In the book, Do More Great Work.: Stop the Busywork, and Start the Work that Matters, Michael Bungay Stanier shares his inspiration and techniques to help us do more work that matters.

These are some of my favorite takeaways from reading the book.

Map 1: Where are you now?

Identify the current mix of Bad Work, Good Work, and Great Work. Write down two examples of each type of work in each segment. Gain insights from the current mix, but, more importantly, consider what the ideal mix should look like.

Here are some questions that Michael suggests we ask ourselves.

• What’s the main thing we noticed from the mapping exercise? What is the big takeaway we had about our mix?
• What, if anything, surprised us?
• What are the habits and patterns that got us to this current mix? What have we been saying yes to that we wish we had been saying no to?
• What do we know now that we did not know before?
• What do we want to remember from this exercise?

Here are some Great Work wisdom nuggets from Dave and Wendy Ulrich about working toward abundance.

Dave and Wendy define an abundant organization as a work setting in which individuals coordinate their aspirations and actions to create meaning for themselves, value for stakeholders, and hope for humanity at large. They have identified eight questions that individuals may ask themselves to help reveal and make more accessible meaning and abundance.

1. What am I known for? (Identity)
2. What am I going? (Purpose and Direction)
3. Whom do I travel with? (Teamwork)
4. What challenges interest me? (Engagement)
5. How do I build a positive work environment? (Effective Connection)
6. How do I respond to setbacks? (Resilience and Learning)
7. What delights me? (Civility and Delight)
8. How do I manage the transition necessitated by change? (Enabling Transition)

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