organizational ikigai

Written By Tripp Johnson

The following was adapted from my weekly team update. If you’d like to receive this as an email, shoot me a message hello@trippj.com.

This week I’m thinking about the Japanese concept of ikigai. If you check out the previous link, you’ll see one of my favorite concepts, eudaimonia, a related term with different origins. Ikigai encompasses finding purpose, fulfillment, and satisfaction in life by aligning four elements: (1) what you love to do, (2) what the world needs, (3) what you’re good at, and (4) what you can get paid for. I hope your work with the Advaita Collective moves you closer to discovering and working on your ikigai.

what the world needs

There is a lot of suffering in the world. Ultimately, the below summarizes the pivot we’ve made from being a singularly focused transitional living program in 2017 to an integrated ecosystem of care. When I ask myself the question, “What should we do?” I often think about how we can provide the most good for the world given our resources (time, people, and money). This line of inquiry is deeply influenced by the effective altruism movement applied to the behavioral health space.

what we get paid for

Money is the universal medium of exchange. Ignoring that we all need money to survive as individuals and as an organization is disingenuous. In fact, I believe that a lot of moral injuries occur in the mental health arena because it’s possible to guilt team members into doing more work — e.g., just see a few more patients; they really need your help. Our leadership team takes upward mobility seriously. Thus, the organization needs to generate more money for individuals to experience financial growth, and the organization requires money to invest in everything from growing the team to upgrading technology platforms and getting new furniture.

what we are good at

Delivering value is the name of the game, regardless of whether you’re in the mental health world or you’re building apps. Over the long run, creating value for patients, clients, users, and organizations is how you stay around. In addition to creating economic value, other factors must be considered. Below are a few ways that we are looking to increase our enterprise value over time. When I think about the effective altruistic approach to our work, I believe that a lot of value can be created through collecting, analyzing, and making changes based on empirical data. We are just one link in a long line of folks in the healing profession, and I want the Advaita Collective to play a role in creating a more equitable, higher-quality healthcare system.

If any of the items below interest you, reach out to see how you can get involved in new initiatives.

what we love to do

I sincerely hope that everyone loves their chosen profession. Sure, plenty of aspects of our daily work can feel burdensome (i.e., documenting sessions, updating referents, or managing utilization). Still, I hope that all leaders and supervisors are helping create a work environment that moves folks towards what experiences they want to have. Work takes up an incredibly large percentage of our short time on this earth, so I hope everyone can find deep meaning in their work. If this isn’t the case for you, I’d suggest bringing this up to your supervisor.

interdependent ikigai

One of the best books I read last year was An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization. You can check out a slidedeck that I made that goes into greater detail about what it means to be a deliberately developmental organization if you follow the button below. Ultimately, I believe that magic happens when we are able to integrate and align individual’s personal goals with the organization’s goals.

in closing + random thoughts

I spend much of my time thinking about highfalutin ideas, sometimes to the detriment of providing actionable insights. No one wants to feel like a cog in a machine, and many of us have experienced that in previous jobs. I like to share my thoughts and the ideas that influence our approach at the Advaita Collective. Is this one of the differences between leadership and management? Maybe. If you want to know what’s most important in an actionable manner, check out the graphic below.

random thoughts & links

Next week I will break down the economics of outpatient therapy and psychiatry. I’m hoping to get a good mix of theory and practical application, and in doing so, I hope to connect some dots between various departments and roles within the organization.

Tripp Johnson
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