“I’m Not Mopping the Floors, I’m Putting a Man on the Moon”: How NASA Leaders Enhanced the Meaningfulness of Work by Changing the Meaning of Work

Abstract

It is assumed that leaders can boost the motivation of employees by communicating the organization's ultimate aspirations, yet evidence on the effectiveness of this tactic is equivocal. On some occasions, it causes employees to view their work as more meaningful. At other times, it causes them to become dispirited. These inconsistent findings may in part be explained by a paradox: the very features that make ultimate aspirations meaningful-their breadth and timelessness-undermine the ability of employees to see how their daily responsibilities are associated with them. To understand how leaders can help employees resolve this paradox, I analyzed archival evidence to explore the actions of President John F. Kennedy when leading NASA in the 1960s. I found that Kennedy enacted four sensegiving steps, each of which helped employees see a stronger connection between their work and NASA's ultimate aspirations. When this connection was strongest, employees construed their day-today work not as short-term tasks (''I'm building electrical circuits'') but as the pursuit of NASA's long-term objective (''I'm putting a man on the moon'') and the aspiration this objective symbolized (''I'm advancing science''). My findings redirect research by conceptualizing leaders as architects who motivate employees most effectively when they provide a structural blueprint that maps the connections between employees' everyday work and the organization's ultimate aspirations.

Struggling with Meaningfulness when Context Shifts: Volunteer Work in a German Refugee Shelter

“…When we refer to societal discourses, we mean ‘mega‐discourses’ (Alvesson and Kärreman, ) about meaningful work fuelled by public debates, e.g., in the media. In line with recent studies (Bailey and Madden, ; Carton, ; Mitra and Buzzanell, ), we argue that societal discourses can provide ‘discursive resources’ (Kuhn et al, ) that individuals draw on to construct their work as meaningful. From this point of view, constructions of meaningfulness are understood as high‐tension processes that involve negotiation and translation (Mitra and Buzzanell, ).…”

“…From this point of view, constructions of meaningfulness are understood as high‐tension processes that involve negotiation and translation (Mitra and Buzzanell, ). These studies highlight the difficulties individuals encounter when trying to connect everyday work practices with discourses about meaningful work, e.g., when bridging the disparity of ‘mopping the floors’ and the mission of ‘putting a man on the moon’ (Carton, ).…”

“…These discourses are resources for constructing work as meaningful (Broadfoot et al, , see also Kuhn et al, ; Lair et al, ; Marchiori and Buzzanell, ). Carton (), for instance, shows how President Kennedy provided discursive resources for NASA employees to frame their work as meaningful. Only when employees related their mundane tasks to the mission of ‘putting a man on the moon’, they experienced them as meaningful.…”

Outcomes of Meaningful Work: A Meta‐Analysis

“…Therefore, meaningful experiences are individualized but not necessarily self-serving, and people must find a balance © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies between self-focused goals and other-oriented goals as well as between both being and doing (Lips-Wiersma and Wright, 2012). Furthermore, meaningful experiences likely involve emotional responses that mark certain actions as important, such as pride, inspiration, satisfaction, elevation, or self-transcendence (Carton, 2017;Haidt, 2003). Having meaningful work, in contrast to having meaningful experiences, involves retrospective, cognitive judgements that rely on memories of these events (Kahneman and Krueger, 2006).…”

Hope and human capital enhance job engagement to improve workplace outcomes

“…Psychological availability refers to 'the sense that of having the physical, emotional, or psychological resources to personally engage at a particular moment. This definition refers to cognitive human capital (Ployhart & Moliterno, 2011), which is the best estimator of employee performance (Carroll, 1993). Physical and emotional energy, insecurity, and outside life influence psychological availability.…”