Chapter 11
LEADING BY DESIGN
The Performance Needs
The highest levels of performance come to people who are centered, intuitive, creative, and reflective—people who know to see a problem as an opportunity.
—Deepak Chopra
One of the most viewed TED Talks of all time is Simon Sinek's “How Great Leaders Inspire Action.” In his talk, Sinek explains that although all organizations know what they do, and most of them know how they do it, only a very few organizations know why they do what they do. Sinek suggests that what separates great leaders from the rest is that great leaders start with why.
Having and communicating a clear why—a clear purpose—is a requisite for high performance. When people know why they do what they do, and believe in it, they operate at a whole new level of engagement. They know what they're doing matters and makes a difference.
When people act on purpose, they commit to what they're doing. This commitment helps them meet their next performance need: ownership. When what you do means something to you, it's yours. You do whatever it takes to get to your result.
People don't just come to work for a buck. They want these higher-level needs of purpose and ownership met. Knowing how to help your people meet these needs will influence their behavior and affect their performance.
PERFORMANCE NEED 1: PURPOSE
Purpose is the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. Some years ago, I got the chance to work with a company that produces medical devices and surgical supplies. I would be leading a series of communication workshops for groups of their mid-level managers at locations all around the United States. My client contact in Minnesota asked if I wanted to take a tour of the factory. I jumped at the chance.
The factory makes medical devices for cancer patients. On the tour, I saw a fascinating mix of cutting-edge technology and old-fashioned assembly. The level of precision required to ensure product quality was amazing.
At one point, the tour stopped to watch April, an assembler on the line. The guide explained that April is a hand-piece operator. She welds covers around a motor and then carefully aligns two cannulas. A cannula is a thin tube that will be inserted into a vein or body cavity to administer medicine, drain off fluid, or insert a surgical instrument. Next, April glues the cannulas in place on the device.
The work required a tremendous amount of concentration. Watching April was like watching an artist. I wanted to learn more about her demanding assembly work. I approached her and introduced myself, explaining that I was on a tour. “What exactly do you do here?” I asked.
I was expecting April to detail the assembly line process. I thought she might explain the difference between the inner and outer cannula. Maybe she'd tell me about how the cover had to be aligned just so. I thought she'd give me a technical explanation. I never expected to hear what April said next.
She said, “My name's April. I help save people's lives. What do you do?”
***
People benefit from having a clear purpose. Employees who derive meaning and significance from their work are more than three times as likely to stay with their organizations as those who don't. These employees also report 1.7 times higher job satisfaction.1 Compared to non-purpose-oriented employees, purpose-oriented employees have 64% higher levels of fulfillment, are 50% more likely to be in leadership positions, and are 47% more likely to be promoters of their employers.2
Most leaders recognize the power of purpose. But when it comes to making purpose a reality, there's a big gap between what they know and what they do. A global survey of 474 executives found that although 89% agree that an organization with shared purpose will have employee satisfaction, only 46% of those same leaders said it informs their company's strategic and operational decision-making.3
Creating a purpose-filled workplace doesn't happen by chance. April wasn't a random fluke employee; the leadership of her company is very conscious about creating a purpose-filled culture. Once a quarter, leadership holds a company-wide town hall. At this meeting, they bring in customers who use the company's products. They stand up and tell their stories about how their lives had been helped or even saved because of the medical products they used.
Good intentions won't create an environment of purpose: strong actions do. The following sections examine four things you can do to help satisfy the need for purpose.
Tell the Origin Story of Your Company—and Your Leadership
Your company wasn't hatched in one day. There's a compelling, passionate story behind the organization. Who are you? Where did you come from? What's your reason for being?
Origin stories become mythic folklore. Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard in a garage in Palo Alto. Michael Dell in his college dorm room. Fred Smith getting a C on a paper at Yale that would be the seed of the idea for FedEx.
Every company has a compelling origin story—even yours. If you don't know what it is, go out and find it. Then, craft it so it's tuned to resonate strongly with your listeners.
