No human being you will ever meet does anything just for the sake of doing it. All human behaviour is motivated by a perception that what we are doing somehow meets one, or several, of our highest values.

If an employee finds it hard to connect their professional responsibilities and what they are expected to do from day to day with the fulfillment of their highest values, how can we expect them to work hard?

When employees and leaders today lack that spark, focus and drive in executing company goals many often conclude that they, or some of their staff, could be, perhaps, in the wrong job, but this isn't necessarily true.

Here's why:

When there is an intellectual disconnection between what people do and what they actually love and value in their life they become demotivated. When I write an article for my followers, writing and teaching meets two of my highest values so I feel inspired and want to do it more often. However, majority of people get caught up in simply 'doing' the job and forget to align and connect their action with what actually inspires them. When individuals learn to connect these, they produce positive emotions which spark higher levels of creativity, energy and motivation toward their responsibilities.

As leaders we must encourage our employees to identify how their current duties serve their highest aspirations.

This may take a little time and energy at first, but once people realise that their responsibilities can actually serve what’s important to them, they become intrinsically motivated and increase their productivity ten fold.

To assist managers with this I use an activity called "values linking". This is a highly effective tool in transforming human behaviour to influence motivation and productivity.

Are your teams as motivated as they could be? Perhaps your team mission statement is more a definition of social idealisms than a plan for the fulfillment of company and individuals’ vision and maybe is actually hindering productivity?