Is it a workplaces’ responsibility to keep you motivated?
Paul Watkins
The Antifragile Advantage - driving high performance in businesses and schools via the skills of discipline, curiosity, momentum and adventure
Cue the consultants:
“The Great Resignation, Quiet Quitting and now the AWM (anti-work movement) - a focus on the employee is long overdue:” – McKinsey (1)
?"Employees are exhausted, overwhelmed and questioning what works means and thinking through their options” – PWC (2)
“This requires transformational change via analytically rigorous performance management” McKinsey (3), knocking the word salad score out of the park.
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Let’s cut to the chase and restate the bleedingly obvious – human capital is an organisation’s most precious resource – and it’s not happy.
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For the best part of a century leaders have been trying to divine the unique sequence of levers and buttons that will hit the ‘motivational’ jackpot and produce an army of high performing loyalists.
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And therein lies the first problem – do we really understand what we are trying to solve?
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We want our employees to be motivated, engaged, and productive whilst also fostering their wellbeing as individuals.
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Cool story but that’s not a problem, it’s an end state. And let’s be honest, it’s also not entirely what you want. If we step away and whisper in the shadowy corners, we find a deeper truth – most businesses want people who regularly turn up and deliver the goods. Period. And employees want to feel elevated by their contribution, their station and, well, pretty much their entire lives.
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Truth is we aren’t going to be particularly motivated all the time (regardless of what the insta-gurus tell you) and you aren’t always going to be happy (again, insta-gurus notwithstanding). Challenging work, hard work, fulfilling work is like that. It pushes back, throws curve balls and knocks you back every now and then. That’s why it’s ultimately fulfilling.
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Employers want results and in general as employees we want to deliver them. We’d also like to feel good about it and derive a sense of self-worth and accomplishment. Nothing in there about motivation.
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“Employees are exhausted and overwhelmed”
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I don’t disagree with that one. But how much of that ‘exhaustion and overwhelm’ is from work? If you sit up all night watching Netflix, kickstart the engine with a gallon of dark roast every morning and haven’t spent a meaningful hour alone with your own thoughts since the invention of the internet then is it any wonder that you’re feeling somewhat sub-par. Where is the DMZ between what work is contributing to and what it’s responsible for (and capable of) fixing?
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Now before you gather your pitchforks and light your torches and storm my ramparts chanting death to the capitalist dictator allow me this in my defence.
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“Not everything is a problem to be solved – somethings are simply a dichotomy to be managed”. – Leila Hormozi.
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The workplace is not the source of all your problems, nor is it responsible for all the solutions – but it must take a solid portion of the blame and play a serious role in the construction and facilitation of a workable solution.
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So let’s look back, and then look forward.
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What did we try and why did it suck.
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Way back in 1963 when the No.2 Song in the US was 'Surfin’ in the USA' by the Beach Boys – Frederick Herzberg produced an absolute mic dropper of an article for the Harvard Business Review (4). I know it was good because sixty years later it’s still doing the rounds and getting referenced.
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Titled “One more time: how do we motivate employees?" along with the following by-line – ‘forget praise, forget punishment, forget cash, you need to make their jobs more interesting’
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Here’s a quick rundown on the tried and failed measures for motivation that he discussed:
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Let’s give them what we think they want;
?1.?????Decrease work hours – turns out employees who found their work fulfilling wanted more hours not less
2.????More money – mo’ money mo’ problems, specifically the chase for mo’ money
3.?????Fringe Benefits – a never ending cycle of raising the bar and chasing an ever-escalating target.
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Maybe it’s a training and communication issue;
?4.????It must be training issue – mo’ meetings (it wasn’t a training issue)
5.?????Management is insensitive – mo’ meetings (maybe they are but it didn’t resolve anything)
6.????Employees can’t communicate – mo’ meetings (it wasn’t a communication issue)
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Then just tell us what you want;
7.????Surveys – We arrived at a Tom Cruise-esque ‘Help me Help you’ moment ala Jerry Maguire.
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Only problem with Number 7 is that employees may have no clear answer on what they actually want.
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We gave them what we thought they wanted – and looks like we were wrong.
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We asked them what they wanted and either they couldn’t articulate it or gave us a list of things they thought they wanted.
