Your Team’s Not Tired—They're Uninspired (and it's your move to fix it)

Hello, hello everyone! I'm Claire Hayek, founder and CEO of Mind Soul Purpose team building and a neuroscience certified coach. Welcome to our new episode. And today, we're going to be talking about your team. Surprise, surprise! And why they're uninspired. Basically, we think maybe they're tired. But they're not. So, here's the title of our episode today. So, your team's not tired. They're uninspired. And here's the thing. And it's your move to fix it. Nobody else will. All right. So, not enough pressure for you guys. But it's— sometimes, you just have to be authentic and say it the way it should be said. So, here it is. I'm not here to tell you and point at things that are working or not working. I am here to help you maybe be conscious of certain issues that you might have that maybe you haven't noticed or haven't looked at it in that perspective. So hopefully, this episode teaches you a thing or two about your team and maybe why they're disengaged and what you can do about it. Simple. All right. So, I guess if I put it in a very bold way, okay, this episode will tackle on, it's kind of like, call it a wake-up call. Easy. So, who am I talking to? I'm talking about leaders, founders, team builders, Professionals that work in a team setting and that lead a team in a way or another. And they are not really conscious of what's going on. They think that we need, you know, let's drink more coffee. People are tired. Let's throw bonuses their way. Or we need to have more meetings. We need to keep people aligned. The thing is, that might work to a certain extent. I'm not saying that's not going to work at all, at all, at all. However, if I'm being honest with you, it's simple. Your team, your people, they need meaning. They need purpose. They need clarity. They need energy that it's gonna start with you. Nobody else is going to bring that on than you as a leader. Because if you're not aligned, if you're not clear, your vision is not clear, your energy is not sharp, and you are not showing up with purpose and drive, then you can have all the coffee that you want. You can throw all the bonuses their way and you can have all the meetings that you want. But that's not going to change anything. That's not gonna drive motivation. And of course, you know, I'm going to be tackling this on. I'm going to challenge the surface-level team culture that some organizations might have and give you the real tools that will make a difference. That is going to build engagement. It's going to build high-performing teams. Actually, not just high-performing teams. Teams that actually care, they show up at their best. Okay. So, let's dive right in. Let's cut the noise. Let's— I always talk about the noise. That's one thing that I realized, I would say maybe 2 years ago. I just kept on having this voice in my head saying, it's just too much noise. I need to cut the noise. I need to get rid of the noise. And I don't know where it came from. It was just, I think, my brain screaming at me and going, you need to be aligned. You need to cut the noise. You need to focus. So, this is very important as a leader. If you're not aligned, if there's too much noise, you're not really in tune with What's happening with your team. You're not able to read your team properly. You're not able to read even your teammates. So, this is important as well for your team members to be aware of this, to be aligned, have a clear mind as much as possible, to be able to see what's going on and not pretend like, oh yeah, we're just overwhelmed. We just have too many meetings or there's just too much work to do. There's not enough time in the day. Well, guess what? There's always going to be that. There's always going to be not enough time in the day. There's always going to be things that will get added onto the list. There'll always be that. But the thing that is different is that how you show up, how you deal with it, and how you keep them motivated, how they keep themselves motivated, that is the core. Because the noise will always be there. But it doesn't have to be within you. It could stay outside. But if you're not aligned, you're not clear on what you're doing, and you're not focused, then well, guess what? There's no filter. There's no anchor, and everything is just gonna sip right into you. So bottom line: your team isn't burnt out; they're just uninspired. Simple one word. They're uninspired. It's huge. I don't know if you've noticed the signs. Sometimes, there's low energy in meetings. There's not a lot of initiative. You see like your most talented people just doing the bare minimum. And then, everybody goes, yeah, everybody's just— it's been a tough year. We need to— people are just looking forward to go on vacation. And Kind of, you know, build up their energy. Everybody's drained. Yeah, to a certain extent, of course. You know, everybody needs a break. But if you think about it, what are we doing when we go on vacation? We're cutting the noise. So you literally have to go on vacation to cut the noise. But imagine every day is a vacation. Imagine if you can be in that state. Your brain, your mind, Your body, your energy is in this clear vacation mode every day, even when there's so much noise around, right? So this is the key. And I know it sounds crazy, like, what do you mean being on vacation every day? We're working. Literally, I'm not saying literally going on vacation, but