Finding Meaning through the Hero’s Journey

Organizational Change ManagementOperational ExcellenceProgram Management
Written By Michael Daehne

In this episode, Michael Daehne talks with Ben Rogers, Assistant Professor of Management and Organization at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College, where he teaches and conducts research around management and organizational behavior.

They discuss Ben’s research around the meaning of work and narratives in the workplace, and specifically how the hero’s journey is a way for us all to find meaning in our work. He shares how using the seven hero’s journey elements that he and fellow researchers identified – protagonist, shift, quest, allies, challenge, transformation, and legacy – can apply from large-scale business transformations to our everyday lives.

In the lightning round, he shares some wise advice from a show Michael and Ben both love, Parks and Recreation, as well as pointing us to a podcast about comedians working at theme parks.

Hero’s Journey Elements and Restorying Intervention Prompts, shared with permission from Ben and fellow researchers’ article, Seeing your life story as a Hero’s Journey increases meaning in life, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Teaser

Michael Daehne: We’ve known each other for a long time and I probably should call him Dr. Rogers now that he’s super official, but it’s going to have to be Ben because I don’t think I can make that leap.

Ben Rogers: No, that would make me very uncomfortable.

Introduction

Michael Daehne: Hey y’all, welcome to Inflect. I’m Michael Daehne, and I’m so excited to be joined today by my friend, Ben Rogers. Ben and I first got to know each other during our undergraduate years at The University of Texas at Austin, and we have remained close friends ever since.

Ben started out his career in management consulting, helping organizations navigate large-scale HR transformations. He then went on to earn his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and he’s now an assistant professor at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College, where he teaches and conducts research around management and organizational behavior. Ben has done some really fascinating research around the meaning of work and narratives in the workplace, and specifically this idea of how the hero’s journey is a way for us all to find meaning in our work.

In today’s show, he’ll tell us more about that research and how it applies to large-scale business transformations. And he’ll also share some wise advice from a show we both love, Parks and Recreation. I hope enjoy today’s episode.

Background

Michael Daehne: Hey Ben, welcome to the podcast.

Ben Rogers: Hey Michael, glad to be here.

MD: How are you doing today?

BR: Pretty good. Just working on some research and then, enjoying the opportunity to be able to, you know, talk to some other humans about my research for once.

MD: Exactly. Well, I’ve been told that there are other humans that listen to the podcast, so hopefully that is the case. But I appreciate you making time to chat with us today and, I’d love it if you start by just telling those that are listening a little bit more about yourself, your background, and your current role.

BR: Definitely, so I first met Michael at UT Austin. We were in the same business program. And then after that, coming out of my undergrad, I worked in consulting for a number of years. I won’t name the consulting firm since I don’t want to, you know, promote the competitors. I was also doing sort of large-scale HR transformation work.

I did that for about four years, but I kind of always knew I wanted to get back into academia. So, I took the leap into grad school at UNC Chapel Hill, where I got my PhD this past spring. And then I just started this fall a position as assistant professor of management and organization at the Carroll School of Management, which is in Boston College.

So, I’ve been in Boston for a couple months working on research, prepping to teach in the spring. I’ll be teaching the core organizational behavior course, which Michael and I both taught a version of at UT Austin.

And then on the personal side, I’m, married to a wonderful person, Courtney, who Michael also knows from our time at UT Austin. And we have a two-year-old daughter, Nora, and a dog, Sadie.

MD: Awesome. And as Ben mentioned, we’ve known each other for a long time and I probably should call him Dr. Rogers now that he’s super official, but it’s going to have to be Ben because I don’t think I can make that leap.

BR: No, that would make me very uncomfortable.

MD: Well, I am glad you’re here. You are the first person from academia to join the podcast, and it’s not an accident. I have been really fascinated over the last six months in particular, reading some of your research around the meaning of work and narratives in the workplace, because I think it’s resonated with me in my own career, but also, I think there are a lot of connection points to the journeys that our clients are taking individually and as organizations.

