Rethinking Ikigai, Twitter as Meme Stock, and Friendly Competition

Knowledge Partner: McKinsey & Company

Have you ever worked with a freeloader or a micromanager? Then you know just how toxic some work jerks can be. Tessa West talks about her new book, Jerks at Work: Toxic Coworkers and What to Do About Them, and explores difficult work relationships and how best to navigate them. Read here.

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We have some fantastic pieces for you this week, so let’s get right to it!

Against Ikigai

Simone Stolzoff / Superorganizers

“Although searching for one’s life purpose in work can be a noble pursuit, the popularized notion of Ikigai that locates meaning only in work is misguided. It has diluted the term to the point where we’ve lost the script.” In this guest post for Superorganizers, Simone helps clarify the true meaning of Ikigai. In essence, sometimes it’s okay for work to just be work—you can find (and create) joy in your life as you diversify your portfolio of meaning outside of your job.

Read.

Twitter’s Shot at Becoming a Meme Stock

Evan Armstrong / Napkin Math

In case you missed all the memes, edit button discussions, and (of course) the controversy, Elon Musk bought 9.2% of Twitter stock, making him the largest shareholder. In this subscribers-only piece, Evan follows up on last week’s Twitter analysis to determine what Elon’s recent move means for the future of the company. Could TWTR be the next GME?

Read.

Friendly Competition and Subtle Defection

Nathan Baschez / Divinations

In this week’s piece, Nathan compares the competitive environments of Top Chef and The Great British Bake-Off , finding parallels with how we shape the environments of the real world. According to Nathan, in order to make our experience of competition more like GBBO, we can do two things: 1) we can seed a cooperative culture through our own actions and examples and 2) invest your energy into environments that are already cooperative, thereby making those games bigger and more successful.

Read.

The Futility of Utility

Evan Armstrong / Napkin Math

Lucky us! Two reads in one week for Napkin Math! This piece takes the shape of a personal essay, in which Evan reflects on why we, as humans, so often choose wrongly when it comes to maximizing our utility. Tying together business theory, personal anecdotes, and acute observations, Evan finds that the pursuit of perfect utility is, well, futile.

Read.

Study Sunday: Habits Drive Decision-Making

We’re testing a section where we break down one interesting scientific study per week. Like it? Let us know in the comments.

🤔 The Question

Do you really know why you do what you do? A new study finds that we consistently underestimate the degree to which our actions are driven by habit.

⚡️ The Findings

In two experiments, people mainly ascribed their actions and decisions to their feelings and intentional choices. For example, they said they were drinking coffee because they were tired, or that they refused to help the researchers when asked because they were in a bad mood.

But analyses revealed that habit strength was actually a much stronger driver of behavior, and yet it was consistently unacknowledged as the true cause.

🧪 The Study

Two experiments were conducted:

1) For one week, 112 participants were pinged every two hours and asked questions about their coffee consumption.

2) 809 participants were trained to habitually press a button. Then they had to press that button or a different one to indicate whether they were willing to give up their time to help the researchers.

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