having that feeling, embodying that feeling, that focus, that alignment, that anchoring, grounding, as if you were. You feel, you feel energized. You feel motivated. You feel inspired. You're happy even though there's a lot going on. But it's— you have it under control because you are anchored. Okay? So, one of the things that I've noticed when I talk to leaders and I coach teams and stuff, that most leaders, they think that, you know, I need to drive. I need to drive. I need to motivate them. So, what they do is push harder. They micromanage and they just pretend, you know, it'll pass. Why? Because they're in survival mode as well. And they're thinking, you know what? If I do that, then just, that's it. I just need to push them forward. You know, it's my responsibility to do that. But the thing is, it's quite the opposite. The thing is, disengagement doesn't fix itself. Yeah. You can push all you want. You can micromanage all you want. You can push as much as you want. Disengagement is not gonna just fix itself. And this is not because people are, they have a lot to do. Like I said, the noise will always be there just as long as you're controlling the noise and it's outside of you and you're anchored and grounded. The problem is if the leader is not grounded, if the leader is not aligned, then everything is just chaotic really around it. You set the tone as a leader. Simple. So, it's not a workload problem. It's a leadership problem. And surprise, surprise, you're the only one that can fix it as a leader, as a manager, as a professional. Okay? So, I'm gonna put in the chat here a poll. Okay? And I'm curious to know about your team. What describes your team right now? They're fired up. Flatlined. Functioning but checked out. They're all over the place. So, just drop the number in the chat. I would love to know. And please do drop in the chat if you're actually listening live where you're joining from. I'd love to know where you're joining me from. And if you have any questions, again, Drop them in the chat. I'll be—I'll have a Q&A that I will tackle on that later. We only have thirty minutes together, so I'm gonna try to go through this to make sure that I'm adding as much value for you as as possible, and so you can part with some information here today and apply it. Simple. All right. So like I said, I'll be checking the chat later on, but please do put in the chat where you're joining me from. And if you have any questions, I'd love to know. All right. So, let's keep going. All right. I mean, you all know I'm always talking about neuroscience for a good reason. Neuroscience, studying neuroscience really helped me so much as a leader. It helped me so much as a person. I can't count the amount of times I was misaligned. I was all over the place. Chaos, noise, in, out, all around. And when I understood how the brain works, it gave me a system in order to be able to control that environment and understand this environment and rewire literally my brain and my behavior and my limiting beliefs in order to Just perform at my highest level. And this is what I'm talking about all the time with my clients, is that the only way to fix all our problems— everybody's got issues, you know— is to fix your brain. So disengagement is a brain problem. Lack of motivation is a brain problem. Being uninspired is a brain problem. Misalignment is a brain problem. I can keep going for a while, but I'll stop. Okay, I think you get the point. So when people feel disconnected from meaning, progress, or trust, their brain literally goes into energy-saving mode. That's it. So remember, I always say this, Your brain is programmed for survival. It— what it's all it's doing is just helping you survive. So if it's— it needs to go into energy-saving mode, it will. And then there's nothing you can— that can fix that until you fix your brain, rewire your brain. Okay, so as a leader, you're helping your team Basically, you're gonna need to help your team with tools in order to rewire your brain and rewire theirs. Change the environment, the perspective. Okay? So, here's a neuroscience fact for you. The dopamine system drives motivation and effort. I mean, you probably knew that. But if the dopamine is not there, I mean, you can push and And, you know, throw bonuses and money their way. They could give a little rise in dopamine, but that's it. That's not going to drive motivation and effort in the long term. It's going to give it a little spike, but that's it. Okay? So, if there's no understood and perceived reward, and I'm talking about rewards such as impact, Recognition, growth. These are the emotional, the connection type of rewards that you cannot top with bonuses and money and more money, etc. Okay. So, if there's no perceived reward, perceived impact, recognition, growth, the brain simply disengages. And it's not because it's lazy. It's again, it's just trying to survive. Simple. If we think of the brain and how it's wired, everything can be resolved. Everything. In short, let me summarize here. If your people don't feel on purpose and safe to contribute, They stop showing up fully. So, when I say on purpose, meaning that they have the sense of purpose, that what they do matters. And if they don't feel psychological safety where they can contribute, grow, and feel recognized for their efforts, they're just gonna be disengaged. The brain just goes into survival mode. Just no more dopamine. All right. I'm just disengaged. I'm