Once you've crafted a good company origin story, start working on your own leadership story. Who are you? Where did you come from? What's your reason for leading? Great purpose stories help the listener viscerally connect with their own sense of purpose. Your story reminds people why they choose to work here versus somewhere else.
Have Your Customers Share Stories Firsthand
It's easy for employees to feel disconnected from the impact their company's product or service has on customers. This is especially true for non-customer-facing employees. One of the best ways to remind employees of your purpose is to hear it straight from the customer's mouth.
Consider an example from Lyft, the San Francisco–based ride-sharing company with a mission “to reconnect people through transportation and bring communities together.”4 In a Harvard Business Review article, Erica Keswin describes how Lyft uses the power of customer stories to strengthen the company's purpose:
During an all-hands meeting of 500 Lyft employees, a woman stood on a stage and told the story of the Lyft driver who not only drove her daughter to safety from a violent roommate situation but actually helped her pack and unpack her belongings into a hotel room.5
A firsthand customer story is a powerful way to kindle purpose. Storytelling is a living, breathing, emotional way to demonstrate your organization's values in real-time action. You don't have to be the organizer of an all-company meeting to reach out to customers. Who can you find to share how what your team does has made a difference in their lives?
Co-create a Purpose Statement with Your Team
You're probably familiar with organizational mission statements. Most established companies have one. They're created to focus the company's direction, shape the strategy, and provide a guide for decision-making. Although the structure of mission statements can vary, most have two parts: a vision of what the organization wants to become and the actions it takes to get there.
For example, one steel company's mission is to be the preferred supplier in the steel industry by being the benchmark for safety, quality, service, and on-time delivery.
This mission (like many others) is internal and company facing. For the employees of the company, it tells them who they are, what they want to become, and how they'll do it. Although that's not bad, it misses a huge motivational opportunity. What difference do employees make in the lives of the people who use their products and/or services? Why does what they do matter?
In contrast to a mission statement, a purpose statement is outward facing. It's an expression of the effect that we have on those whom we serve. It looks at the organization from the perspective of the customer.
As an example, consider IKEA. They could have created a statement that reads, “To be the number-1 furniture retailer in the world through quality, design, and low cost.” This would tell people what they do, and how they do it.
Instead, their statement reads, “To create a better everyday life for the many people.”6 Their purpose statement starts with why. It's designed to appeal to the heart, not the head. IKEA's purpose shares a vision: to help people live better lives. This vision taps into the belief of anyone and everyone who yearns for something better. When people feel connected to making a vision like this a reality, they've tapped into something much bigger than themselves. They're meeting their need for purpose.
Unless you're the CEO in your company, there's good chance that you don't have a lot of say in changing your organization's mission statement to craft it into a purpose statement. But that shouldn't stop you from taking these ideas and using them with the people you lead.
As a team, you can cocreate a purpose statement. Use your company's mission statement as a starting point. From there, step into the shoes of your customer and get a good sense of how their lives are influenced by the work that you do.
Acknowledge Progress
In 2011, researchers from Harvard University published the findings of an extensive study on motivation at work. Over a four-month span, they worked with 238 knowledge workers from seven companies. The subjects went about their day-to-day jobs as usual. However, at the end of each workday, they were asked to fill out an email diary/questionnaire with these questions:
Figure 11.1 The Effort-Progress-Reward Cycle
- What events stood out that day?
- What was your mood?
- What were your perceptions?
- What was your motivation?
The research netted out close to 12,000 individual diary entries. After analyzing all the data, the researchers found that the strongest motivator of human behavior was making progress in meaningful work.7 They called this the progress principle.
Intuitively, this principle makes sense. Progress in meaningful work creates a virtuous cycle: seeing your effort produce small wins inspires you to keep working to achieve bigger and bigger wins (see Figure 11.1). This effort-progress-reward cycle is a natural momentum builder.
