Meaningful Work

"Work in organizations, directed toward achieving shared goals, also answers another human need: it allows us to feel useful. Individuals need to commit themselves to something that is valuable, that has a positive impact. Through usefulness is a highly subjective experience, it is linked to the particular objectives and causes that drive individuals to transcend their customary abilities. Because a search for usefulness--for meaning--largely determines a person's life course, it also influences life in organizations. Once again, this poses a challenge for the global leader: how to find a purpose or objective that employees from different cultures see as meaningful, inspiring them to strive in ways that simplistic formulas of return on investment and profit maximization cannot."

Is there some truth to the author's contention? What is it that we would find meaningful to our life's purpose in the midst of an organization or work setting?