So, I’m really excited to have you here to talk about that.

Narratives around Work

Michael Daehne: Maybe as a starting point, you could just tell us a little bit more about your research around the meaning of work and narratives in the workplace.

Ben Rogers: Yeah, absolutely. So, as a good academic, I should start off with a definition.

When we talk about like meaning of work or meaningfulness at work, it’s kind of this perception that our work is significant and worthwhile in some broader sense. And it’s a very subjective perception, but the reason I am really interested in it is, in my professional experience and also as I’ve dug into the research, it’s just such a core need for people and for organizations who are trying to, you know, persevere and do challenging work.

So, finding a sense of meaning and feeling like your work is meaningful is just really important for its own sake, but then also for other aspects of wellbeing, which really just was very salient to me during my consulting career where, you know, I loved my work, I loved the people I was working with, but I was constantly seeing people who did not find their work meaningful. And seeing those people struggle was really educational for someone right out of undergrad trying to figure out, what does work mean?

And so, as you start to dig into research on meaning and meaningfulness, you come to realize that the narratives and the stories we tell ourselves about our work and our life are really essential, if not the predominant way in which we find meaning. The human brain is wired for story.

You think back to sort of caveman times where you go, oh, if I touch that fire, that leads to something bad. These are early iterations of stories, but you know, thousands of years later, that’s still the way the human brain works of constructing sort of causal narratives about things and figuring out, you know, what does this mean? How does it connect to other things I already know? And so, the way we figure out if something is meaningful, including in our lives and in our work, is really just coming from the stories that we tell.

So, to help people find more meaning, a lot of my work ends up looking at, you know, what are these stories that people tell themselves about their own work, about others? What are the effects of those stories? And then most importantly, and it’ll get into this research, is there a way that we can help people tell better quote unquote stories? You know, that serves themselves a little better while still being authentic.

MD: I’m excited to get in a little bit more to how we tell better stories. Are there, are there some examples from your research that maybe are, are compelling or might resonate with our listeners?

BR: Sure, yeah. So, before we get more into the hero’s journey-specific stuff, in my dissertation, I looked at this idea that there are narratives that we take in from society, from media, from talking to other people, from university if you go to college, about what a certain job is for: like, what the central purpose of a job is. So, you think of like nursing, it’s like caring for people. Or if you think about consulting or business roles, it’s, you know, in some cases it’s making a profit. Sometimes it’s making a positive impact for clients.

And so, what I look at is when we encounter experiences that align with those narratives, where you realize like, oh, I’m doing the, I’m doing the thing – I’m here doing it – that those experiences often feel very meaningful, and the reason that’s important is because it helps to explain why even distressing or challenging experiences can feel meaningful.

And, and I’ll give an example: I did one study with nurses. You know, nurses do a lot of amazing things where they, you know, heal people, cure, reduce pain, all of those things. But it’s also an incredibly challenging job. But yet, nurses often report that those challenging experiences can be as meaningful, if not more than some of the other ones. And really, when we studied it, we actually show that what explains it is that there’s these experiences that they go like, oh, I’m here, I’m caring for someone. Even if it’s really emotionally challenging for me, I’m doing the thing that I got into this job to do.

And so it helps to explain like how an experience can be both meaningful and distressing at the same time, which is not to suggest people should seek out distressing experiences, but it helps to give a broader understanding of, you know, why are these narratives so important, and what can they help us do when they, you know, serve our wellbeing in a positive way.

MD: Yeah. And I will add that your research around that is so interesting that I actually read your entire dissertation, which is not something I do on the regular. So, props to you for putting together something that had such compelling research and findings around that.

And I think the nursing example is one that’s easy to understand because, to your point, we maybe think a lot about the, the good aspects of the job, right? The healing, the making people feel better and don’t often center as much on the challenging aspects of the job when we think about what that story might feel like. You kind of alluded to hero’s journey.

The Hero’s Journey

Michael Daehne: Tell us more about how the hero’s journey concept plays into this idea of, of the narratives we tell ourselves.

