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     Last week a friend sent me an interesting study from the University of North Carolina.  It showed that infusing a job with purpose and significance can drastically improve employee performance. 

     Not rocket science, but it’s always nice to see quantifiable data in support of a concept that seems to be common sense.  Especially since (in my experience) many leaders could do more to employ this “common sense” when dealing with their teams…

     The study, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, took a team of fundraising solicitors working at a University and split them into three groups. 

     The first group was asked to read stories from other employees describing personal benefits to the job, like compensation and health insurance.  We’ll call this group the “Personal Benefits” group.

      The second group read stories from University donors describing the benefits of their donations to scholarship recipients, users of new equipment (bought with donor money)…  We’ll call this group the “Task Significant” group.

     The third group acted as a control and received no outside intervention or stories of any kind.

     According to Noah Goldstein, who wrote an article about the study for the Inside Influence Report, the results were “amazing.”

     Participants in the Personal Benefit and Control groups raised the same amount of money as they had before the intervention.

     Participants in the Task Significant group earned more than twice the amount of weekly pledges (an average of 9 to an average of 23) than before the intervention.  Even more impressive, they also raised more than twice the dollar amount of weekly pledges (an average of $1,228 to an average of $3,130)!

     This study demonstrates what many leaders have known for some time now – that infusing a task with purpose can improve employee performance.  And this isn’t limited to business either.

     In fact, one could argue that the United States would still be a British Colony if it weren’t for task benefit motivation.  I mean, who knows, perhaps we never would have made it to the moon if Kennedy hadn’t codified our nation around a shared purpose (to win the space race).

     A while back I shared a story that illustrates the power of a task benefit outlook.  Here it is again:

                A man was walking through a rock quarry busy with workers excavating stone.  The man went up to one of the workers and asked, “What are you doing?”

                The worker responded with contempt, “I’m breaking my back to break these stones!”

                So the man went up to a second worker and asked the same question.

               Exhausted, the second worker replied, “I’m breaking these stones to feed my family and put a roof over our heads.”

                Seeing that the two workers had very different perspectives on their jobs, the man asked a third worker the same question.

                The third worker looked at the man and, without hesitating, said with pride, “I’m building a cathedral.”

     Now which of these workers do you think got the most satisfaction out of their job?  Which do you think worked the hardest and made the fewest mistakes?  Of course, it was the third worker…

     Obviously infusing a task with purpose can help create an optimistic outlook among staff.  Why is that important?  Because happy workers… that have a clear vision of the impact their work will have… work harder, are accountable and provide innovative ideas and solutions.

     Creating a Task Significant outlook in your company is easy.  You need to do just three things.  I call it the GIVE™ Leadership Model.  Here are the cliff notes:

1)      Gain Investment – Your people aren’t going to automatically feel invested in the success or failure of your business.  And as you go lower and lower on your company totem pole you’ll notice a larger disconnect.  People become invested in what they help to create.  So instead of directing your employees, include them in the process.  Have them generate new ideas and tactics for furthering your company’s goals.  In doing so they’ll feel a personal connection to the success or failure of those ideas. 

2)      Validate  – At the end of the day, your employees all care about different things.  Some care about helping people, others care about changing the world (hopefully for the better) and others care about personal gains like making more money or being promoted.  Your job as a leader is to build a bridge between what an employee cares about, and your company goals.  Of course, this requires that you get to know your people (which I hope you’ve already done before reading this blog).  If an employee wants to help people, show them how your products do so.  If they want to make more money, show them how realizing team and company goals will help them do that.  

3)      Excite – A good definition of a leader is someone who, “so clearly communicates to people their worth and potential that they come to see it in themselves.”  I’d like to add that good leaders also communicate the purpose and function of their companies so clearly that employees adopt them as their own.  If you build houses, you need to clearly explain to your team that you’re putting a roof over a needy family’s head, providing a safe environment to raise a family or a creating a space for wonderful memories.  You’ve got to make the end game clear to employees so that they become excited about performing their specific roles.

     If you take nothing else away from the GIVE™ model, I hope it’s this:  Simply sharing your vision, however beautiful and inspiring, is not how to infuse purpose.  In fact, infuse is probably to wrong word.  The truth is… you can’t infuse anything.  All you can do is help your people find their own purpose.

     So instead of pouring your heart into a company manifesto or employee training program, just talk to your staff.  Find out what they care about and help them create their own “purpose.”

     Once everyone has created a unique and personal purpose, find the common thread that permeates them all.  Use that to develop a shared vision of what you’re doing and where you’re going.  Finally, connect what each employee cares about to that vision, and ultimately your company goals.

     And if you’re not sure whether or not your people have purpose and are inspired to succeed, there’s an easy way to find out.

     Go around to your receptionists, programmers, warehouse staff… and ask them to tell you what they do.  If you get responses like, “I answer the phone,” “I write code,” or “I pack boxes” there’s probably room for improvement.

     You’re heading in the right direction if you get responses like, “I’m helping our customers live pain free,” or “I’m building relationships with vendors and clients that call our office.”