Motivation is never installed. It's awakened.
Where are you noticing a lack of drive?
People take exceptional ownership when they experience the problem before they're handed the project. So the leader's job shifts from assigning work to arranging encounters with the problem. Let them feel the friction, then hand them the keys.
For a decade at a startup, one strategy never failed a client of mine. Offer someone a tantalizing project, step back, and watch them deliver past the brief. Then she jumped to a behemoth, one of those organizations with thousands of employees and a badge for every building, and the strategy failed. Her team waits for direction. They meet the minimum. They look up for the next instruction.
The engine under all of this is need.
Harvard professor Clay Christensen spent years studying what causes a person to take action, and his answer was almost embarrassingly simple: a need arises. Think of the last time nobody had to push you. Something was in your way, you wanted it gone, and the work pulled you forward. Less need, less motivation. It really is that direct.
Feeling matters. A felt gap registers in the mind as deprivation, more itch than interest, and the mind works to close it. One fact we all know well, from Edward Deci's studies: people commit hardest to what they chose from their own read of a situation. Feeling the problem does three jobs at once. It fuels the drive. It turns the assignment into a choice. It stakes the ownership.
Picture a hiker at a river with no crossing. Nobody sketches a bridge from a lounge chair. Standing at the bank, boots in the mud, the far side in view, the design takes shape. Hand a team the bridge before they've seen the river and you've assigned work. Walk them to the bank first and the project becomes their own way across.
Some honest and ugh-inducing facts about what we're up against:
- Engagement. Gallup measures it at 20% worldwide, the lowest since 2020.
- Uncertainty. A mind bracing for trouble conserves energy.
- Optimism. Only 21% in the US believe the next generation will be better off. Extra effort is a bet on the future, and fewer people are placing it.
- Attention. Research shows screens and tech have increased our lack of attention.
That's the weather. Your team isn't flawed. The current is stronger now, and the self-starting teams many of us remember were actually rare. The weather we can't control. The crossing we can.
Three ways to walk your team to the river
- Stage an encounter with the problem. Put them in the customer call, the complaint thread, the broken process. Ten minutes of felt friction outworks an hour of context-setting.
- Ask before you assign. "What would you do about this?" turns a task into their idea.
- Name the progress. Connect the project to something they want to move past, master, or become.
What river could your team stand at this week, before anyone sees a blueprint?
Try this: Before your next delegation, share the unsolved problem first. Say nothing about the project for ten minutes. Then ask what they'd do.
Communication strategies to help you lead with care and accountability
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