Activating The Good Work Life relies on three activities: notice, explore, change—a simple framework for turning noticings into meaningful change.
Activating The Good Work Life relies on three activities: notice, explore, change.
Noticing is pointing attention to what's happening within and around you. It’s a conscious sensing of your environment, responses, and experiences at work.
Examples of some things you might notice:
How you're feeling physically and emotionally
What energizes or drains you during your workday
Patterns in meetings, emails, and interactions
How decisions are made and communicated
When processes create friction or flow
Your reactions to workplace challenges
What resonates with or conflicts with your values
The energy in a room when entering different work spaces
Subtle shifts in team dynamics
How information flows (or doesn't) across departments
How decisions are made and influenced
Noticing, I believe, comes naturally to humans, especially humans in the caring professions and organizations. The challenge is more often making the space to notice.
While noticing alone can shift your perspective, exploring can take your understanding even deeper.
Exploring is inquiring into an element of your workplace experience with curiosity and openness. Examples of how you might explore:
Question assumptions about yourself, systems, and relationships
Wonder if current practices are the best way to do the work
Reflect on why certain situations energize or drain you
Seek feedback from trusted colleagues about your approach
Research ideas in books, articles, podcasts, or other resources
Examine how your values align with your daily work
Observe the dynamics between different teams or groups
Consider how your responses to challenges reflect your beliefs
Learn about different approaches others use for similar tasks
Find connections between seemingly unrelated elements
Journal about patterns in your emotional responses to work
Investigate the history and context behind established practices
Exploring itself changes how we see our work, and ourselves at work, which often brings about the opportunity to act.
Trying a change is taking informed action to improve some element of your workplace experience. It's moving from insight to impact. Examples of how you might try a change:
Design a new approach to a recurring challenge
Adjust your schedule based on insights about your energy patterns
Initiate a conversation about a team dynamic
Modify how you prepare for or contribute to meetings
Develop a new skill that addresses a gap you've identified
Set boundaries that protect your time or wellbeing
Adapt how you process or respond to workplace demands
Create rituals or practices to support yourself at work
Implement a modification to a workflow that causes friction
Advocate for a system change based on your observations
Apply research-based approaches to improve communication
Document and reflect on what happens when you implement a change
Trying a change is about improvement. And learning. And applying that learning for further improvement.
In my experience, workplace experience can be improved by each activity alone: 1) just noticing—noticing creates awareness that can shift perspective, 2) only exploring—examining a pattern can reveal insights that change how you see work, and 3) trying a change—even small adjustments can create meaningful impact.
Yet their power of progress emerges when the three activities are connected.
Together, noticing, exploring, and trying a change create a take action sequence. The take action sequence animates The Good Work Life as a professional development and workplace experience improvement framework.
Noticing leads to observations. Observations can be explored. Exploration leads to a working theory. A working theory becomes the basis for thoughtful action. So we try a change.
Where to begin? Consider what you've already noticed about your workplace experience—an energy drain, a challenging relationship, an unproductive standing meeting. Take a few minutes to explore it—why is it happening? What purpose does it serve? Who benefits from the current situation? What assumptions are you making?
Then, drawing on things like your professional expertise, others' wisdom, what you've learned through exploration, and more, take informed action by trying a change.
Noticing, exploring, and trying a change—together a take action sequence—is meaningful progress toward shaping the workplace experience you desire.