Guest Post by Paul Herr, author of ‘Primal Management’
I have studied human motivation for 40 years. What’s my biggest take-away for improving employee engagement from this decades-long effort? It’s not what you may think.
The secret sauce for getting the best out of your people does not involve money or perks. On the contrary, sustained business success starts with a noble purpose beyond making money. A noble purpose activates the “natural pleasures of work” that employees find just as motivating as money. Without this purpose, tasks become chores, meetings become meaningless, deadlines are missed, and work… just doesn’t mean anything any more.
For most employees, profits, revenues, margin and “increasing shareholder wealth” DOES NOT qualify as a noble purpose and provides almost zero motivation. Purpose needs to be personal — something that serves the greater good, helps the human tribe and leaves an enduring positive legacy.
According to Gallup’s annual employee-engagement surveys, 70% of employees dislike coming to work. Disengaged employees do just what is required… and nothing more. Their work feels like a cold, impersonal transaction, and their attitude is, “If you give me money, I will give you a certain amount of work, but nothing more.” This hidden, passive performance gap is the single most damaging and dangerous threat to every company’s future. And unfortunately, I don’t think this situation will change until companies get serious about defining and communicating their noble purposes — their true reasons for existing.
If you don’t believe in this sense-of-purpose ‘nonsense’, then consider the case of Elon Musk. Both of his main companies, Tesla and SpaceX, provide employees with an energizing sense of purpose that motivates everyone from the janitor to the CEO to bring their A-games to work. Here are some details.
Tesla: You might think of Tesla as a car company, but it’s actually a ‘save-the-planet company.’ For example, Tesla’s overarching noble purpose is to reduce our dependance on planet-warming, carbon-based fuels like coal, natural gas and oil.
Soon, many homes will feature Tesla’s Solar Roofs that look like shingles, slate, or Spanish tile but are really composed of sturdy solar panels. The energy generated will be stored in Tesla’s Powerwall 2.0 batteries installed in the garage. These stylish, low-profile batteries will store energy during the day and parcel it out at night. They will also power homes during weather emergencies when the power is out for days.
These solar panels will provide enough clean, renewable energy to run our homes and recharge our Tesla electric cars. If there is energy left over, it is fed back into the grid for an energy credit. Wouldn’t it feel great to eliminate your energy bill and fuel your car for free while contributing to the health and sustainability of the planet? This may sound like science fiction, but it is science fact, and all these high-quality Tesla products are available today.
SpaceX also has a powerful noble purpose— to create a second home for humanity on Mars for when an asteroid (like the one that killed-off the dinosaurs) smacks into planet Earth, or if we foolishly make the Earth uninhabitable through pollution, global warming, nuclear war, pandemics or bioterrorism.
Musk is determined to set up a colony on Mars within our lifetime, and he is well on his way to making it happen. This may sound preposterous, but it will only cost $2-million dollars to launch one of his enormous Starship rockets into orbit because it is fully reusable. For comparison, NASA’s new, non-reusable SLS rocket, costs $2b per launch.
Yesterday I watched Musk’s Starship prototype, SN-15, launch from his spaceport in Boca Chica Texas. It rose to 12 kilometers, performed a pre-programmed, ‘belly flop’ maneuver, glided gracefully back down to earth, restarted its engines with only seconds to spare, and landed softly on its launchpad.
When Musk says he is going to set up a colony on Mars, he is not kidding. Just one Starship can transport 100 people, plus their food and gear, to Mars. Once there, it will manufacture the fuel needed for the return trip using underground water/ice.
Musk is planning to partially fund this Mars effort with his highspeed internet service called Starlink. He already has 1,500 Starlink satellites in low-earth orbit providing high-speed internet service to rural populations in North America and the UK. He launches these Starlink satellites 60 at a time with his powerful Falcon-9 rockets. The ultimate goal is to have 42,000 satellites serving the entire planet with 10Gbps service.
Richest Man in the World: So, if you’ve been wondering how Elon Musk disrupts entire industries, attracts true rockstar talent, and becomes one of the richest men in the world, it’s because he is serving the human tribe in big ways and is creating jobs that capture people’s imaginations. His rocket factory in Boca Chica has been described as an ‘ant’s nest of activity.’ This is because people with a purpose work faster, better and smarter, and with a good attitude. Is your workplace an ‘ant’s nest’?
What is Your Noble Purpose?: I can almost hear executives lamenting, “we will never perform like Tesla or SpaceX because our company does not have a planet-saving noble purpose.” Let’s assume, for a minute, that this is true. Even if you run a call-center pitching life insurance, there is still a way to create an energizing noble purpose and inspire your team to greater performance. One solution is Evergrow, the innovative employee-engagement platform from CarltonOne Engagement.
Using the call-center example, employees who hit their call-quotas, or go beyond the call of duty in other ways, earn redeemable points that they can exchange for merchandise. Nothing new here… yet. What makes Evergrow unique, however, is its tree-planting feature. Each employee achievement triggers funding that plants five trees in third-world countries like, Nepal, Madagascar, Mozambique and Kenya. The communities that plant the trees also tend and protect them as they grow into vast forests. With Evergrow and its unique eco-action model, CarltonOne plans to fund 100 million trees on behalf of employees each year by the end of 2022, removing 4.8 billion pounds of planet-warming CO2 annually. Every transaction plants trees and inspires purpose. It’s a virtuous loop from eco-action to employee performance.
Each employee gets an Evergrow dashboard that shows how many trees THEY have planted, and how many pounds of CO2 THEIR efforts have directly removed from the atmosphere. They can also read reports of where the funding is being used and the dramatic impact it has on the lives of the local community. For Evergrow, tree funding is just the beginning. They are expanding their eco-action initiatives into:
- Soil and forest preservation
- Ocean preservation
- Protection of endangered species
- Other inspiring, planet-saving initiatives that will be coming soon.
Power up your people to ignite performance
A purpose-fueled culture is a powerful force for good. Imagine the positive impact if you could convert even a fraction of the 70% of disengaged employees that Gallup suggests are in your workforce. What would that do to your profit, your productivity, your talent retention rate? Making work mean more for your employees can also mean more of everything for your business, too. Learn more by booking your personal Evergrow tour here.
About Paul Herr
Paul Herr is the author of the acclaimed book ‘Primal Management and a professional speaker and thought-leader on leadership and employee engagement. Connect with Paul at https://linkedin.com/in/paulherr2
