Coaches Corner
		with Melanie Keveles

Protestant or not, you probably are infected with the Protestant work ethic.   9/22/2009 by Melanie Keveles

Years ago I attended a career conference where the noon speaker and presenter was Barbara Sher of Wishcraft fame (a popular self-exploration career book of the 1980s).

She engaged the audience awaiting lunch in interactive banter intended to have them think about their professional lives rather than their empty stomachs.

Here’s the question that got everyone’s attention: “How many of you are Protestants?” she asked.

About a third in the room raised their hands. You’re wrong, she emphatically stated. You’re all Protestants — if you live in North America you’re ruled by the Protestant work ethic (or words to that effect).

After we were taken through a series of other exercises, the people at my table discussed her earlier point. Rightly so, only about a third of the people were practicing Protestants, but we agreed we all were all under the influence of working hard. Because we were in the field of career development, and focused on this work because we found it rewarding, we didn’t view this so much as a bad situation. But we did tend to find ourselves living to work, rather working to live, almost as if we were under some sort of spell.

I had lived in Europe for nearly five years and observed life there seemed to be different. Especially in the Mediterranean countries, people spent many more hours with their families, enjoying an extended afternoon meal together. They also vacationed more with a month off in August and much time off during the winter as well.

While not a Protestant, enough of the history of the Reformation had crept into my education about history. I seemed to remember that many Protestant sects had been schooled on the belief that a way into heaven was through hard work. And somehow working hard had found its way into our culture. In an ironic way, the work we were about as career consultants, educators and coaches flew in the face of the tradition. Work was not supposed to be fun or rewarding: It was supposed to be work. The more onerous the better, or at least that was the idea.

Sher’s comments about our all being Protestants attempted to trace the origins of this spell. But we career enthusiasts were determined to find a way to break the spell and enable our clients to find satisfaction and reward not simply from doing something with their lives, but finding something to do with their lives that matched their interests and values.

Her spin on this Protestant work ethic has stayed with me all these many years. On occasion, when I’m working with a client having a difficult time imagining work that is enjoyable, I’ve asked if the person is Protestant, following Sher’s technique of surprising the recipient with the correct answer. It certainly gets a reaction and my client and I then explore how deeply embedded is this notion that work is not supposed to be fun. Sometimes this new perspective breaks the logjam.

Later, the client is likely to reveal a secret career desire harbored for some time. It’s as if I’ve given them permission — they now can explore something that can be fun. Work is not just work.

My Dad

My father, who was not raised Protestant; turned 98 this summer. He may straddle both this Christian dedication to work and his own notion of having work be some sort of fun. In the simple way that he lives, he doesn’t have to work. His Social Security and income from modest investments have kept him afloat all these years since he “retired.”

Years ago he took his 125-words-a-minute typing ability and spun it into gold, finding people who wanted to pay him for his typing services. Over the years that skill kept him engaged, long beyond the time when most people hang up any notion of working, let alone working for money.

He’s typed manuscripts, TV scripts, song lyrics, and letters, not to mention memoirs and dissertations. Each project has been an adventure for Dad, not so much about the actual typing, but the interacting and befriending of people who engaged him as well as an interest for him of the subject matter. This “business” has been his connection to the outside world, and I suspect a contributing factor to his arriving at age 98 with his faculties intact.

Dad has transcended the Protestant work ethic, even though some might say that he’s still working hard at a time in his life when he should be resting on his laurels. He would disagree.

With so many of his contemporaries long gone, he is forever about the business of making new friends, and found no better way to do that than through his work.

So, what about you? Do you work under the spell of the Protestant work ethic? If so, are you doing so out of choice, or habit? What work would you consider doing well near to the century mark in your life? What can you do today that would increase your work consciousness and be fully engaged in it, no matter how old you get?

Melanie Keveles is a master certified coach, and co-authored Fired for Success: How to Turn Losing Your Job into the Opportunity of a Lifetime! (Warner Books). She also is the author of Scrappy Startups: How 15 Ordinary Women Turned their Unique Ideas into Profitable Business (Praeger Books), scheduled for release in November. You can reach her at 715.394.4260; via e-mail at melanie@startingfreshcoaching.com (protected from spambots, you’ll need JavaScript enabled to view it); or www.startingfreshcoaching.com.

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