Ben Rogers: Definitely. Just to give your listeners some context, in case they’re not familiar with the term hero’s journey, I bet all of them are familiar with the hero’s journey type story, even if they’re not aware of the term. So, the term originated by this mythologist named Joseph Campbell, who was writing in the 1900s, and he was looking at mythical stories from ancient times up until today. And what he realized was, they all seemed to follow this similar plot. Like not exactly the same, but the specifics of who the character was and what the goal was, all varied. But there were always these, in his version, seventeen sort of steps to a hero’s journey.

And so, a hero’s journey is this story structure that says, you know, for all these popular really meaningful stories over the thousands of years, they all kind of follow this same basic structure.

I came to this from a personal standpoint of, I’ve always been a huge movie nerd who likes to read books on screenwriting, even though I have never written a screenplay. And the suggestions that are always in the screenwriting books is, you know, if you want to write a really compelling, meaningful story, often you want to tell a hero’s journey or a version of it.

And so, as I was applying it to my own research, the idea became, you know, can we take this advice to screenwriters on how to write a good screenplay and help people to craft a better life or a career story, depending on the study that we’re looking at. Because we thought that life stories that were more similar to this story that people have experienced in one way or another, that if their own life story matched that, that it would feel more meaningful to them.

I realized I never gave any examples of hero’s journeys. So, you think of Star Wars, think of Lord of the Rings, think of any Marvel superhero movie. They all follow this basic story structure.

And I’ll really go over the high points of the paper. We take these elements of the hero’s journey, and we boil it down into seven key elements. And what we show is that people who see those or feel like they have those elements of the hero’s journey in their own lives, they feel like their life is more meaningful and they have better wellbeing, feel more resilient, all of those positive types of things.

But the important step that we take is not just to say like, well, these people who are living these really great heroic lives feel like their life is more meaningful. But we help people, anyone, to rewrite their own personal story as a hero’s journey through this intervention that we develop and test in the paper with the idea being that, you know, the elements of the hero’s journey are really common things that anyone can experience.

The elements are, protagonist, having a central person. Shift, some sort of change of experience. Quest, having goals. Challenges and then transforming as a result of them. Having allies who, having people who support you. And then leaving a sense of legacy, you know, are you better in your community as a result of the experiences that you’ve had?

And so, while, when they put together, they make this really compelling story, every individual element is something that anyone can achieve, or anyone can experience. We help people identify that, oh, you may not think you’re living a heroic life, but your life story as you’ve experienced it also has these elements. So, if we connect those together under this sort of overall theme that you can see that you are living your own version of a hero’s journey.

And what we show is when people do that intervention, they find their life more meaningful, they have more wellbeing. They’re more resilient, so they attack their personal problems in a more productive way. All of these types of benefits are, are really important and you know, it’s connecting things that are already in people’s lives into this cool story format, while also remaining authentic to the things that they’ve actually done.

MD: Yeah. And I, I love the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings examples. I would say that I know you’re also a sports fan, so in the future, feel free to use Vince Young here as a, you know, hero’s journey example.

I’m just kidding. I had to get in the Longhorn plug.

But, I think one thing you said in there that is interesting, and maybe this is a good, a good transition into the conversation about how the hero’s journey might apply to large business transformation journeys. But you said that everyone, everyone can be the hero, for lack of a better term, or apply this to themselves rather than us just thinking, hey, there’s one central hero.

I think that that certainly resonates with me as, as we’re helping organizations navigate large business and technology change initiatives. It takes a village, and not everyone can be the quote unquote hero, but maybe helping them find meaning in their role in the initiative can be really important.

The Hero’s Journey in Business Transformation

Michael Daehne: Tell us maybe a little bit more about how you think that hero’s journey concept might manifest itself in the course of a transformation.

