Hi all,
Welp, I hope we are all feeling a bit better this week than last week, because last week felt like a slog. Many of you responded to echo my resounding “woof” about the start to the year… and that even though we all have a lot on our plates, motivation levels were draaaggging. Who can relate to this:
For me personally, I was physically not feeling well (thanks Omicron), and as the ol’ Maslow’s hierarchy of needs reminds us:
When your baseline needs (such as health) aren’t being adequately met, things like “goal setting” and “self-actualization” are so far off the table psychologically - just a big mega HELL.NAH.
I, admittedly, am one of those people that can be sent into a doom spiral when I’m sick because I can’t be productive or motivated. I also have the very rational thought when I’m sick that I will stay sick forever. (Thanks, anxiety.) Thankfully, that appears to not be the case, and both my physical health (and accordingly, my psyche too) are on the mend.
Last week I wrote about quick starts to intentions, instead of lofty, ambitious long-term goals, because that’s all I had the energy for. In this week’s newsletter, I’ll explore how we can jumpstart engagement, both for ourselves, and for our employees.
Maybe given the state of the world right now, you’re not in a place to declare 2022 the “best year ever”, or a major year of change and accomplishment. Maybe the extent of your goals right now is just to feel a tiny bit of forward momentum, or to feel slightly more positive about the things you’re working on.
How do we generate that feeling of accomplishment or momentum, when we really feel overwhelmed or rudderless? It’s the principle of inertia in some ways - an object in motion stays in motion. A person in a funk, stays in a funk.
Turns out, there’s a whole area of behavioral research dedicated to a concept that can ignite self-worth and accomplishment. You and I are frequent users and beneficiaries of this effect in many areas of our lives as consumers without even being fully aware of it. If you’ve ever: made a cake from a mix, assembled furniture or cooked from one of those meal kit programs, you’ve done something “DIY”, and have likely experienced this. You do something that has a perceived level of effort (not a huge amount of effort), and you feel intrinsically happy and proud that you did it.
There’s another concept called economic orthodoxy that we all intrinsically understand, that is somewhat counter to this DIY concept: we should place more value on things that save us effort. Of course, nowadays, we outsource everything, and we spend money on a myriad of apps that make things happen as quickly and efficiently as possible. And yet, companies like Blue Apron, and Hello Fresh have emerged: multibillion dollar companies that occupy the space on the effort spectrum between fully doing everything yourself (buying groceries and cooking a meal), and at the other end, ordering fully prepared ready-to-eat meals.
Implicitly, we also place some utility for doing some part of the process ourselves.
This phenomenon dates back to the 1940’s. A consumer psychologist, Ernest Diechter, was doing research for Betty Crocker to revive declining sales. After many interviews with housewives, it turned out they found the cake process too easy. He suggested replacing the egg powder in the mix with actual fresh eggs, requiring the baker to not just mix powder plus water, but also procure and crack eggs into the batter. Cake mix sales took off, and Diechter dubbed the phenomenon, the IKEA effect, after a obscure, burgeoning startup (yes, IKEA was a startup then), took that principle and turned it into - well, you know how that turned out. You can read more about the study here.
It sounds silly. Does cracking an egg, or chopping a single carrot massively accelerate our self-worth? Doubtful. But the methodical steps and the hands-on experience of doing these things (even if they are little things) increases our sense of ownership of a certain process and extends the time spent with something. Both of these contribute to a sense of value, both of the end product, and also of ourselves for doing the thing. A study conducted by Harvard in 2011 where participants did things like assembled IKEA boxes, built Legos and folded origami revealed that “Participants saw their amateurish creations… as similar in value to to the creations of experts, and expect others to share their opinions.”
(As a side note, I am objectively terrible at assembling furniture. I once volunteered for a habitat for humanity type project in college, and was a negative contributor in effort - after assembling an IKEA dresser for the master bedroom, the team’s lovely project manager had to spend an hour reassembling it so that the handles could be installed on the outside of the drawers. But I felt... ✨accomplished✨).
The major takeaway of the study was that labour leads to love, a concept that’s meaningful both in a consumer context and also in a managerial context.
How does this relate to work engagement?
I think this can be applied in two ways:
Generating a bit of self motivation - doing something that isn’t necessarily major, but is owned
Maybe not everything you’re working on in a day is directly correlated to the big ambitious goals that you’re measured on at year-end. Perhaps what will give you that tiny bit of motivation is something much smaller, (which may then turn motivate you to work on larger initiatives).
As a small example: I maintain our company’s CRM. I am, by no means, an expert, and our needs as small firm aren’t massive. I add simple functionality where/when it’s required, and there are plenty of self-guided tutorials online. I take pleasure in learning these small shortcuts to make things run a little bit smoother. Like the Harvard study suggests, these small tasks make me feel extremely (perhaps disproportionately) accomplished, which in turn gives me a jolt of motivation to focus on a larger/more daunting project.
Rallying a team by getting their buy-in early to fire-up their imagination, creation or assembly of something that affects everyone
Again, this might not be the overarching corporate goal that everyone associates most closely with their success/compensation. There’s a lot of intangible things that go into running a company and business well, that fall into the cracks around the big ambitious goals and metrics. For our firm, we’ve done this on things like redesigning a logo or planning offsite logistics (each person pitches an itinerary in their hometown). Perhaps a more significant initiative more recently: continually improving our investment process and how we increase efficiency and delineate accountability. The discussion starts with everyone providing 1-2 ideas, so that everyone feels bought in. Not every idea is ultimately incorporated, but they’re all shared.
Are these things major needle movers in your career or for the company? Is building that MALM dresser the crowning achievement of your year? Probbbbbbably not, but doing these things may give you a renewed sense of ownership, pride, creativity and engagement.
Resources/Links
Your girl here is still in the process of furnishing her apartment, so have spent an not insignificant amount of time on the Ikea website lately. I am pro their lighting offerings (good value, and cute design: here and here), and rugs (this one is in our guest room), ironically, none of which actually require assembly 😇 (Ikea)
Larry Fink (CEO of Blackrock, the largest asset manager in the world) shared his 2022 Letter and one of the biggest takeaways in it is not about investing, or returns or efficiencies - it is about creating a meaningful bond with employees, and providing the safety, flexibility and meaning for the people that work with and for us (Blackrock)
There’s a longer, denser read on the concept of caring for employees as not just a ‘nice to have’, but a significant tenet of capitalism (presumably, Blackrock’s goal): “The Future of Capitalism”. The concept is broader, not only employees, but reciprocity to our families and our communities (Amazon)
Cool ladies doing cool things: Admittedly, I have no desire to watch the new Spielberg version of “West Side Story”, but I loved the original movie growing up, and it was largely thanks to Rita Moreno’s version of Anita, the best friend and sidekick of the female lead, Maria. Maria was boring AF, and Anita was dynamic and sassy and amazing. In the remake, Ariana DeBose plays Anita, and she hosted SNL this past weekend, and she is truly a gem. Watch this monologue and tell me this wonderful queer afro-latina lady does not BOWL YOU OVER with her charm, her outfit and her dance moves!!!) (Pajiba)