Making Progress, However Small, is the Greatest Indicator of Performance and Satisfaction

"[O]ur research is unambiguous. As inner work life rises and falls, so does performance...making progress in meaningful work is the most powerful stimulant to great inner work life."

Ask any manager what motivates their top workers, what would turn their laggards around, and they’ll comment on carrots and sticks. Extrinsic rewards and punishment are the average manager’s first (and often last) resort.

It turns out that’s wrong. Studying data collected in real time from dozens of employees at seven companies, progress was the outstanding causative factor. Whether the company was floundering or flying, whether their manager was a saint or a jerk, it was the daily small wins which motivated people to try harder, to come up with more creative solutions, and to be happier while doing more.

The Progress Principle states that progress contributes to positive inner work life, which contributes to progress, creating an upward spiral of creativity, engagement, and performance.

Inner work life is defined as “the confluence of perceptions, emotions, and motivations that individuals experience as they react to and make sense of the events of their workday.” It is inner because it is invisible to others, including supervisors. It relates to work because that’s where it takes place, and that’s what it affects. And it is life because it is ongoing, growing and changing, and affects life outside work.

Whether it’s employees, partners, co-workers, or our own children, fostering positive inner work life creates happiness while motivating greater performance. insight #1 describes some ways to do this. insight #2 highlights a critical warning about the asymmetry of good and bad events.

Support Progress with Catalysts and People with Nourishment

"[C]atalysts are triggers directed at the project, nourishers are interpersonal triggers, directed at the person."

Catalysts, actions which affect work, and nourishers, events which affect people, are powerful because while they contribute to progress, even before that, they contribute to positive inner work life. The effects of catalysts and nourishers are immediate.

These are actions all of us can take to contribute to progress and positive inner work life in others.

The 7 Major Catalysts:

• Setting clear goals — knowing where you’re going, and why
• Allowing autonomy — self-direction creates drive
• Providing resources — having the proper tools makes any task more efficient and enjoyable
• Giving enough time—but not too much — constant time pressure is destructive, and low time pressure contributes to boredom
• Help with the work — sometimes we all need information or skills we don’t have
• Learning from problems and successes — shining a non-judgmental light on failure in order to learn from it contributes to psychological safety
• Allowing ideas to flow — good communication without negativity

The 4 Major Nourishers:

• Respect — recognition, honesty, civility
• Encouragement — enthusiasm, expressions of confidence
• Emotional support — people feel more connected when their emotions are validated by empathy
• Affiliation — actions which develop trust, appreciation, and affection

Catalysts have opposites: inhibitors. Nourishers have opposites: toxins. The research confirmed the findings of a 2001 study: bad events carry more weight than their positive counterparts.

Bad is Stronger Than Good

"The power of setbacks to increase frustration is more than three times as strong as the power of progress to decrease frustration."

Humans are risk-averse, loss-averse. If you lose $10 you need to gain $20 to make up the emotional loss. Most people won’t gamble unless they’re likely to win at least twice what they’re risking.

Inner work life is affected by the same rule: setbacks diminish happiness more than twice as much as progress boosts it, and increase frustration more than three times as much as progress decreases it.

The message is clear: a manager’s greatest risk is allowing inhibitors and toxins in the workplace. Smoothing the path, then, becomes a manager’s most important task. Pete Drucker said the goal was “to make productive the specific strengths and knowledge of each individual.”

These days most work is intrinsically meaningful. There are four mechanisms which can negate that meaning, damaging inner work life:

• having work or ideas dismissed
• losing ownership of one’s work
• knowing your work will never be used
• grunt work; work we’re greatly overqualified for.

Besides avoiding these inhibiting toxic behaviors, engage in these four catalyzing nourishing behaviors:

• set the climate, one event at a time — habitually behave in a way which creates a positive trusting climate
• stay attuned every day — without accurate current information you cannot provide the nourishers and catalysts to promote positive inner work life
• target support — vague generalities don’t nourish
• checking in, not checking up — others know the difference between checking in to see how we can help those we trust and checking up on those we don’t to catch their mistakes.