Ben Rogers: Yeah, definitely, and I couldn’t agree more. I think, having done these types of transformations myself when I was a consultant, I know how difficult they can be and complex they can be, and they can really strain an organization overall, but also individual employees. And that’s not even just considering, you know, the driver of the change. It can also be the, the employees having to deal with these changes and all of those things.

So, I think there are a few ways I’d respond. One, it’s not, and I think you did a really good job of phrasing it this way, it’s not being like the hero. That’s generally not how we try to describe it. It’s being, you know, a hero in your own journey. And I think that’s an important distinction because trying to convince people that they are the hero, let’s say in a business transformation, that they’re the one driving the change. If they’re not the person leading the initiative, they may go, well, that doesn’t apply to me. Like, you know, I’ll be supportive. I’ll help out where I can, but I’m not really going to buy into it.

But if people see themselves as, you know, in what way can my own journey be a hero’s journey? then that sort of reframes what they’re trying to do. And so, within their role, you know, how do I… Let’s take this initiative as the moment of shift, the starting point of a hero’s journey.

You know, they’re getting thrown into some new, exciting, maybe scary experience that they weren’t planning on. You know, how are they going to respond? Are they going to sort of try to just ignore it and evade it, which I saw plenty in my own consulting career. Or are they going to see this as like something that they can try to overcome and face a challenge head on and transform as a result of it? Either learning a new skill or helping to contribute to an overall success of an organizational change initiative.

So, I think it’s this idea that by bringing the hero’s journey down from some unapproachable, really fantastical thing to something people can identify in their own lives. It has obvious implications for these really big, difficult transformation initiatives, where you need everyone to buy into a certain degree and to feel like that they’re engaged and wanting to help out in whatever way they can. And not necessarily, you know, trying to create a bunch of different people leading their own hero’s journey change initiatives. But how can you unite these along to an organizational change?

MD: Yeah. I love that. I, I think that the old school change management methodology around this, which I know you, you lived for a while in your HR transformation consulting career is maybe oversimplified into what’s in it for me? It feels very transactional. Like, hey, what, what are you going to get by contributing?

And I think, I think some of what your research sheds light on is not just like, what are you going to get, but how are you going to find meaning in the change and in the transformation, which, feels like a more, I don’t know if profound is the right word, or more sustainable source of investment and incentive into the change versus just like, you’re going to get X if you help make this successful.

BR: Yeah. I agree. And as, as I was thinking about this podcast today, I was thinking about my own experiences a lot. The interesting thing that kind of came up was the importance of like buying into a challenge and, and not shying away from it, but embracing it of like, this is going to be difficult and this may not work, but what can I, myself, and we as an organization learn, and what are we hoping to transform into? And that that goes against, you know, some of what I saw in my consulting career where I found a lot of change leaders would often, I think for good reason, try to minimize how challenging an experience was and the way they talked about it. Because I think they didn’t want to scare people and they didn’t want to make it seem like there was any risk involved, that this was just going to be a home run for sure.

But I think what that led to was some apathy and a lack of meaning of like, well, if this is such an easy sure thing, like: A, is it worth all of these costs that we’re having to pay? and B, what’s in it for me from like an engagement standpoint? Not necessarily, you know, is it going to make my job easier, but like if this is going to happen regardless and there’s not any challenge to it, why do I need to spend extra hours, use extra brainpower to help?

And so, what I would encourage leaders based on some of this is embracing the idea that, you know, hero’s journeys are really compelling because they have stakes and they have challenges, but people learn and they grow from it, and not shying away from that when you’re trying to explain that to other people or even rationalize it for yourself. But embrace, like, this is going to be difficult, but there’s meaning in that difficult experience that we’re going to have. And not to like seek out painful experiences just to seek them out, but to embrace that like, this is a thing we need to do. It’s going to be challenging, but like that’s going to actually make it even more important in the long run that we do it.

MD: Yeah. Love that. I think embracing the candor around the challenges ahead and uniting around that versus trying to sugarcoat it or shy away from it. And I think that that approach of how to communicate the change often falls on the shoulders of, we’ll call them the executive champion, but there, there is usually someone in the driver’s seat of these big changes.

