Universallyspeaking

I’m of the opinion as are many of my colleagues and friends at InsideWork and in the larger leadership development world that individuals and organizations should have a meaningful and enduring purpose.  In recent years this idea has perhaps been popularized best by Jim Collins in Built to Last.  But a lot of my belief in the need for work to be purposeful has been based on my own intuition, preferences, and observations.

Daniel H. Pink refers to a report written by Noah Goldstein about some recent research conducted by Adam Grant of Wharton on whether tasks infused with purpose can increase motivation and high performance.

In the experiment, employees in a call center were divided into three groups.  In the first group the employees read stories that detailed the Personal Benefits they would receive from the job such as financial rewards and  personal development.  (This seems to me to be the classic capitalistic motivation of what you can earn and what this job does for you as a person.)  The second group were read stories that described the positive impact that their work would have on the lives of others to increase the Task Significance.  And finally the third group was a Control group who were told not to talk about their work or share with others what they had done with any callers.

The researchers tracked the number of pledges obtained and the donated amounts for a week prior to the experiment and then for a month afterwards.

The startling result was that the Control group and the group that were informed about their Personal Benefits actually secured the same number of pledges and donations as before the experiment.

However, the people who were infused with a sense of the significance of their task secured more than double the pledges and double the amount of donations.

So, do you as a leader now understand how important it is to communicate the purpose of your organization to your team and to help them see how each of their tasks contributes to something significant?