What does a Yale psychologist say about happiness at work and how to apply it?

In the age of “lazy girl jobs” and “quiet quits,” finding a way to feel empowered at work has become nearly impossible. But researchers seem to have a rebuttal—and that rebuttal is one that involves both “dual growth mindset” and “job crafting.”

What job crafting really is

The idea of ​​dual growth mindset and job crafting comes from the work of Amy Wrzesniewski, a psychologist at Yale University. Her work on job modeling goes back to 2001, when she co-authored a paper with Jane E. Dutton at the University of Michigan.

The idea was simple: allow people to make adjustments to their roles so that their jobs help them achieve their personal goals. This can be done by changing the types of tasks employees work on, the relationships/teams they have to build, and/or changing the “cognitive boundaries” of their work (giving their work new meaning).

Here’s a concrete example: Suppose a chef feels that his job is monotonous. They go to work every day to execute the same recipes over and over again, only to perform routine cleaning tasks and return home.

However, different job crafting techniques can help aforementioned chefs feel better and empowered in their work. For example, an employer can “change task boundaries” (adjusting the line cook’s role) to allow the line cook to incorporate more menu writing and creative exercises if they choose. Additionally, the chef can implement a cognitive shift to begin to see themselves as an artist and craftsman.

“Bipolar Strategy”

More than twenty years later, Wrzesniewski revisits the idea of ​​job crafting in a new paper co-authored by Justin Berg at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Adam Grant at the Wharton School, and Jennifer Kurkowski and Brian Weil at Google. This new article, published in 2022, suggests that the “bipolar strategy” can have huge impacts on happiness at work.

The first pole is job crafting, while the second pole is closer to self-crafting — or adopting a self-growth mindset.

The idea is that the poles are stuck into the ground and tied together at the end. So, even if you start moving one pole, you won’t get very far if the other one is still stuck in the ground.

“If what work drafting does is lift the work column off the ground and allow you to move it, then self-moving the column can offer the possibility of making larger or more dynamic changes to the work design,” Wrzesniewski said during an interview with Yale University.

The authors conducted an experiment for the paper to examine how participants responded to one of three different growth mindset interventions: one focused solely on self, one focused solely on function, and a third that combined the two concepts (“dual growth” mindset).

The study found that there are huge benefits to participants’ long-term happiness when adopting a dual growth mindset. In addition, participants’ new habits formed during the experiment remained much longer than their counterparts with an individual growth mindset.

“The nature of the changes that people in the dual growth mindset group were planning was very different,” she added. “That’s what we think explains the long-term benefits. This mindset seems to drive happiness through what you can do because of the mindset.”

How those who work remotely can have an advantage

The best news is that in the post-pandemic world, the opportunities for crafting careers and adopting a dual growth mindset are ripe for the taking.

“Because of the pandemic, more people are working remotely now, and part of what that does is automatically mitigate a lot of the strong scripts and signals surrounding who is on the job, what the routines are, etc.,” Wrzesniewski explained during the interview. “This becomes a really rich opportunity for job crafting.”

For example, being able to do something from the comfort of your own home may make you feel like yourself when you do it. Therefore, being able to “turn off” your professional self between calls means you can connect yourself more deeply to your work. This will allow your self-growth and the growth of your business to interconnect.