Tips for Change Leaders

Michael Daehne: Are there specific elements of your research or your findings, maybe some tips and tricks for those people? The ones that are leading the change, because that’s a tough job oftentimes. I don’t know. Any key takeaways for those individuals as you think about the journeys that they’re leading and navigating with their teams?

Ben Rogers: Yeah, I think I’d point to two things. One is more broad and one is a little more self-serving, at least in highlighting our research.

So, for the first one is broadly where I begin is, you know, particularly for these people driving these changes is, have them reflect on what is their personal story, both for themselves and for this change initiative? You know, what do they think about it? Try to boil down like, what are the elements that they think are important as it currently stands? And then once they’ve done that reflection, does that feel meaningful? Does it feel meaningful to them? Do they think it would feel meaningful to other people?

And the reason I highlight this is, you know, all of us live very busy lives, often both in the workplace and outside of it. And we can get really caught up in just the day-to-day difficulties. You know, ruminating on things that went wrong or didn’t quite go as right as we wanted to. And so, it’s hard for people to take a step back and go, you know, what is the, either a 30,000 foot view or at least you know, the 10,000 foot view of what’s going on? And so, my first suggestion would just be for people to reflect: what to me is the story of this, both for myself and for the organization?

And then taking it the next step is, you know, if it doesn’t feel meaningful or doesn’t feel meaningful enough, you could use the elements that we identify in the hero’s journey. And the reason I highlight them is because the part of the theory of why we think this works so well is, the story structure has lasted thousands of years. And that’s not just by happenstance, we would argue. We’d argue it’s because the things that are baked into the story are really important things for, at least from a cultural standpoint. You know, they’re values that are important: embracing challenge, getting together allies, social support, so not just endeavoring on your own, contributing the sense of legacy.

And so, we have a writing intervention that we detail in the paper, and I’d be happy to share it with you, Michael, and your listeners. But going through those seven elements and going, you know, how does this apply? – doing it for yourself, and then maybe also for the change initiative – going through each of the seven elements and going like, who am I as a change leader? what sort of change that led me to be in this position? who are my allies? who can help me? what is my quest? Those types of things.

And then you can also do it as a, from a change for organization perspective of who are we as an organization? what are the values or needs that we’re trying to begin this journey with? what has changed in the business environment or within our own organizational culture that needs this? what are we hoping to do as an organization? what are we going to look like after the fact?

It’s helpful just to get any sort of framework, but I think because these are tied to this just really compelling story that’s always been underlying, or at least has been underlying for thousands of years, it might be a good place for change leaders to reflect and maybe develop a better sense of like, what is the meaningful story that they want to tell.

MD: Yeah, we absolutely will link to that resource that you mentioned. Because, you know, what we find so often, I’m sure this has been the case in your and experiences too, is, the organizations and leaders that are intentional about asking those questions up front through whatever framework and lens they may be using, whether it’s the hero’s journey or a different framework, but asking that upfront and finding clarity of purpose, for lack of a better term, those are the, those are the initiatives that typically, have a much higher likelihood of success than the ones where, you kind of stumble through finding that through the course of the implementation. So, certainly something we’ll provide.

Lightning Round

Michael Daehne: Do you have a few minutes for a couple lightning round questions before we wrap up?

Ben Rogers: Of course.

MD: Okay. Here’s, here’s a good one. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

BR: That is a good question. So having been a listener to this podcast, my myself, I know some very light cursing is okay. At least from when, when the boss does it. So hopefully I can get a pass on this.

MD: Light cursing is like nothing. You can, you can go as far as you want, but I’ve been told light cursing is where the line should be. So yes, carry on.

