You Might be Asking The Wrong Question

As part of an icebreaker for a quarterly staff meeting, a CXO asks their direct reports where they want to be in 10 years. To a person, this group of 40’ish leaders offered one of two answers:

1. Retired

2. Working part-time so I could spend more time on ______ (some personally important leisure activity).

True story.

What does it say when your entire team says they’d rather be doing something else?

Now there are lots of reasons for this. As likely as not, most of those reasons have nothing to do with this CXO or the company. In fact, of my clients, this company values people and puts them first more than any other. Still, as a result of COVID and everything going on in the world, people have re-evaluated what’s important. And most of the time, work, isn’t it.

Most of us have to work. The daydream about not working often distracts us from making the most of today. In fact, we actively create our own dissatisfaction when we focus on the gap between what we’d like to be doing someday and what we have to do now.

How do you get the best out of people when they’d rather be doing something else? For that matter, how do you maintain your own motivation when you’d rather be doing something else?

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my coach. I was bragging about how content I am. I said, “There’s not much I really want. If someone told me I had a week to live, I’d be okay with that. I would feel content that I lived a full life.”

He cleverly said, “That’s great. What if you live another 30 or 40 years? What do you want all those years to be like?”

When your team is focused on where they’d rather be - or you’re daydreaming about where you’d rather be - try bringing them back to the present with a different question.

What’s the impact you want to have with the rest of your career??

This is the kind of question people will have to think about for a minute. You might find people want to build cool stuff. Or change something big in your company, industry, or the world.

I find that most often, especially when working with people who would rather be retired, it’s incredibly motivating to focus on the impact they can have on the people around them, on their teams, and even on their families.

It’s a powerful way to make work meaningful in the face of the day-to-day grind.

If you’d like help refocusing your team (or yourself) on the meaningful impact you’d like to have with your career - and, let’s face it, your life - let’s connect.

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