How do I motivate them? The Connector.
When my wife and I are both working from our home offices we have a cute little ritual around our daily coffee. We have one coffee a day at approximately 10-10:30am and the one of us not in a meeting at that time is the designated barista for the day. Today was my day, and while the coffee was brewing I decided to reach out to a colleague in my industry to simply ask 'how they are getting on' as we hadn't spoken for a few months. Within a minute he rang me back and we ended up speaking for the next 15 minutes sharing stories of highs and lows, plans and experiences, as well as learnings and challenges. I found myself smiling through most of the chat and when I got off the phone I felt different than before. I felt alert, motivated, and up for it!
On reflection my energy levels had elevated (before my daily coffee!). How is this possible? A friend in Adelaide talks with me over the phone for a few minutes and shifts me from plodding through my work at a steady rate to being excited as if it were Christmas morning. There is a weird transfer of energy happening in these moments and they invigorate us in a way we mostly unrecognised or under-utilised by leaders of teams. We often ask how we can motivate our team, and the connector of all things; energy, is central element to answering this question.
I have written extensively in The Rhythm Effect and previous articles on the work of Alex Pentland (MIT University) when it comes to using passion and enthusiasm in our communication. Pentland's research highlights that when people speak with expressive facial expressions, hand gestures, and within reach of contact (ie. are close without being creepy) they become what he calls Charismatic Communicators. This basically creates enthusiasm and a sense of energy in others around them. Knowing this as a leader is helpful as we can intentionally animate our message intentionally with our body language and tone of voice on the phone, when meeting with individuals, running meetings, or presenting to groups. My personal note on this is to ensure your expression is authentic and relevant otherwise we tend to come off 'plastic' and may undermine trustworthiness. This is a good start on how to inject energy and influence the energy of others, but how can we understand this better and personalise to our situations?
The individual is not the problem
One of the world's leading experts of burnout, Christina Maslach (University of California, Berkley) regards the WHO classification of burnout as a disorder is an unhelpful approach when looking at burnout in the workplace. Maslach co-authored a study in the area (Areas of Worklife Survey, 2015) in which she writes, "Categorizing burnout as a disease was an attempt by the WHO to provide definitions for what is wrong with people, instead of what is wrong with companies,” she explains. “When we just look at the person, what that means is, ‘Hey we’ve got to treat that person.’ ‘You can’t work here because you’re the problem.’ ‘We have to get rid of that person.’ Then, it becomes that person’s problem, not the responsibility of the organization that employs them".
When we acknowledge we have systemic problems in our businesses (and societies for that matter) we can apply a more sustainable and effective treatment. In a survey on the subject of burnout (Gallup, 2018) revealed five main reasons for employee burnout:
Unfair treatment at work - the feeling of injustice or observing injustices in one's team.
Unmanageable workload - our organisations are constantly crying out for more productivity from less resources. Post-pandemic workplaces have pushed this to new heights.
Lack of role clarity - the biggest challenge executive and frontline teams have approached me for help with in 2022. Almost every client I have worked with in the past 18 months has required support in this area either directly or indirectly.
Lack of communication and support from their manager - any form of what I call 'absentee leadership' leaves people feeling over-exposed especially when difficult challenges arise. Usually because leaders are either ill equipped to take on the responsibilities their roles demand or are suffer from unmanageable workloads.
Unreasonable time pressure - project timelines and commercial requirements are becoming more and more unrealistic in many circumstances. Sometimes we self-impose such restrictions on ourselves without realising. I see this point as being closely related to 'Unmanageable workloads'.
Most of us would be experiencing one or a few of these factors. That goes for our team members and stakeholders too. They are draining our resources and causing real cost in our businesses and to our people. This Gallup report goes onto to highlight how these burnout factors increase sick leave, reduce how much people want to talk about their professional goals, lowers confidence, and more than doubles the likelihood of employee resignations!
Leaders able to recognise these factors and act on them are the ones most equipped to reduce these risk factors. I love how these factors are ones leaders can influence through new working agreements and how they communicate and handle challenges as they arise. Here are some mildly helpful suggestions from my experience as a leader and educator in this area:
Unfair treatment at work - Stand up to injustices when you see them and become an expert in confrontation and conflict management
Unmanageable workload - Learn the fundamentals of Project Management and how to plan timelines. Confronting unrealistic expectations before they become pain points is an essential ability in any leadership role
Lack of role clarity - Adam Grant once said, "God is in the detail". One of the biggest reasons many do not hit their goals is because they are not clear on them. I have stopped being surprised when people cannot confidently ans succinctly answer the question, "What are your professional goals this year and how are you tracking?". We have to seriously question how clever we are being if we haven't taken the time to clarify and speak out-loud the details of who-is-doing-what and what each person is being measured upon. What do they say about assumptions...?