BR: Okay. So it’s not advice that I’ve received directly in this form, but the way I’ll explain it is, Michael, I think you’ve watched Parks and Recreation, but it’s also my favorite TV show, and there’s one piece of advice that Ron Swanson gives Leslie Knope, when she’s facing some really hard times, which is: never half-ass two things, whole-ass one thing. That’s just perfect advice, particularly as I’ve gone into this career that’s very self-driven. And you know, I’m sure as a business owner you also face this: you could slightly do a million things and still not have enough time in the day. But none of those things would probably get done.

And in my academic career, you know, I could have fifteen projects going at a given time, but if I’m not focusing on one project predominantly, it’s not going to get across the finish line. And I think that’s true in in many types of academic careers.

And the way it ties into sort of our shared history, Michael is, Ethan Burris, a professor at UT Austin, gave me a version of this advice halfway through my grad school career where I was working on too many things at once. And he didn’t use this exact phrasing, though the message was the same. But he told me, you know, I needed to focus on one piece and really push that as hard as I could, while filling in with the remaining time, you know, the little things here and there.

There’s often the metaphor of you have a jar and there’s the big rocks. And the big rocks are the things you really want to focus on. And then you use the little rocks, which are sort of the more minor tasks to build in. And so, I think that just manifested in a number of different ways.

I’ll stop there because I also recognize that this is a lightning round and I’ve just talked for like two minutes.

MD: Hey, this podcast would probably not be complete without an Ethan Burris shout out. So, I’m glad you got that in there because he deserves a lot of credit for any success both of us have had. I’m glad you gave him a shout out.

What’s the best book or podcast you’ve read or listened to recently?

BR: I recently read Fairy Tale by Stephen King. I had never read a Stephen King book before, but this one caught my eye as will be obvious, the idea is this kid goes to this like magical land and ends up becoming the, the protagonist of a fairytale. And, I won’t spoil anything that happens in it, but you can see it sort of connects with a lot of my thoughts of like the way that we sort of embrace stories and hero’s journeys and sort of by embracing that we can really achieve important things. And so, I found that a really interesting book and just mostly entertaining, but my academic side of it couldn’t help but jump out.

And then podcast. This will be a slightly interesting suggestion, but I thought I’d go more out of the box than, you know, there’s Hidden Brain and there’s Work Life and there’s all these other good organizational behavior podcasts.

But I’ve been listening to this podcast called Keys to the Kingdom, and it’s by these comedians about what it’s like to work at Disney Parks and other amusement parks. And again, connecting back to my research is this idea of, you have this job where people’s role is to bring stories and cartoons and all these things to life, and that can be really fulfilling. They talk about how amazing the job is, but it also can be really stressful and lead to a lot of really funny experiences.

And so that, if you’re just looking for a more entertaining look at, you know, Disney and amusement parks, I would definitely suggest Keys to the Kingdom.

MD: Keys to the Kingdom. I’m adding it to the list. I’m a voracious listener of podcasts. And that’s a good one to add to the add to the list.

Last one, what’s a bucket list item you have not yet achieved?

BR: I think I want to run a marathon. I know that’s not usually the tone people take with bucket list items, but it just, it feels like something… I’ve been a runner all my life, but I’ve never run that far. And I feel like getting a job in Boston feels like a sign from the universe that I should probably do it.

So, I’ll say that’s my bucket list item. Maybe once I’m tenured, hopefully at Boston College, then I can, you know, set aside some time to train and run a marathon.

MD: I have no interest in running a marathon, but I’m happy for you. Good luck.

BR: Thank you.

Closing

Michael Daehne: Ben, I really appreciate you making the time for this conversation. I have so enjoyed, not only hearing more about your research around the meaning of work and narratives in the workplace, and of course the hero’s journey concept, but I think getting some very pragmatic, actionable suggestions for our clients and our listeners about how to apply that to some of the really hard stuff they’re doing at work and in life. And I think, I think it will no doubt be very useful. So, I’m very grateful you made the time to join us.

Ben Rogers: Yeah, it was my pleasure. I love listening to the podcast and it’s always great to catch up with you, Michael.

MD: Yeah, likewise. Thanks Ben.

Mentioned

Michael Daehne
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