Claire HayekFounder, Mind. Soul. Purpose (MSP) Teambuilding · Pressure-Proof Leadership | Neuroscience-based leadership

The Real Key to Employee Motivation (It Is Not What You Think) #shorts

20 Jun 2025 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:03

In this short, Claire Hayek argues that the most effective way to motivate employees is to ensure they understand why their work matters to them personally. She advises leaders to ask each team member which part of their work holds personal significance, and to hold genuine, purpose‑focused conversations—whether over lunch, in a conference room, or remotely. The goal is to move beyond generic mission‑statement answers and uncover authentic personal motivations that make the work feel meaningful.

Chapters

Your people need to know why what they do actually matters. That's it. Well, that's one of the things. Okay? So they need to know, write this down, why what they do actually matters. So here's a way to do this. So just ask your team, what part of your work matters to you personally? And let them express themselves. Buy them lunch, get in the conference room, or maybe just grab your lunches the day that they're in the office. Or if this is a remote thing, do it remotely and say, okay, we're going to talk about things here. We're going to be a bit more genuine and we're going to talk today about our purpose and what we do and why it matters. And I really want to hear what your motivation is. What is so important for you? That makes the work that you do matter to you personally, personally, not what the mission says and what we want them to say.