We live in a society with many diversions, all around us, we are tempted to be distracted from the goals and tasks set forth at work. Some people say the challenge is individuals, of all generations, are not motivated. I find this hard to believe, did our society really become unmotivated over the past few years.
I believe the workplace has become distracted which people are labeling as unmotivated. Hey, we are fresh off a monumental societal change from the pandemic. While we went through this changing event, we became very bored and engaged in activities which took our minds away from the uncomfortable feelings we all had during this life changing event.
But now, we are 2 years removed and still dealing with distraction, just calling it a lack of motivation seems crazy.
We all need to admit we are distracted, some much more than others. To be more deliberate and focused on work, we need to act differently in a positive way.
It starts with leadership:
From senior leadership to the floor level supervisor. Leadership is stressed out about this challenge. Leaving many in a toxic stressed out state of mind which leads to disengagement by their team. Leaders need to be emotionally healthy. If you are a leader, find out what rejuvenates you, take care of yourself, exercise, read a book, rest. Whatever it is, do it so you can set the boundaries for stress. Mentally unplug and take the time to step away from your electronic devices.
Many front-line team members believe leaders lack empathy. They feel like their leaders do not get them. Leaders need to recognize that their personal growth is connected to the awareness of how their team members feel.
Leaders do not fear failure, to gain awareness you must first recognize the situation. Once you recognize it you can reframe it and work with the team to set realistic goals. You only grow to your own level of pain tolerance, take the time to drive through your fear.
It would be great to see leadership reimagine the tasks front-line team members engage in. They must recognize discomfort or not wanting to do a job or task is what causes distractions.
By relinquishing notions about what fun should feel like, leaders can be open to seeing tasks in a new way. Play can be a part of any difficult task, and play doesn’t necessarily have to be pleasurable however, it will free people from discomfort which is the essential ingredient driving distraction.
Given what we know about the propensity for distraction when we’re uncomfortable, reimagining difficult work as fun could prove incredibly empowering. Imagine how powerful teams would feel if an organization was able to transform the hard, focused work front-line team members must do into something that felt like play.
Remember this:
Fun and play don’t have to make team members feel good per se rather, it can be used as tools to keep focus.
Team members/front-line employees:
I often hear about people who feel they are in jobs or roles where they believe it is a meaningless opportunity. People in these roles sometimes feel powerless and with a sense of powerlessness front line employees fight the cravings of being distracted. Therefore, if a person feels this way, powerlessness, they are more likely to continue to have distractions which take away from productivity and efficiencies. So, what team members, along with leaders need to do, is to look at how to make a role more meaningful, more fun, and will pique their curiosity to help reduce the level of distraction which, ultimately could reduce the amount of turnover and improve motivation and engagement.
“Fun is not a feeling so much as an exhaust produced when an operator can treat something with dignity.”
“Fun is the aftermath of deliberately manipulating a familiar situation in a new way.”
Therefore, front-line team members should focus on the task itself instead of running away it. Reimagine it and pay such close attention to find new challenges not seen before. Those new challenges provide the novelty to engage attention and maintain focus when tempted by distraction.
“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”
By finding the fun, people can do work without getting distracted as they once did. Fun is looking for variability, it is breaking through the boredom and monotony to discover its hidden beauty.
Whether it’s uncertainty about our ability to do a task better or faster than last time or coming back to challenge the unknown day after day, the quest to solve these mysteries is what turns the discomfort which people seek to escape with distraction into an activity worthy to embrace.
Five things Leaders and Team Members can do:
- Reframe the situation, be curious, learn that fun is finding new challenges by paying close attention to the work.
- Do not be afraid of failure, we all make mistakes. Failure is feedback, feedback modifies results, results lead to change, change leads to improvement, improvement leads to learning and winning.
- Reimagine capabilities, reinvent fun and play as tools to keep focused on work, it does not have to pleasurable, it needs to hold attention.
- Understand the triggers which drive toward distractions and use them to improve.
- Be aware of how to think about each other as it relates to motivation and distraction.
