A purposeful workforce

I was introduced recently to the Japanese concept known as Ikigai, in the context of how each of us can identify his/her own professional “true purpose” or career sweet spot as illustrated at the centre of the diagram below.

 

Ikigai can describe having a sense of purpose in life, as well as being motivated. From an organisational point of view, the ideal should be an entire Ikigai workforce.
Is this an utopia or is it achievable?

I will argue that organisations should at least aim to establish a working environment conducive to each employee attaining his/her Ikigai.

Back in 2005, I had published a Human Capital Formation diagram adapted from Nick Bontis and Tom Stewart.  I quickly realised the correlation between both concepts if I updated this 15yrs old diagram:

IKIGAI	Human Capital Formation
What we love	Employee satisfaction
What we are good at	Value generation
What the world needs	Employee motivation
What you can be paid for	Skills/competencies

 

An organisation should therefore aim to increase employees' satisfaction, motivation and commitment, as well as facilitating for them to acquire new skills and leverage their competencies.  The diagram above gives at the top a (non-exhaustive) list of levers an organisation can pull to achieve this.