It’s a great time of year to explore what drives and motivates you. Everything is still a bit new and most of the year is still in front of us. A perfect time to pause and review what’s important.
Just over a year ago, my co-founder, Kate Hartley, and I brought in Sally Henderson to help us discover the motivational map of the Polpeo team.
I’d done a motivational assessment before and found it really useful in understanding what I really wanted in my work life, what drives me, if I doing enough of what motivated me and having a clear idea of what made me tick.
Given the profound impact it had on previous teams I’d worked with and me personally, I knew that I wanted everyone at Polpeo to get a chance to explore what motivates them.
As a leader, it gives me a chance to check where everyone’s head is at, but I was also intrigued to see how my own motivations and drivers had changed over the years.
The impact of knowing what motivates you
The fascinating thing that came from the exercise were the unexpected revelations.
Teams can all be motivated by a central driver and it can be unifying for there to be similar motivations identified. What’s also interesting is how certain areas or tasks are much more important to an individual than they’d previously articulated. Hence the need to have open conversations and a safe environment to be honest When the team took the time to sit down and answer a set of questions about how they felt about each area of their working life, they could clearly see how satisfied they were with the areas that mattered to them – and how it impacted their overall motivation.
For example, if a team member’s biggest driver is creating, but they never have time to be creative and are bogged down in admin and meetings, they’re likely to be struggling with their motivation in the area most important to them.
And if stability and predictability is important to them, they’re probably going to have a hard time when things are in flux.
These are good things to know about ourselves, and the people we work with, because it helps us understand what makes each other thrive and struggle. It means we can approach each other (and ourselves) with more kindness and look for ways to help each other adapt.
As I settle in to focusing on Polpeo full-time, I’m finding the motivation training more useful than ever.
I know that stability is very important for all of our employees, but interestingly my co-founder Kate Hartley and I both had it as our lowest motivator – which makes perfect sense because as owners of a business we will always feel more in control of events than employees will. Plus we both thrive on and actively seek change. But seeing that written down and talking about it with the team, really drove home that the things that Kate and I say and do can be much more impactful on team members than we might realise. As a co-founder and not the sole leader as I was in my previous business, I’m finding the honesty of what motivates me and my co-founder really refreshing. It has led to having clearly defined roles and responsibilities that match our motivations and leads to more autonomy and clarity.
And for the wider team, the training gives us insight that helps us adapt roles around our people, keeping them happy, motivated and able to be their best selves at work.
