Why focusing on people is more important than ever
I’ve noticed that there seems to be an increasing level of interest among CEOs and other senior executives in cultivating highly engaging workplace culture.
This makes me wonder about the specific reasons why this seems to be gaining more traction now. Chatting with a variety of executives and thought leaders, here are 3 common themes that have been emerging. I’m sure there are more and would welcome hearing from you on what you think.
1. The Pace of Change is Intensifying
How do you keep people focused and help them thrive under volatile and rapidly evolving conditions?
The World Economic Forum has observed that, “it took 2.4 million years for our ancestors to control fire and use it for cooking, but 66 years to go from the first flight to humans landing on the moon.” (Roser, 2023). And the pace is accelerating with the advancement in areas such as the digitization and electrification of things and machine learning.
As more data fueling and being fueled by technological advancement is produced, disruptive change will only intensify. According to a 2018 Forbes article, “there [were] 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created each day…, but that pace is only accelerating with the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT). Over the last two years alone 90 percent of the data in the world was generated.” (Marr, 2018). Some estimate that in 2024, that number increased to over 400 quintillion bytes – that’s a 16,000% increase in just 6 years! (Bartley, 2024)
This pace of change and information overload is accompanied by ever-increasing uncertainty and even anxiety as people worry about how things like AI will impact their jobs, what sources of information are credible, and what implications their own digital footprint has. Will they have to learn new tools and how often will this change? Will they be displaced by machines? This need for constant change and adaptation takes a cognitive toll.
Connecting individuals’ sense of purpose to the goals of the company can be grounding and help people stay focused amidst the storm.
2. Recognizing That Extrinsic Motivators Are Not Enough
How do you sustainably attract and retain high performing talent in fiercely competitive hiring environments?
The concept of providing tangible benefits (e.g., pay raises and bonuses, health and pet insurance, ability to work remotely, casual dress, pets in the office, parking/commuting stipends, etc.) may not be sustainable or simply have become less relevant or effective in the new post-pandemic world.
With many companies looking to improve their margins, some of these extrinsic levers can be expensive and are either being dialed back or eliminated completely. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic with the unprecedented shift to historically unconventional work models, what matters to employees is evolving. Ultimately, extrinsic motivators will only get you so far and, in a worst-case scenario, can set the tone for a work culture of entitlement where no amount of tangible “extras” will ever be enough.
Appealing to individuals’ sense of personal purpose and connecting that to the vision and goals of the organization presents a potentially more sustainable and critically important intrinsic motivation.
3. Doing More with Less
How do you create durable employee engagement to fuel performance, especially when people are increasingly being asked to do more with less?
As the need to preserve and grow margins intensifies, many organizations and industries have been faced with reducing expenses. This includes reducing workforce and external support services. While the number of people in an organization decreases, leaders and staff are faced with the challenge of doing just as much, if not more, with fewer hands on deck.
Cultivating purpose-driven culture serves as a foundation for fully engaging employees. Fully engaged teams, in turn, can reduce rework, coordinate more effectively to accelerate efforts and achieve company gains.
Thriving in a World of Extremes
The confluence of these three themes (and no doubt, others) creates an overwhelming sense of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.
Under these conditions, it can be all too easy to find oneself in a “flight-or-fight” frame of mind in which things become very black and white. This invites polarized dynamics in which groups form around extremes and the ability to see the wealth of opportunities in between is lost.
The countermeasures for this grim fate include…
- anchor team members to their personal sense of purpose
- create space to set and evangelize a clear vision of a better future
- facilitate mutual understanding
- promote clarity whenever possible
- help team members develop agility
- connect individual purpose to company goals
Connecting the internal, personal sense of purpose of individuals to the mission and vision of your company invariably generates sustainable dividends. Creating a purpose-driven culture sets the stage for the fly wheel effect in which there is progressive, accretive engagement and, as a result, productivity.
Check out other EverSparq articles on how to build purpose-driven culture: Insights – EverSparq.
References
Bartley, K. (2024, December 14). Big data statistics: How much data is there in the world? Retrieved from rivery.io.
Marr, B. (2018, May 21). How Much Data Do We Create Every Day? The Mind-Blowing Stats Everyone Should Read. Retrieved from www.forbes.com.
Roser, M. (2023, February 27). This timeline charts the fast pace of tech transformation across centuries. Retrieved from www.weforum.org.
