Drivers of Performance and Motivation

Before we talk about strategies that you can use, to leverage individuals values and needs for motivation. I want to share with you what I consider to be some pretty scary data. That we’ve collected over the last several years. What you see here is the results of a Gallup survey, collected back in October of 2013. Where they surveyed individual employees across 142 countries around the world. Asking people how engaged, how motivated are they at work. And the data’s pretty striking. What you see here is only 13% of employees across the globe. Actually rated themselves as being truly engaged or motivated at work. The majority, 63% actually assessed their own motivation, as simply not engaged really at all.

It’s just more not engaged, not disengaged, but just sort of there, at work. These are the people that show up every day, they clock in, they clock out. But they’re not really engaged in the work. Relative to the 13%, who are really passionate, really motivated. To contribute to the organization, but again only 13%. But then you look and almost one quarter 24%, of people around the globe actually rated themselves as actively disengaged. These are the individuals that, it’s not as simple as they’re just showing up. They are actually actively acting out their disengagement. These are the people that may be sleeping on the job, or undermining other people at work.

Or simply withholding their own effort and performance, so not to contribute to the broader purpose of the organization. 24% of people rated themselves as actively disengaged. Surely that’s a conservative estimate if they’re rating themselves as actively disengaged. When I first saw these data, it was pretty scary. Because this as managers, this is what we’re up against. We have to find a way to take the actively disengaged and the not engaged. That 87% of the population in your organization. Whether the organization is one you work in today or maybe in the future. 87% are either not engaged or actively disengaged. Only 13% truly engaged. Imagine you are in a team with ten other individuals.

13%, maybe one, maybe two of those individuals are truly engaged. 24%, okay. Two or three of those individuals, are actively disengaged, and undermining the purpose of that team, by withholding their effort or actually actively undermining the contributions of others. That’s a really scary proposition, and a really scary environment that we find ourselves in.

So what I’d like you to do now is take a minute. Think about the team that you’re either part of at work, or outside of work. And I want you to, on a sheet of paper, actually begin to assess where your team. Each individual in the team. Where they fall, in terms of actively disengaged, not engaged, or engaged. And name names. Which members of your team do you perceive to be actively disengaged? Which members do you see as being not engaged? Lacking the motivation, not likely to invest discretionary effort to go above and beyond, to help the team or the organization achieve it’s goals. They’re there. They contribute. But they’re not gonna go above and beyond.

And then finally which members do you see as being truly engaged? These are the employees that psychologically they’re committed to the jobs, committed to the purpose of the organization of their team. And they’re really putting forth the effort to contribute. Take a few minutes and write down each of the individuals on your team, and categorize them into one of these three categories. Actively disengaged, not engaged, or engaged. And then we’ll come back and talk about it.

Okay, so you had a chance to assess your team along these dimensions of actively disengaged, not engaged or engaged. What did you find? Did you find a similar pattern to the data that we talked about earlier, in terms of 13%, being engaged. Maybe you’re a little over 60% not engaged. Maybe a quarter of your team being actively disengaged. Did you find something similar? What I’d like you to do is go to the discussion forum, where we talk about how motivated is your team. And share with your fellow classmates. Not necessarily the names of your team members. We don’t need to go that far. But what are you observing in your team?

What are the behaviors that you’re seeing, in terms of the employees or the team members who are actively disengaged? What behaviors are you seeing that indicate that they’re actively disengaged? What behaviors are you seeing that would classify someone as not engaged. And then what are the behaviors you’re seeing that would characterize someone as truly being passionate, motivated and engaged in the team. Share with your fellow classmates what your seeing and begin to try to understand, what are the common themes that indicate when someone’s truly engaged and when they’re not.