RULE 9: PERSONAL PATHWAYS
A Win-Win Strategy: Aligning Personal Dreams with Company Goals
Are your employees truly engaged and motivated, or just going through the motions? The key to unlocking long-term commitment and productivity might lie in understanding and nurturing their personal goals. Traditional success metrics like promotions and raises have a limited lifespan. Instead, businesses should focus on helping employees define their own success and align it with company objectives. This creates a powerful synergy where individual aspirations can begin to fuel business growth.
First of all, if we examine the differences with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivators (pay, benefits) are often quite temporary, moreover it is the intrinsic motivation (enjoyment, personal satisfaction, purpose) that drives long-term commitment and fulfilment. Powerfully, extrinsic motivation can sometimes evolve into intrinsic motivation as seen in examples like; running for weight loss or a charity leading to a passion for the outdoor space and wellbeing, or taking on more responsibilities at work for money leading to increased self-esteem and feeling more valued in the workplace.
Team leaders should foster an environment where their members feel supported in charting their goals pyramid. Sometimes transitioning extrinsic motives to the more intrinsic drivers. This three to five year visual will present their medium to longer term aims, supported by more immediate tangible objectives that facilitate their company and personal journey. Incorporating both personal and career based aims is a natural process, as we know our lives are always a coalescence of the two, with each interdependent on the other.
Through regular performance reviews, leaders can utilize tools like the "Five Whys" technique to delve deeper into employees' true desires and uncover unexpected insights. This might lead to adjustments in roles or work environments that better match individual passions. Or simply the important factor of skill matching someone’s longer term ambitions to their current role wherever possible, so they can then see the relative purpose in their work.
The final step of intertwining a team members personal pathways with the business objectives, can create a culture of mutual success. If the employee can see how the business goals relate to their own ambitions, it will counter some of the anxiety born out of growth plans, otherwise perceived as only delivering more work or pressure. It will also allow the leader and team member to map out the personal journey, and perhaps identify a timeline where the business might no longer be able to meet an individual’s longer term plans. It’s better to know this of course and plan accordingly, instead of cruising obliviously down a blind alley.
This approach transforms performance reviews into opportunities for genuine personal and business alignment, providing both employees and leaders with a clear roadmap for their relationship within the organization and boosting both individual and company performance.
