Two vans stop on a grassy hilltop. Inside are a dozen meteorology students and their professor. From here you can see in all directions, because we are in the Great Plains of North Dakota. You can also hear the rumble of a thunderstorm overhead. That’s what they want to see.

The local college had organized a storm chasing field trip, and the students were excited about this moment since the professor had predicted that this would likely be “the storm of the year” and one that could spawn an “earthquake-causing tornado.”

So we are surprised that the students are barely paying attention when the professor reports that the storm is producing hailstones the size of grapefruits. Instead, we find them tired and inattentive. One is even falling asleep.

Management scholars would put it this way: The team is suffering from a lack of engagement—the extent to which we are cognitively, emotionally, and physically immersed in our tasks. The problem is not that these students lack passion. Rather, they have spent the entire week focusing on a tornado scenario that is now no longer happening.

We, two management professors, want to investigate how people deal with work in uncertain environments. Engagement is an essential component of successful performance in many organizations where work demands are complex, fast-moving and require creativity.

The fact that economics academics are teaming up with storm chasers may seem surprising at first glance, but it reflects the management field’s growing interest in so-called extreme contexts.

The idea behind this is that we can learn a lot from unconventional environments in more familiar working environments, especially when the organizations there have adapted to extreme conditions.

For example, if you want to learn about safety and reliability, look to nuclear power plants, where mistakes can have disastrous consequences. Or you can find lessons about improvisation in police units or mountain climbers whose lives depend on it.

To understand how people deal with their work in uncertain times, we turned to storm chasing. For three years, we accompanied storm chasers through exciting and everyday moments.

The value of work engagement

Storm chasing is all about tracking severe weather, and anyone who has ever encountered a powerful tornado will tell you how exhilarating and even spiritual the experience is.

For professional hunters – scientists, tour operators and anyone who makes a living selling their film material – this can be an extremely exciting activity.

But often the opposite is the case. As one of us had previous hunting experience, we knew that boredom and disappointment were common. Teams spend their days preparing for dramatic encounters with severe weather that often do not live up to expectations.

You may not think that storm chasing is similar to your work, but our research shows that it can provide valuable insights into how people can maintain their engagement and enthusiasm for their job.

Engagement at work is linked to valuable outcomes for people and their organizations, including creative performance, commitment, and a sense of well-being. Yet many people struggle to stay engaged because they feel distracted or lacking energy.

This can be partly attributed to the lack of meaningful work in many modern jobs, but our research reveals another reason: many of us are passionate about our work but find only fleeting opportunities to engage in our core tasks.

Think of the firefighter who volunteers to rescue people from fires, only to spend his days reporting false alarms. Or the news correspondent who arrives on the scene to cover an important story, only to find that not much is happening. Such unpredictable and irregular work demands dampen people’s enthusiasm.

Even though we spend more time at our workplaces, professionals – from consultants to engineers – report that they do not have enough time to devote to the important or meaningful tasks. This has been proven to lead to lost productivity, accidents and even loss of professional identity.

The good news is that our research has shown that many storm chasers have learned to focus on their work even during the quietest times when nothing exciting seems to be happening.

The trick is that these hunters don’t just wait for events like tornadoes to happen, but turn the present moment into an opportunity to do meaningful work.

First, hunters are expanding the scope of what they consider to be meaningful tasks, such as developing a feel for more common, predictable weather scenarios. One tour operator told us, “We tell our clients… we regularly see supercells… (which) can be more beautiful and photogenic than tornadoes.”

Second, hunters enrich their free time by filling it with activities (such as testing a new forecasting technique) that make them feel like they spent the day productively, even if there were no storms.

Third, chasers extend the duration of their core tasks. As one team leader explained, the time spent preparing and debriefing “can be more important (to maintaining members’ enthusiasm) than the five minutes spent on the tornado after eight hours of driving.”

Our research shows that we can be more engaged at work if we value the broader range of tasks we are given, enrich free time with meaningful activities, and expand the stimulating moments when we actually have them.