decline.
But community is key to our identity, and how we form a stable view of ourselves and our place in the world. Without a clear sense of community, it’s hard to gain a clear sense of ourselves, or our purpose, and satisfaction becomes hard to find.
As people have identified less with a particular religion or a national flag, they have identified increasingly with brands. You see this trend coming from two directions: 1) from the rise of lifestyle brands like Apple being part how we declare who we are, and 2) from the rise in demand for “company culture” as people increasingly identify with brands from within — as employees.
More and more we are looking for companies to fill the role that religion once played, as the center of our “community”. However that statement might make you feel, it should give any of us pause.
Ultimately, we are looking to derive the satisfaction we once found from being useful within our tribe, from being useful to a brand, often our employer.
The Dilemma here arises in the question of whether that is really what we want? One thing we can be certain of is that by placing our satisfaction in brands, we siphon resources away from local communities, which leads to a collapse of small business and the rise of corporate chains etc.
Where we once paid money to a local grocer and that grocer turned around and spent that money in the local community, we now give that money (and indeed almost all of our money) to large multinational corporations that are not putting that money back into the community, and in fact are often moving it offshore.
Like any extractive practice, this is not sustainable and can only lead to eventual collapse.
The science of our Identity is the invisible hand subconsciously guiding society where we are going to go. Now might be a really good time to ask ourselves if the current trends show us heading in the right direction, and to look at our own relationship to community and purpose.
And to think of both our work and our dollars as investments in the type of community we want to create.
