Meaningful Work

I just listened to this TED talk by Dan Ariely about productivity and meaning. His theory is that our work must be meaningful, creative, challenging, prideful, etc for us to really want to work and give our best effort.

I couldn't agree more.



Embedded in his tale is this really interesting factoid.

Way back, whatever year it was, that Betty Crocker cake mixes came out they were not that popular.

It appears that women did not like making a cake where all you did was add water to powder. I guess they felt like it wasn't "their" cake, made from scratch, kind of thing. In other words it was too darn easy to whip together a cake, inferring that a lot of effort must have meant it was good.

So the company took out the eggs and the oil from the powder, thus creating a little more "effort" by the baker and voila, the cake mixes were a success.

Now all these years later we must still think this way because they haven't changed the mixes too much, we still have to add ingredients. Thus our efforts create a delicious cake. And I guess this is true in general. If we put in a lot of effort on something don't we feel we should be rewarded somehow? And not necessarily monetarily, but even just with recognition. And don't we feel guilty if we are lauded on a project when we hardly put in the time?

Interesting point for discussion.