If you can understand and use the progress principle, you may have discovered your secret motivational weapon. Work to create an environment where people can make (and feel) meaningful progress. Mark, a senior leader at a New York–based financial services company, described his progress-facilitating role this way:
My job is to be a bulldozer. I push all the crap out of the way so my people have a smooth road to travel on to get where they need to go.
PERFORMANCE NEED 2: OWNERSHIP
How do you treat a rental car?
I've asked that questions to thousands of people. It almost always gets a big cackle of nervous laughter. Those giggles indicate a truth response—we've touched a nerve. It seems I'm not the only one who treats his rental car differently from his regular car.
Full disclosure: here are some examples of things I've done with rental cars:
- I've tossed trash on the floor or the backseat, as though it was a garbage can.
- I've accelerated much faster than I usually would, pushing the RPMs on the tachometer into the red zone.
- I've been less careful about bumping the tires against the curb when parallel parking.
- I've gone over the speed bumps at the airport at speeds much higher than prescribed by the road signs.
I would never do these things in my car, but I've done them with rental cars. Why? It's quite simple: it's a rental.
Once I drop that car off, I'm done. I won't think about it ever again. If something goes wrong with that car later, it won't be my problem. In those moments, I'm operating with psychological rentership. When I have this mind-set, my internal dialogue says, “I don't care. This doesn't belong to me. Someone else can take care of this.”
You can spot psychological renters at work. When asked, “How are you?” they respond with “Two days until Friday.” They refer to Wednesday as hump day. They never speak up in meetings unless called on.
Psychological rentership is a state of indifference, a feeling of apathy, a lack of purpose or meaning. Physical signs include low-energy, lack of initiative, and poor focus. Cynics use psychological rentership as a coping mechanism, a hard shell to protect themselves from further frustration, disappointment, and stress.
However, leaders who encourage an ownership mind-set not only wind up with better employees but also they deliver better results. Research has shown positive links between psychological ownership for the organization and employee attitudes (organizational commitment, job satisfaction, organization-based self-esteem) and work behavior (performance and organizational citizenship).8 Given these benefits, there are five things you can do to satisfy the need for ownership, and the following sections explore each of them.
Expect the Best
In 1964, psychologist Robert Rosenthal received permission to administer a new form of IQ test at an elementary school in California. Based on the results, Rosenthal told the school's principal, Beverly Cantello, that he'd identified small groups of tested children who were about to flourish academically. Their teachers were informed about their budding high potential.
Did they flourish? Did they ever. Over the next year, the first-graders in this select group increased their IQ scores by 27 points on average.
But, it turns out the whole thing had been a giant experiment. Cantello and her staff learned that Rosenthal had lied. That “new” IQ test? Just an ordinary IQ test. The high-potential students? Chosen at random. The reason that the students improved so much was because the teachers had believed in their budding abilities and had nurtured them as such.9
Beliefs and expectations create operating norms. If you believe that your employees are capable of handling big ambitious projects, the likelihood of them succeeding is so much higher than if you believe they are incapable of doing so. Obviously, you don't want to set them up to fail. Train them on the needed skills, then show your belief in them and let them go. They just may surprise you and ask for more.
Ask
Diego had always been a “middle of the bell curve” employee. An engineer for a technology company, Diego had been a solid performer for 32 years. Solid, but never outstanding. Given his performance, Diego had been passed over for promotions and formal leadership development training for decades.
Then, the company was hit with a gigantic product recall. Billions of dollars and the company's reputation were at stake. This was a crisis the likes of which they'd never dealt with. Diego's manager, Flora, was stretched thin. She asked Diego to step up and help.
Flora asked Diego to be responsible for setting up four new product recall service centers and lead a team of 40 people. Diego took on the new role and exceeded everyone's wildest expectations. After the recall crisis ended, Flora pulled Diego into her office to discuss his terrific work. She asked him, “How come you never stepped up to this level earlier?”
Diego replied, “I was never asked.”
