Almost everyone knows that, but in business we often don't act on it. It's one of my favorite questions when I lecture: what gets people moving? The answer is always a nice harvest of things like: fun, passion, meaning, challenge, the feeling of contributing something, team spirit, team performance, exceeding expectations, actual change or impact, feeling connected, making customers happy. In psychology, we call this the pleasure principle (see below).
My next question then is, "What is in organizations common to get people moving? Some of the answers: create a project plan, including deadlines, a working or project group, a steering committee, a communication plan to convince everyone, rules and procedures, KPIs, progress reports, do's and don'ts, job descriptions, etc.
Now it is effectively true that you cannot work without clear plans and goals, and you need to check them off along the way, but they are not the best motivators To move people in an organization.
In my opinion, it is one of the reasons why engagement in organizations remains stuck at a meager 12% (according to Gallup's international surveys), and in the Netherlands even 9%. And why change in most organizations is extremely slow and inflexible. We forget to turn on the most important driver of human behavior: the intrinsic motivation!
Going back to the core of what motivates people, we arrive at two basic mechanisms, recognized and described in both psychology and neuroscience:
- Avoiding dislike (danger and risk): behavior arising from a need for direction, control and predictability: routines, regularity, systems, rules, norms, certainties, being cautious, checking, checking, being critical....
vs.
- Satisfying lust: behavior arising from the urge for gratification: hunger and sex, self-expression, play, meaning, trust, friendship, caring, performing, winning, being able to contribute, enjoying, learning, developing oneself....
Sometimes it seems like we have the first mechanism (be in control) in organizations as an ideal and have come to see the second mechanism as the main sideshow. Things like job satisfaction and happiness, motivation and meaning are easily seen as less measurable and objective. As a result, they fit less into a corporate frame and are also often named as soft and belonging to the category of 'nice to have'. With this, we have parked the LUST principle in the basement.
Leaders get in the way of themselves
How would it be if we better balanced both mechanisms and gave more space to people's intrinsic drive? For me, it was an important motivation to write the book OXYGEN write. Organizations, and especially their leaders, sometimes get in their own way too much by steering, organizing and relying too much on the first mechanism: risk avoidance.
OXYGEN is about the energy and mindset organizations need to successfully change and move purposefully. It does away with the rational, corporate models of behavior change and leadership. These are mostly outdated and hardly prove to work in practice anymore. They ignore the essences of being human and the increased complexity. The book describes on the basis of 5 keys how organizations can change and develop human-centered. In addition to insights from psychology and neuroscience, many practical examples are presented.
Now also available through Bol!
SOURCE is available through the website From Fresh Forward, via Management Book and recently also via Globe! From October 5, the English version of OXYGEN will also be available!
By Jempi Moens, Hilversum Aug. 8, 2024