Lack of communication and support from their manager - If we are not in service to our team then what is the point of us being a leader? Checking in often and going into bat for them has been a leading principle since Robert K. Greenleaf wrote Service Leadership in 1977. We watch TED Talks and listen to podcasts littered with this message and our teams desperately need us to turn this into action. In my view we have no right to be in a leadership position if we are not focusing deliberate attention on communicating and supporting our team members daily.
Unreasonable time pressure - Being able to recognise what Margarette Heffernan calls Crunch Times and preparing for them is another skill of Timeline Management (different to Time Management). Also, being able to ensure Crunch Time doesn't become 'all the time' is crucial with far too many business models reliant on cultures of long hard working hours. Being able to strategically plan to avoid such models of work is a key planning skill we can utilise for individual roles, teams, projects, and entire organisations.
All of the above are ways we can utilise our own energy and save that of our team members for significant gains and create a culture that attracts talent rather than repelling it. Knowing all of this is hopefully helpful, but when we drill down into the everyday moments, being able to understand the key factors of energy influence is where the strategic game is at for leaders.
Its Finite and Moody
As with the earth's natural resources our own personal resources are also finite. This makes sense as energy in any form cannot be created nor destroyed but only converted from one form to another (Law of conservation energy). But human's are existential beings and therefore psychology helps (and hinders) our interpretation of our energy levels and how we decide on how to use our energy reserves.Kelly McGonical's research into the world of willpower best illustrates this. In her book, The Willpower Instinct, McGonical unpacks how our willpower is limited and goes onto to explain how we can best utilise our will power. Below is a visual representation of her work on the subject with a link to a short explainer video. Willpower tops up and diminished much like a battery and is uplifted by good levels of sleep, deep and slow breathing, exercise, and the environments we find ourselves in. Being aware of these recharge habits is great for managing our own energy levels and allows us to influence others keep their batteries topped up.
When willpower is low we tend to become less resilient, we look after ourselves less, and generally make poorer decisions (much like when we've had a few too many glasses of wine). But, aside to good self-care habits how can leader's get the most out of their own energy levels and motivate others and make them feel energised?
A leader's mood itself is a good starting point. How does it make you feel when someone shuffles through the door with their shoulders sunk, eyes to the floor, and they fail to even give you a grunt when say hi to them? It wouldn't surprise me if just reading this description made you feel a little less invigorated. The reason for this is the open-loop system in our limbic system (our emotional centre of the brain). Open-loop systems are regulated and influenced by external factors. This is why we smile when someone smiles at us, or feel warm-and-fuzzy when we watch a romcom. This system rules our emotional state and is one of the reasons we have been so successful as a species. It means we are better carers for our young, propagators of our DNA, and defenders of our tribes than most others. When in full swing it helps us create connection and belonging which are at the heart of relationships. When we have few relationships and meaningful connections our health outcomes suffer (PsyPost, 2022). Loneliness, which is on the rise is a real factor in many societies and feelings of loneliness in our workplaces is a very real drain on precious resources (as well as making for a rubbish daily experience).
Conversely, when a person strides into the room with a beaming smile and brightness in their eyes our open-loop responds before our conscious mind can and we rise up as our body gets a little shot of happy hormones. Do this often and with craft and the general levels of Oxytocin, the connection and courage hormone, rise in a team (How to make stress your friend, 2013). When we have these happy hormones running around in our system our psychological interpretation is that we are 'energised' and therefore motivated. Your mood effects their mood and their mood drives efficient use of everyone's energy.
Moods are contagious and when we understand this we can deliberately manage what mood we are communicating to our team. When we understand energy is finite and one of the best ways to positively influence the use of those energy reserves is to influence mood we can then take action. Daniel Goleman, the world leading expert on Emotional Intelligence says,
"Moods that start at the top tend to move the fastest because everyone watches the boss. They take their emotional cues from him/her. Even when the boss isn’t highly visible—for example, the CEO who works behind closed doors on an upper floor—his attitude affects the moods of his direct reports, and a domino effect ripples throughout the company."
One of the highest forms of leadership is to energise. This is at the core of motivation and being a motivator. Being able to dial down energy or arouse it when required is a leadership art form. All of us can influence each other's perceived energy levels in every moment. Some are more sensitive to this while some are more aware, but if you are human there is no getting away from the interdependence we have with each other's energy. Leaders looking to motivate individuals can utilise their body language, tone of voice, and mood to elevate or relax people's energy. They can give more energy or less energy to a person. They can plan energetic highs and lows and create a rhythm for their team or project. The beauty of all of this is that a leader has choice and can strategically plan how and where they will motivate people through the use of energy.
It is an exciting opportunity in a world where we are realising there is a real energy crisis, not only in our electrical grids but in our organisations and every human inside of them.