You can't expect behavior you haven't asked for. Not everyone steps up and shows initiative naturally. If you want people to be proactive, you need to state that upfront.
Focus on the Ends, Not the Means
No two people are going to do a task the exact same way. Clarify the destination, but allow people to pick their own route to get there.
Take Roberta, for example. The chief marketing officer for a large pharmaceutical company, Roberta would find her stomach churning when her direct reports would present ideas in meetings that weren't presented the way she would do it. The physical pain got so bad she sought out help.
In my coaching work with Roberta, I helped her to realize she was attached to her identity as a perfectionist. Having been seen and rewarded as a high-achiever early on in her career (and, frankly, all throughout her childhood) Roberta had mistakenly internalized the belief that there was only one right way to do things: her way.
When it comes to achievement the goal is excellence, not perfection. I asked Roberta to try on a new label: recovering perfectionist. (That got a smile and sigh of relief.) Through our work together, Roberta learned to stop micromanaging. She discovered that when she let people choose their own path, their level of ownership and commitment skyrocketed.
Have a Clear Decision-making Process
Business results are achieved based on the decisions we make. If your employees depend on you to make all (or most) of the decisions, then you don't have a true culture of ownership.
A tool that can help improve decision-making is called the decision tree model. The model clarifies and communicates where people are free to make decisions on their own, with input, or not at all. It also provides direction to help them grow and increase their ownership. It also helps them increase their sense of personal accountability.
The decision tree model uses a simple visual analogy of a tree: leaf, branch, trunk, and root (see Figure 11.2). The parts indicate the potential impact the decision could have on the health of the overall organization. A tree can withstand a leaf being pulled off it, but damage to the trunk or roots can be life-threatening.
Figure 11.2 The Decision Tree Model
Not only does using the decision tree clarify decision-making authority but also employees take more ownership and the load of leaders becomes lighter and lighter as work is delegated out.
Ask for Feedback
Jenny is the operations director of a conference center in St. Louis where I've worked numerous times. (I should mention that I've worked at similar centers hundreds of times in my career.)
As far as I'm concerned, when it comes to venue organizers, Jenny's the gold standard. She goes completely above and beyond anyone else. The key to her performance? Feedback.
Jenny always wants to make things better. As each day begins, she asks, “Any special requests for today?” Every single day, when we finish, she asks, “What changes or tweaks for tomorrow?” “What else do you need?” “What else can I or my staff do that can help you?”
Not only does she ask, she then listens to the responses. She writes them down. She acts on them. And she commits preferences to memory, so when I come back to town two months later, everything is updated.
Think back on all the leaders you've ever worked with over the years. How many of those leaders have, unsolicited, asked you for feedback on how they could do a better job of supporting you? If you're like most people I've asked, you can count the number of those leaders on one hand.
Feedback offers a fast track to improved performance. When you seek input from your team on what's working well and what can be improved, you send a very clear message: it's not about me. It's about us. When employees see that the team takes priority over the leader, and they have a say in the team's direction, their sense of ownership increases.
There's a peculiar phenomenon that happens to people when they own things. Social psychologists call it the “mere ownership effect.” It's a cognitive bias in which we assign more value to things just because we own them. If you can help those you lead satisfy their need for ownership, they'll find more value in their work.
SATISFYING PERFORMANCE NEEDS SATISFIES PERFORMANCE
People may labor because they have to, but they perform because they want to. When you recognize that people have hidden performance needs that yearn to be satisfied, you'll see employees in a whole new light. You'll work as a performance architect, designing an environment to meet their needs for purpose and ownership. By taking on this design thinking mind-set, you can transform your leadership and those you lead. Your ability to foster and facilitate collaboration will multiply exponentially.
Meeting the needs of the people you lead is not a static endpoint. There are ways to engage and inspire people even more. In today's world, employees crave much more than just having their needs met. They want employment to be a dynamic and rewarding experience. Exceptional leaders understand what makes great experiences and how to go about building them. You'll learn how to do this in the next chapter.