10 Ways to Discourage Yourself and Your Team from Being Genuinely Interested and Productive
85% of employees feel unengaged at work, with almost three-quarters of that group stating that they would only do the required minimum to keep their jobs. Economists have calculated that it costs the world around 8.8 billion dollars. We listen to them, observe our teams, and eventually get concerned too.
Along with the concern, the word “encouragement” comes in.
Suddenly, we want to fit it into onboarding, performance plans, numerous 1:1s, and occasional all-hands to grow a team that would be in the remaining 25%.
There is more than one way to find out how to encourage, though. The most popular one is by asking how and reading through tons of tips and tricks. And there is another way that can actually make a difference.
It starts with the opposite question: “How do I discourage myself and my team from being genuinely interested and productive?”
Looking from the opposite side is an example of inversion. I remember hearing this term first in Algebra class. Later, it came up in occasional readings about philosophers. Stoics used to ask themselves, “How could this go wrong?”
By starting with the opposite, I may see what remains hidden every time I rush into improving things. I’d need to pause at the beginning and think about outcomes I tend not to think of. This can help create a map of pitfalls that I should better avoid if I want a positive result.
Starting with the first-person
I know the temptation to jump over my head and start fixing the process. Just as well, I know that if I’m genuinely interested in improving my interactions with people, it’s myself to start with.
Reasons may vary, and I may eventually get there. But if I want to start right, I’d document my tendencies and behavior first. When I have the full picture, I’d be more efficient in finding reasons as well.
To begin with reflection, consider asking yourself: “Where do I tend to stumble? What does it usually look like? What do I do in those situations?”
Anxiety
Some of us get anxious about changes, some about stability. Scenarios where anxiety takes place vary. It’s normal to be anxious sometimes for us as humans, but it doesn’t help us move on, especially if we don’t have organic coping mechanisms in place.
One doesn’t choose to have anxiety, but one does choose how to handle it.
Every time I fix my anxiety with a short-term reward, my inner motivational system will receive a message that there’s no point in additional effort. Next time, it will be harder for me to find inner encouragement for playing long. It will only get harder each time if I don’t change my coping style.
Comparison
This can be a healthy thing. For instance, once in a while, I may take a critical look at my product offering and compare it to my competitor’s. Then, I draw conclusions and keep working on myself and my product.
There’s another usage of comparison, which is destructive. If I get into a habit of observing people that I envy, it’s only going to push me away from what I’m good at. Even the most confident person will feel like a loser if they spend more than half of their working time looking at their competitors. We tend to forget that other people are just like us — either making a nice picture or not showing anything.
Self-deception
We have a variety of biases that prevent us from seeing the world for what it is. We tend to give a higher rate to products and services we’re invested in. If we’re stressed, and we’re to make a decision, it will be guided by emotions and our basic triggers to a major extent. And once we’ve made the first conclusion, it would be way harder for us to rationally change our minds. The list goes on.
We may use those biases to look better, avoid anxiety, relieve stress, etc. No matter what the reason is, the more we delude ourselves, the more unstable and risky the world in our perception becomes. We can trick ourselves in the short term, but our consciousness still keeps track of the potential threat of deluding oneself in the long term.
Rush
Some of us tend to subscribe to tight deadlines. It may seem unpredictable and unfortunate. Every time. In this case, one may strive to be challenged and then heroically go through all that hustle and bustle. Or one may want to prove oneself in front of other people. Whatever the underlying reason for repetitive behavior is, there’s a consequence.
By putting myself in a rush, I’m also telling myself that when my work is important, it also has to be stressful. Therefore, I’m creating this ‘if-else’ logic which is going to fire up without me being conscious of it. Next time when I’m involved with the process and the result, I may feel resistance. And it’s logical to resist moving forward when you sense that there’s stress around the corner.
Lack of meaning
It’s okay to find daily tasks dynamic and engaging. It can be great. However, if there’s no deeper meaning for me behind this work, there are odds that I will get easily demotivated when something goes wrong.
I may deal with the ‘wrong situation’ and return to the previous state. But as I move further, I’m likely to find out that it’s not about the external world only (if at all). At some point, I may bump into questions: “Why am I doing this? How would I feel about myself in years from now?”
For a while, I may even manage to hide those questions by blaming the world for not being more favorable to me. But the questions are not going anywhere. They would either come at the least suitable time or I don’t wait and make a call first.
Including others in the equation
What are the risks of discouraging people in the team? They may leave the company. They may feel drained and come to hate their work, eventually leading them to leave the company. Even if they spend years with the company performing their part of the agreement while hating their work, it would have a significant impact on the company’s culture. Under extreme cases, discouragement may lead to a significant loss of reputation and substantial conflicts.
Again, take a step aside and question yourself: “Where do I tend to feel disappointed with the team? What precedes this feeling? What stake do I have in it?”
Lack of structure and predictability
There’s no security without structure. And without security, the odds of your team making thoughtful decisions with long-lasting positive results are much lower. Some of the popular ways to create such conditions are switching between projects and rarely finishing them, constantly burning deadlines, frequently changing decisions, and all kinds of inconsistency between words and actions.
When we’re sponsored by adrenaline, we can make decisions that help us. They just don’t work in the long run. Those decisions are great to escape a lion or leaving a burning house, or polish a presentation right before the deadline. But if your presentation requires in-depth research and you didn’t manage to do it, your quick response might make it engaging and nice to pass the first filter, but it won’t buy the understanding and trust of the audience.
Lack of feedback
There’s a new person joining your team, and you say that they will report to you. You train them and provide feedback on good and bad. After the first period, you see that the person is performing well, so you redirect that energy to other stuff. You assume that from now on, you’d be telling something only when they are mistaken.
Most people would start doubting themselves, the work, and, finally, their manager. Those doubts would consume the energy that could go to work in a constructive manner. Even if the person learns that their manager is just this way, there will always be a space for doubt and energy drain.
Fragmentation
Not having well-established connections with other team members makes people wonder where they fit in on this map. This often comes together with the lack of information about the process that intensifies the impact.
People may start doubting their role and the entire process.
We as humans need to have a map at every given moment, and if we don’t have information to create it, then we’ll make up something.
However, there will be gaps, and those gaps will show up in the most critical situations.
Especially in situations that require proactivity, the person who doesn’t have a consistent map would be more inclined to show up passively. If I don’t know the landscape, it’s highly risky to move blindly, I would rather stay and wait.
Control issues
This often happens to managers. They desperately want people who can think and make informed decisions. Just as desperately they are trying then to keep control under their hands. What happens next is that enthusiastic and active people become disappointed and passive.
Unless a manager decides to gradually diminish their control, there’s a high chance of burnout on the manager’s side and the problem at the company level that smart people leave the place.
Manipulations
The essence of manipulation is that one person tries to get what they want without direct interaction (be it either a polite ask or a confrontation). Manipulations can take the form of indirect feedback when someone says, “I’m not saying it’s your fault, it’s just I expected this to be different.” Or a manager may assign someone to lead but then intervene and do all the job. This often works together with the control issues described above.
In the worst scenarios, it might result in a substantial conflict with reputation loss. In lighter scenarios, the manipulative one may meet someone direct and authoritative enough who would call them on their behavior. In that case, the first one would pay by feeling ashamed.
In any case, manipulations are expensive, whether done consciously or not. All of them lead to diminished trust and authority. It’s one of the most effective discouragements.
Conclusion
No point from this list can prove that you had bad intentions (unless you actually had them). However, the list can help us realize that to make things much better, it might be enough to change some routine behaviors instead of inventing a new vehicle.
