Episode Details

It's clear to most of us that employee engagement has been steadily dropping for years. We've talked about it before on this podcast, and it's a real concern. I don't know about you, but personally, I find the terms inner work life, nourishers, and toxins kind of touchy-feely. But despite the terminology, I have found the evidence-based insights in The Progress Principle are worthy of our attention and application.

In this premium episode, I'd like to share some additional coaching based on my discussion with co-author Steve Kramer to help you apply the learning.

So let's start with this: it certainly makes sense that people are going to be more productive, creative, and committed when they feel good overall as well as feel good about the people they work with and the organization they work at.

But I wonder if we, as leaders and managers, think about this as often as we need to? I think it's easy to assume people are just glad to have a job these days. If they like us and the organization, that's frosting on the employment cake! But a clear lesson from The Progress Principle is that we have a tremendous amount of impact on the people around us. If we are intentional, we can free people up to be more productive, creative, and committed. And as Steve mentioned in the interview, it doesn't have to cost us much to do it.

Though I already admitted that I'm not personally a big fan of the term inner work life as it sounds a bit too much Oprah and Dr. Phil for my taste. Yet I do like how they define it. They say inner work life is the constant flow of emotions, perceptions, and motivations that we all feel as we react to events at work.

What do I like about that? Well, how about this: it acknowledges that we are innately emotional people. How many times have you heard someone say, "Hey, this isn't personal--it's just business." Then the next thing they say is completely personal!

We mistakenly try to pretend that emotions don't belong in the workplace when, in fact, it just doesn't work that way. If we ignore the emotions of the people around us, we risk not taking advantage of ways to truly engage the people we lead. I get that emotions can get messy but let's cast off the myth for good that it's even possible to stay just business with people. Ultimately, it's always personal.

So, what is the single biggest contributor to all this productivity, creativity, and commitment? According to Steve and Teresa's research it comes down to people having the sense they were making progress. Not spinning their wheels. Not two steps forward, five steps back.

And the progress forward was in what the person considers meaningful work. That has some good challenges for us to consider. How do your team members know they are making progress? How do you know? And are they working on meaningful work? How do they define meaningful? The answers will be different for each person on your teams but intentionally getting answers can help you drive even greater performance.

One of my speaking colleagues uses an instructive illustration. He puts a small blue dot on a white flipchart paper. Then he faces his audience and says, "This wall here? It used to be blue! I painted it white! What do you think about my newly painted wall?"

As you might guess, nearly everyone notices he missed a spot! Isn't that just like many of us who seek to lead? We only see the dots--those things that are problems, while missing all the work that is going well. I'm not suggesting that we ignore the dots. If there are performance problems or conflicts or qua