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Everybody / craves / impact. // We all want / our work / to matter. / When we ask people, / "What is the work experience like / when you're working hard / but yet / you're strangely underutilized?" / Or maybe / You're doing work / that / isn't landing, / that doesn't seem / to have impact, / where you feel like / you're working hard / but you're not getting anywhere / or nobody sees / or notices. / People describe this / state of work / as frustrating, / draining, / demoralizing, / and exhausting. // Now when we ask people, / "What is work like when you're doing work / that matters, / that's visible, / that gets / noticed?" // You're using / all / of your skills / and knowledge / and capability / and every IQ point. // What people will say, / it's totally / exhilarating. / It's fulfilling. / It's energizing. / It's impactful. // The way that you work / has really important implications / for burnout, / for our own burnout, / for burnout that's happening inside of an organization. // Studying how we think / and how we operate / can end up / creating extraordinary differences / in impact. / And what that means / is without working harder / we can increase our impact / and avoid burnout. // The idea of impact players is a metaphor that I borrowed from sports. // In the sports world, / we all know / who the impact players are. / There are people / who make / this valuable contribution, / but teams / play better / because they're on the team. // They're the people we turn to / in the high-stakes situation / and the people / we hand the ball to / in the moments that matter./ People we know / are going to go out there / and get the job done, / but they're going to do it in a way that secures a win / for the whole team. // In my research, / what I began to see / is that / the workplace / has impact players / as well. / When situations are / messy, / ambiguous, / uncertain, / the impact players / move toward it / and they take charge of it. / While the ordinary contributor / tends to pull back / and maybe even / run from / the chaos, / the impact players / dive into it. / They dive into it / much like / a surfer / when they see this kind of big / oncoming wave / instead retreating, / they dive through that wave / to get to the other side where there's / play, / where there's opportunity, / where there's a chance to innovate. //