Connection To Our Values At Work And At Play Is The Seat Of Motivation
I had an interesting reminder about the importance and the impact of values in the workplace earlier this week. Namely, I was talking with a client about the challenge he was experiencing in his work environment. Connection to our values can make or break our motivation.
When he came on the call he looked really tired. He had been snoozing on the sofa and his energy was really low.
“What’s up?” I said. He told me that he was finding his job really hard and he wasn’t enjoying it anymore. He announced that he had to find a way to focus on his personal life, which had been minimised due to his busy work schedule. In addition, he then announced he and just ‘EXIST’ at work from now on.
In the same vein, he suddenly announced that he should take up cooking, do more outdoor exercise (a bit tricky with the current state of affairs) or find something he’s really passionate about to get him out of this lull.
Now, I’m all for operating in the passion zone, and yet I was more concerned about the total lack of passion in his view of work.
From Empowerment To Disconnection From Values In Weeks
Undoubtedly, he was in a state of total apathy about work. He had decided that he didn’t like his boss, or like his clients, and he didn’t like his new work set up. Particularly interesting, and quite dramatically, he suddenly announced that now he was a poor writer of emails! Wow!
Now, to put all this into context for you. My client is super-bright, highly energetic, well-respected by his peers, extremely ambitious, a gifted public speaker and a very successful man in his field. In fact, last year he won the sales award out of a team of 200. He’s a person who can make things happen.
If I Can't Do That, I Can't Do Anything!
The man sitting in front of me on camera was a very different one. Apathetic, resistant, irritable, tired and without an ounce of motivation. Clearly, there was a major mismatch going on and I knew this had to be a values issue. Thus, I probed a bit further.
A month ago, he moved to a new team, with a new boss and new clients in a totally different market sector. He explained that his manager was taking a micro-management approach, demanding they respond to any email within 5 minutes of receipt, at any time of day up to 10pm. All of his new clients had been passed to him by his new boss and he was not supposed to waste time building personal relationships with them. His had been instructed to send them email responses only delivering the information they request. Furthermore, his boss had to be copied on every single client communication, and was frequently asking him to recall his emails.
Extreme Reactions Occur When Connection To Our Values Is Lost
Interestingly enough, he’s worked for a few managers and he’s quite skilled at managing them, so I was surprised that he’d hit a wall after just one month. This kind of strong demotivation only really happens when there’s a values breakdown.
His work values (what’s most important to him in his career) are:
- Strong and trusted client relationships
- Strong internal team connection (working culture)
- Empowerment
- Challenge
- Sense of Achievement
- Growth and Development
- Enjoyment
- Success
- Financial Reward
I Can't Find Connection To Values From This Perspective
It was quite clear to me that he felt there was no way to relate to his top 3 values in this current position and this perspective had taken the wind out of his sails. He couldn’t find a way to see how he could have the freedom to build relationships with his team members and clients. My client couldn’t find his way to his comfort zone where his motivation was. He was facing challenge and it didn’t feel like the ‘right’ kind of challenge.
In his last team, he was the glue that held everyone together. Essentially, he likes chatting with people, getting to know them, making people laugh and cultivating a positive and competitive working environment. Needless to say, changing teams when a pandemic is forcing an alternating 2 weeks work-at-home, 2 weeks in the office and so on, so he was finding it pretty challenging to forge connections with his colleagues.
How Can We Reforge A Connection To Our Values
Actually, with a bit of reframing, we were able to identify how his current role could serve his values. It just takes a shift in perspective and beliefs. What’s more, by making this values connection to his current role, he had the headspace to rediscover his natural optimism. He was able to stop taking everything so personally and realise that everything has a learning curve and maybe he had been misreading the intentions of his new boss. Furthermore, he could appreciate the impact the coronavirus measures were having on his ability to connect with his team, and how his people-skills would soon be back in action once everyone was back in the office.
He looked like a different man just an hour later. Most notably, his energy was significantly higher and he was talking about plans and possibilities at work, and different ways he could connect with people.
There’s a lesson here for all of us, because this can easily happen when we shift environments or we experience a dramatic change. If you find yourself feeling totally flat, check in with your values and see if you’ve lost your connection with them. Understanding how what we do every day is driven by our values allows us to maintain motivation and energy to achieve what we want.
We Can Change The Relationship When We Alter Our Perspective
Our natural assumption is often that we need to change the situation or environment. In reality, we can make changes to our reactions to and our relationship with the environment. We take the positive experience from our last role and we find a way to re-connect those experiences in the present moment.
Alignment with our values allows us to BE who we really are. Managing our connection to our values allows us to successfully navigate any situation in the now.
Get In Touch To Find Out How Connection To Our Values Impacts Behaviour
If you’d like to find out more about coaching with me, or if you’d like to arrange a call to see if we’re a good fit for on another, please send me an email to sarah@sarahmerron.com.
You can book coaching online here.
If you’re interested in group training and coaching, you can check out my Farcical Life Programmes here.