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And an army of consultants, veritable mountains of paperwork and enough survey-monkeys to recreate Planet of the Apes later and we found ourselves with yoga studios, breakfast bars, inhouse chefs, rooftop bars and more bean bags and hacky sacks than you could poke a stick at.
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Welcome to the world of Corporate and Individual mimetic desire.
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Coined by Rene Girard, ‘mimetic desire’ is the drive to want what others want – or at least what we think others want us to want.
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So you end up with companies making choices that, subconsciously, can be driven by the desire to be like others, rather than true to themselves. A macro ‘Keeping up with the Jones’s’ And yes, I think companies can have a ‘collective’ subconscious – they are simply a group of real people, led by other real people. Unless an AI is calling all the shots then it’s emotions all the way up and down the ladder.
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What do you really want?
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If you want to get all existential about it – how much time have you put into thinking about what you want to want? Not what you think you should want, or what you think everyone else wants you to want – but what do you really want to want?
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And if as a leader you haven’t addressed this yourself – both internally as a human and externally as a leader then how can you spot the problem further along the chain, or facilitate others through the morass of mimetic desire to find out what they really want.
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“Factors that motivate and demotivate employees are not the opposite sides of the same coin, they’re not even the same currency” – Me.
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So what do you want?
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Businesses want generators. They don’t want a battery they have to keep recharging.
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People want to be fulfilled – challenging work, respect, recognition, reward, responsibility.
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And that fulfilment is across their entire life – not just whilst they are work.
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If businesses want high performing generators, they have to recognise that what employees truly want and need may not be obvious – even to the employees themselves. Unlocks will lie in developing skills, self-awareness and a cultural environment that transcends the hours they spend at work.
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And of course, please do all this whilst balancing ESG initiatives, workforce dynamics, generational change, AI, margin squeeze and regulatory moving targets.
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So what to do?
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Let’s set some parameters and lean into some healthy but robust discussions.
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Fulfilling work isn’t always easy. In fact, as humans we need hard work, challenges, push back and turmoil – biochemically we need that to feel the highs and satisfaction, the self-actualisation that comes with a job truly well done (and worthy of our best efforts).?There is a place for a respectful discussion about what ‘hard’ looks like, the purpose it serves and how we manage it when it becomes ‘too hard’.
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“That’s what the money is for” – Don Draper
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Is it a workplaces’ responsibility to keep you motivated?
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That’s a thorny one – I would argue that they absolutely have a responsibility to produce an environment that fosters best possible outcomes. For everyone – from the customer all the way through employees to the those bearing the financial risk (be them founders or shareholders). There is space to develop both the human capital as well as organisational performance outcomes. But the human cap development must focus on skills that transcend the workplace.
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If we can provide the toolkit and knowledge for employees to build an antifragile, disciplined and self-aware version of themselves then you not only have a better employee but you have a happier, healthier and more durable human.
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?And that’s how you win. ?
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Ref.
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4.????https://hbr.org/2003/01/one-more-time-how-do-you-motivate-employees (this is an updated version of the original article)
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8 个月For me, this is the best part of the article. If you want to get all existential about it – how much time have you put into thinking about what you want to want? Not what you think you should want, or what you think everyone else wants you to want – but what do you really want to want? Not enough time and effort goes into this by anyone. It can be a liberating moment once you get to that intrinsic gratification stage of knowing what you want, without worrying about what others think!! Great article.
Driving Business Success with Strong Foundations & Scalable Structures | Strategic Messaging | Targeted Lead Generation for Real Results
8 个月Wonderful insight Paul Watkins and layed out beautifully with great flow making it easy for the simplest mind to follow ... even mine!
Supporting ambitious people to create rewarding careers and positive impacts on places ?? Professional Development Coach ?? Facilitator ?? Speaker ? Director (GAICD) ?? Urban Planner ?? Wilderness Protector ?? MC ??
8 个月Great article Paul - appreciate your thoughtful insights ??
#EthanPoem | Poet | Writer | Speaker | Freestyle poetry & free association
8 个月I Spy...a cheeky book title somewhere in your article, Paul Watkins.
100 Mile Ultra Runner Training For 309 | Leading The Building Industry From Ordinary To Warrior!!
8 个月What a great article on a challenging topic!!