The other day on the way to work I had an idea. Well two ideas from others and putting them together.
Use a Rating (without the 7)
Use the 1 to 10 rating scale, but you are not allowed to us the number 7. By eliminating the 7, you have to make that call to rate it; up a bit or down a bit, not just a “meh” of average, and it forces you to make that call. I first heard about this concept on The Tim Ferriss Show, and he may have attributed it from someone else.
The 3 Aspects of Motivation
Motivation is made up of:
- A chance to master a skill
- Having autonomy
- Having a purpose
An Indication of Motivation
So to get an indication of my teams motivation I asked them, including myself, to rate each aspect of motivation.
I’m grateful we all responded with 6’s and 8’s for both Mastery, and Autonomy. However Purpose we coincidentally all put down 5.
We talked about Our Purpose a bit and it’s explainable, but we do need to do something about it. We’re currently trying to complete a piece of work to upgrade a set of applications which is making things better for later, but also really hampering us from adding value to the business.
We realize we also need to work on engagement with the business more. It’ll come soon, and we can review our values periodically to check that we are all motivated.
On an individual level if any of my team reported a 4 or less then I’d really want to have a chat to gain a good understanding of what’s not working for them, and what we could try to improve the situations. I also let the team know that if they ever feel that they have a value 4 or less for one of the aspects then they can use that as a starting point to conversation with me.
I’m not sure if this is the best way to check-in with team members, but it’s a way it can be done.