One Of The Single Biggest Discoveries Gallup Has Ever Made

Gallup's "World Poll" was the first of its kind. No one had ever created a poll that covered almost every issue on the globe, with questions that were applicable to every culture.

There is a lot of data out there that shows what men and women are doing around the world, but Gallup wanted to find out what men and women around the world are thinking. Gallup could not find such a poll, so they made one.

Gallup scientists created a questionnaire that was translated into dozens of languages, and they collected data from over 100 countries. The Gallup organization is committed to conducting this poll for 100 years.

After the first World Poll was completed in 2007, Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of Gallup, wrote of this project: "...we many have already found the single most searing, clarifying, helpful, world-altering fact." He went on to identify this fact as, "one of the single biggest discoveries Gallup has ever made."

What was Gallup's great discovery?

Clifton summarized it this way: "What the whole world wants is a good job."

Clifton wrote these words before we entered the world-wide recession we are now experiencing: "If you and I were walking down the street in Khartoum, Tehran, Berlin, Lima, Los Angeles, Baghdad, Kolkata, or Istanbul, we would discover that on most days, the single most dominant thought carried around in the heads of most people you and I see is 'I want a good job.'"

I found Clifton's report fascinating. It says something about people, in all parts of the globe, throughout all cultures. Muslims, Christians, atheists, Jews, black, white, communists and capitalists. It says something about how we are wired. We have a common felt need. That felt need is to be working, and to be working in a "good" job.

But what makes a particular job “good?” Is it the pay? The people we work with? The compatibility of our work with our particular gifts and talents, doing what we want to do? These are important factors, but it is possible to have excellent pay, great people to work with, a very fitting job compatibility, and yet still lack that "something" which makes a particular job a “good” one.

What is that "something?"

To answer this question, we'll turn once more to Dr. George Washington Carver. Next week.