Your inner life affects your outer life. In an article in the Harvard Business Review, Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer reported that they traced 12,000 diary entries logged by knowledge workers over three years. The entries revealed the dramatic impact of employee’s inner lives on several dimensions of performance.
Plus With social media becoming increasingly decentralized, every employee now has access to a company’s social networks, and represents the company even on their personal accounts. Thus the brand identity of an organization is now not limited to the activities of the advertising or communications department however every employee serves as a face of the company and is a significant player in communicating the brand identity and what the organization stands for, to the outside world.
Your inner life includes how you feel inside – your deeply held perceptions of what’s happening around you. When people form negative perceptions about their organisation or managers, their motivation level drops. The reverse is true when they form positive perceptions.
Amabile and Kramer in their article suggest that the single most important lever a company can use to motivate its employees and get their best work is to give those employees the sense that they can make progress in their work.
So if you want to get the best out of your team, you cannot ignore the inner lives of your team members. Ensure that every employee understands the higher purpose of the business and knows the immediate goals. Its important to empower them and give them a clear path to realizing their potential.
Provide specific positive feedback; illustrate how their work adds value and what they can do to enhance their performance.
In a recent interview to Entrepreneur magazine, Richard Branson talked about the process of growing a diverse, creative team. According to him, “You don’t need to bring your employees to the Caribbean to keep them learning. Invite guest speakers to your office. Go to events focusing on topics that are not strictly related to your industry and bring some of your employees along. Watch a few of the many incredible TED talks online. Remember, one of the best ways to learn is by taking your team members out of their comfort zone and embracing new ideas — and you’ll see results. Focusing on a topic out of the norm can bring renewed vigor to everyday activities.”
Once everyone feels like a stakeholder in the company and understands the impact of their contribution, they enhance their sense of ownership, meaning and value they attach to their work. They take responsibility and are accountable for a timely and quality delivery
Every person is different and responds to different motivations. For someone, having a more flexible work environment might work as a motivator while for another the need to feel a sense of belonging to a team might be more important.
At Google for instance, every employee has the opportunity to spend 20 percent of his or her time on a project they choose. This opportunity helps employees to get away from the mundane routine of their jobs and explore avenues to further enhance their creativity.
Plus Google takes it a step ahead. They invite employee participation in almost all aspects, from how they prefer to be compensated, to the design of new bicycles used throughout the expansive headquarters campus.
Every Friday, company leaders, including Page and Brin, conduct employee forums and respond to the top 20 most-asked questions.
When employees feel inspired by a higher purpose behind their work, and feel involved, they find it easier to transcend every day limitations and go beyond the normal confines of their role to become truly become extraordinary.