Job Crafting
Benjamin Laker, Lebene Soga, Yemisi Bolade-Ogunfodun, and Adeyinka Adewale
MIT Press (April 2024)

“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”  AristotleEmployers should carefully consider the relevance of Aristotle’s observation, both now and in years to come.

In Future Shock (1970), Alvin Toffler made this prediction: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

Those concerned about securing appropriate employment should keep Toffler’s prediction in mind when crafting strategies and tactics by which to accelerate personal growth and professional development to increase their value in an increasingly more competitive marketplace.

Note: William Shakespeare was born on the same day this book was published (April 23, but in 1564) and he crafted various strategies and tactics when he relocated to London in search for employment in a robust theater world. Indeed, job crafting can be dated back at least to when Greek warriors set sail for Troy.

What about organizations that are competing today in a global marketplace that is more volatile, more uncertain, more complex, and more ambiguous than at any prior time that I can recall?  Their workers need to know what must be done and how it must be done as well as WHY it must be done. They need and deserve a workplace culture within which personal growth and professional development are most likely to thrive. This is what Saint Paul may have had in mind when discussing his concept of  “many parts, one body” in one of his first letters to Corinth.

More recently, Benjamin Laker, Lebene Soga, Yemisi Bolade-Ogunfodun, and Adeyinka Adewale co-authored Job Crafting in which they “address why job crafting is important in the modern firm, the main types of job crafting (cognitive, relational, and task crafting), individual and organizational readiness for job crafting, and permission to craft.”

The later chapters of the book “explore how organizations can create safe spaces for job crafting, develop tools for job crafting, and build capacity for job craft, with the concluding chapter summarizing the key thoughts from the preceding chapters.”

Their hope is that Job Crafting will contribute substantially to your own journey “toward building stronger, more inclusive, and more rewarding organizations where everyone feels valued, connected, and fully engaged.”

In this context, I am again reminded of what I learned from the results of several major research studies that asked employees what was of greatest importance to them where they were employed. A vast majority ranked “feeling appreciated” either first or second.

I commend Benjamin Laker, Lebene Soga, Yemisi Bolade-Ogunfodun, and Adeyinka Adewale on their substantial contributions to thought leadership throughout the global marketplace and highly recommend this material to all C-level executives and those who aspire to become one as well as to others who are now preparing for a business career or have only recently embarked upon one.

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Here are two suggestions while you are reading Job Crafting: First, highlight key passages. Also,  perhaps in a notebook kept near-at-hand (e.g. Apica Premium C.D. Notebook A5), record your comments, questions, and action steps (preferably with deadlines). Pay special attention to a brilliant Preface (Pages ix-xvi) that sets the table remarkably well for the intellectual feast that follows.

These two simple tactics — highlighting and documenting — will expedite frequent reviews of key material later.