There Are Four Quadrants of Work, According To Seth Godin

The legendary entrepreneur and author shares how he thinks about work, fulfillment and leadership

I recently had the privilege of hosting Seth Godin on my show, the Elevate Podcast. Seth is a serial entrepreneur, marketing guru, cutting-edge business thinker and 21-time bestselling author.

Seth is a reservoir of insights and I highly recommend listening to our full conversation. But one of my biggest takeaways comes from Seth’s latest book, The Song of Significance, which we delved into in our interview.

Seth laid out an intriguing framework for understanding different types of work, and how to evaluate each type. Like many useful framework’s, it’s two-by-two matrix with four quadrants based on the dimensions of "trust" and "stakes" in different work settings. These quadrants include:

• High Trust, High Stakes Work

• High Trust, Low Stakes Work

• Low Trust, High Stakes Work

• Low Trust, Low Stakes Work

Here’s how Seth explained each of these quadrants.