Listen to (and Watch) What They’re Telling You

If we’re interested in attracting the best of the best to be part of (and stick with) our team, it will most certainly not be (just) about the pay - regardless of what any internet troll says, who’d rather whine about what he’s owed instead earning it for himself. Just like you and I need a definite purpose to push through the hard parts of leading, the best team members we’ll ever have need a clear purpose, too; great people always want to be part of something that really matters! With that in mind, I’ll stress once more that even the strongest purpose won’t completely replace the need for pay, because we all have to keep the lights on somehow. And since a strong purpose helps drive overall performance, it should actually be easier to provide strong compensation for the folks who are helping achieve that purpose. The reality though, regardless of how hard the idea of treating everyone equally is pushed upon us, is that all of the amazing people on our teams do not jump in and give it everything they’ve got for the exact same reasons. I’m positive that what motivates me isn’t exactly the same as what motivates you, so we can’t expect it to be any different throughout our teams! As leaders, it’s our responsibility to recognize a purpose that drives each individual, tie it to the purpose our organization is working toward, and keep that at the top of their mind.

At first glance, this can seem like an overwhelming challenge. With the busyness already involved in leading anything, how can we possibly have time to ever identify what each person on our team is motivated by? And if we somehow could, there’s no way we’d ever be able to connect that back to our overall organizational purpose or actually keep all that in front of them - is there?

I clearly believe the answer to both those questions is YES or I wouldn’t have asked. How’s that for rhetorical? I won’t pretend that doing this isn’t going to take intentional effort, but I’m convinced that the energy you invest in doing this will yield as much positive return while leading your team as anything else I’m aware of.

In The Truth About Employee Engagement (which was previously published as Three Signs of a Miserable Job), Patrick Lencioni shares what he feels are the three root causes of job misery; anonymity, irrelevance, and immeasurability. All three connect directly to purpose, but doing everything we can to eliminate anonymity will serve us well for what we’re looking at here. In describing what he means by anonymity, he shares this:

People cannot be fulfilled in their work if they are not known. All human beings need to be understood and appreciated for their unique qualities by someone in a position of authority. As much as this may sound like an aphorism from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, it is undeniably true. People who see themselves as invisible, generic, or anonymous cannot love their jobs, no matter what they are doing.

Removing this anonymity is as simple as getting to know what makes our team members tick; asking enough questions to genuinely get to know them - then actually listening to their response. When we, as leaders, are intentional about listening to (and watching - but we’ll dig into that in more specific detail soon) what our team members tell us, identifying the clear and definite purpose that gets them out of bed each morning won’t be hard at all. In fact, I believe doing that over the long haul will be significantly easier than trying to get results by constantly cracking the whip with a disengaged or unconcerned group of warm bodies. The thing that I’ve seen wreck the simplicity in what I just shared has been how seldom the folks in leadership roles really listen to the answers they get when they ask any questions at all, so that’s where we’ll pick up next time!