Drive creativity, engagement and performance with projects that create meaningful progress

40 years of behavioural science research has shown €˜intrinsic' motivation to be far more powerful than external (or €˜extrinsic') motivation for businesses that require creativity and problem-solving €“traits that are fast becoming essential for nearly every organisation. Dr. Teresa Amabile, Director of Research at Harvard Business School, has discovered an important twist €“ an employee's intrinsic motivation is markedly enhanced when they make progress that serves a higher purpose. Her research shows that giving people something meaningful to accomplish drives creativity, productivity and collaboration.

These are attributes we want to harness when looking to effectively execute our strategic plans.

By actively involving and supporting employees in the delivery of strategic projects, HR managers can help their organisations tap into this €˜Progress Principle'. These projects can create a workforce that is more creative, has higher productivity, is more committed to their work and work more effectively with their fellow employees. This, in turn, creates a more nimble and adaptive business.

The Progress Principle

Dr Amabile has identified the linchpin for tapping into the power of intrinsic motivation. In a multi-year study, she examined the motivational forces at play when workers were delivering their most creative and productive performance. She found that of the five most commonly identified motivational factors (recognition, incentives, interpersonal support, progress and clear goals), €˜progress' was the number one performance motivator for a knowledge-based workforce.

She found that it wasn't just any progress that elicited a worker's creatively engaged best. Even small wins could have a significant motivational impact if the work was meaningful €“ if it sat within a larger context. In addition, small wins on meaningful work drove a desire to generate further progress. This creates, as Dr. Amabile puts it, €˜an upward spiral of creativity, engagement and performance.' In other words, creating opportunities for meaningful progress makes engagement and motivation self-perpetuating.

So how do you intentionally create opportunities for meaningful progress?

How do you make work-related psychological benefits for employees translate into performance benefits for the company? The answer lies in projects €“ specifically, strategic projects.

Projectifying the business's strategic execution activities, not only shapes the business for the future that it aspires to, but also creates both meaning and progress for the growth of intrinsically motivated and engaged teams. Projects bring together meaningful strategic progress and meaningfully shaping your performance culture.

To make progress meaningful, visible and personal, start by doing the right type of strategic projects:

• short-duration, high-priority initiatives
• target a single, tangible outcome
• deliver with the people closest to the strategic opportunity being pursued

This consistently and persistently moves your strategy forward and allows employees to clearly see progress. If strategic purpose has been effectively attached to these projects, then that progress will also be meaningful €“ not just for the project team involved but by the work groups affected by the project outcomes.

The is an important insight for HR professionals as they're often asked to improve employee engagement and increase workplace motivation. Strategic projects give staff meaningful work to be engaged in and a strategic purpose to be motivated by. Once your people are intrinsically motivated by and engaged in the business's strategic endeavours they are much more likely to bring creativity to those endeavours and progress them in a productive manner.

HR can help create resourced humans

Interestingly, when Dr. Amabile surveyed 600 managers and asked them to rank the five key motivational factors on employee performance, they ranked €˜progress' last.  HR managers can play an essential role, working with leadership teams, to elevate the importance of progress as a motivational force in the workplace.

HR can also play a key role in providing the resources necessary to maximise the opportunity for progress and ensure the projects contribute meaningfully to the strategic vision. These resources can be categorised by what Daniel H. Pink describes in his book Drive as the foundation elements for driving behaviour through internal desires.

Purpose

HR can ensure that the project team's work is expressed in terms that connects it to the high-level strategic objectives €“ this gives them a sense of purpose. HR can also give employees €˜a voice' in defining the projects that will create strategic improvement opportunities €“ further reinforcing their connection to the strategic purpose.

Autonomy

Project teams should be empowered by giving them self-direction and freedom. Make it clear that they're responsible for planning and executing the work in ways that best deliver the target outcome. In setting performance expectations, give them the freedom to fail €“ this empowers them to test new ideas and explore the boundaries of what's possible.

However, don't mistake autonomy for isolation €“ each project should have a leadership sponsor. HR can be instrumental in developing the leadership skills necessary to allow these sponsors to support and enable the project work rather than direct it.

Mastery

To allow project teams to aspire to mastery they need to direct their energy toward doing their best work and delivering innovative, creative solutions. Learning and Development can provide a training framework that builds essential project skills €“ those based in Agile principles help the team successfully execute and €˜learn while doing'.

HR can ensure that team members selected for projects are both deeply satisfied and personally challenged by the work. It's in these conditions that people will not just do their best work, they will aspire to be their best.

Make Cultural and Strategic Development One

Too often we view culture and strategy as separate activities requiring different development. In fact, projectifying your strategy-making creates the opportunity to bring this development together in a powerful way. By being intentional about creating meaningful strategic progress, you engender a more creative and engaged workplace while effectively shaping the business's future. Importantly, you do it in a way that instils a motivation to do more €“ to make more meaningful progress.

Jeff Schwisow is a Melbourne-based strategy specialist, speaker and the author of Projectify - How to use projects to engage your people in strategy that evolves your business. Jeff helps businesses use the power of projects to engage the very best of its people, consistently delight its clients and constantly evolve to generate exceptional business results. Find out more at www.jeffschwisow.com.