For a company, business to grow its people ought to grow first. One would instantaneously think of promotion along the career ladder - Hold on with that. In the series of June 2022 articles you will learn how each employee, team member, and team leader could grow both individually and together as a team using a powerful process of performance assessment and feedback culture. This is article 01.
What Makes Us All So Different And Alike At Our Work? - Motivation
Question to ask yourself: What is my motivation at my current company?
Building new products and solutions in the industry I'm interested in
Being able to pay my bills
Is there a hierarchy of motivations? Can we speak of some people having some sort of superior motivations, whilst others are wired by some mediocre factors? Categorically - NOT.
However, understanding how you and the people around you are wired is important.
As a human being, you have a unique ability to understand other people's character, predict their behavior
The good and the bad news we encounter here. On the upside, human beings have this gift "installed" in us from birth - our brain carries this duty for us. With that, it is a lifetime journey of understanding your own wiring, the unconscious, as you go through various experiences.
As you are observing yourself and those around you, you can start noticing that we all have various needs. In Mazlow theory it looks like this:
Self-actualization is when you feel what you are doing is your actual life mission and purpose, you feel you are "meant" to do it. In the most simplistic act, we could say that our job is meant to meet our need for self-actualization. Others would agree with Kim Scott who put it differently: "Only about five per cent of people have a real vocation in life, and they confuse the hell out of the rest of us".
Instead, focus on understanding your team members’ long-term ambitions, current objectives and how their today's circumstances working with you and your company help them in achieving those.
If you are in a managerial position in charge of people and you catch yourself with a thought - "WHY can’t they just be committed and do what they are supposed to do?"
The longer list of weaker motivations (which are short-lived / or linked to the main 3) could include :
Intellectual development, learning
Pursuit of novelty
Affiliation with a particular individual aka role model
Affiliation with a particular cause or community
Friendliness of people around
The flexibility of work schedule
Human nature is evolving, sometimes employees don’t know what they want, and none of them is absolutely suited for the job 100% of the time (just like yourself). But it is the duty of the skilled manager to work with this intricate manner of human beings' professional potential while running and growing the business.
Remember that our motivations evolve throughout our lifetime. Being self-aware and conscientious of your colleagues' driving forces is the first step toward having rewarding professional relationships powering business growth.