just, I'm gonna show up but I'm not gonna be fully there and performing at my highest level. So, a study done by Gallup actually in 2023 proved and actually research proved that 85% of global employees are not engaged. That's crazy if you think about it. 85% in an organization of global employees are not engaged because maybe there's this disconnect between these different teams. That doesn't mean they're not engaged within their units. But if you take the whole group, they're disengaged because this lack of maybe purpose, work culture, connection, no matter the distance, no matter where you're from, what language you speak, etc. Okay. So purpose alignment and that strong culture. And on the other hand, teams with high engagement, they see 21% higher profitability. So, if you want to solve your problem, engagement problem, you're gonna solve your performance problem. You're gonna solve your profitability problem. And the only way to do that, to actually get to being profitable, get to being successful, get to all that, you're gonna have to reverse engineer all the way to the core, which is the brain. And this is where you feed engagement. Excuse me. So again, you don't fix this with more pressure. You fix it by leading with clarity, meaning, and rhythm. Okay? So I'm gonna pause here for a sec. And I'm gonna share with you now The 3 performance levers that actually wake up your team. All right. If your team is asleep, if your team is lacking motivation, if your team is not performing at their highest, if your team is meh, you know, they're just showing up just to show up, or they're just exhausted. All right. I'm going to show you 3 ways to wake them up. Get them inspired, get them all fired up. Are we all ready? Let me just jump to the chat here and see what's going on. I know there's a lot of people here, but some of you don't like to chat, and I understand. But please do drop me a little note. I like to feel that this is an interactive talk and really address very specific concerns. There's no judgment here. Full, full. I mean, I always talk about this. The most engaging talks, the most engaging conferences, the most engaging discussions are the ones where people feel safe. Where people feel that they can express what they feel. They can talk about problems or challenges they have. And be open as well as just really present with it without feeling that judgment or that negativity. I mean, you know, who has time for that? We're already all very busy. We're already, you know, all of us kind of struggle. You know, there's a lot of things going on in life outside of us. Remember that environment, the noise? You know, it could be beautiful noise. It could be toxic noise. So we don't have time. We don't need more negativity. So when we are— I'm doing my conferences, I'm doing my lives, I'm doing my podcast. I really stress the fact that we are here to learn. I'm here to learn too. And I'm here to learn from you and it's an exchange. So I'd love to know how you feel and how you see things. How, you know, if you have any questions as well as, you know, maybe answer some of the questions that I have here in the poll. So, Manon, thank you for interacting. I think pushing this further here on the chat really worked. So, Manon answered 4. So, what best describes your team right now? Her answer was 4, which is all over the place. So, if more of you would like to share, I'd love to know just to assess where we're at. Okay. So, thanks, Manon, for commenting. I really appreciate that. So, here we go. So, we're gonna stop guessing. Okay? We're gonna stop guessing the performance game, the motivation game, the inspiration game. I'm just gonna tell you what it is. Okay? So, these are exact levers I use inside high-performing organizations to bring teams back to life without burning them out. Okay? I use these with my clients, certain clients. I mean, there's a lot of methods and levers to use in order to bring a team back to life. But these are very general. I'm not going to go into details. And within these, we can tailor. Okay? But that's the approach and that's why I do what I do. I'm a professional doing my thing. So, the first one, you need to bring back the purpose, reignite the purpose. Okay. Listen to this. Listen to me. People don't need a mission statement. Who remembers the mission statement of their organization? I mean, we can memorize it all we want. But is it really hitting us in the gut in a good way? Is it really making— are we feeling anything when we read that mission statement? Is it really moving us in a certain way? You know, I'm sure there's a lot of great mission statements. But it's not about the mission statement. 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. Like, have this lunch. 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. We're going to say, okay, we're going to talk about things here. We're going to be a bit more genuine. And we're going to have a 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 it 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. Okay? And then ask the uncomfortable question, where do you feel disconnected from this meaning, from this purpose? So when we do that, then we activate the DMN, which is the default mode network. Okay? Which is the part of the brain that is tied to value alignment and purpose. That's it. So, I don't know how many times you've asked your team that. Maybe Manon can answer and anybody else that is here. How many times have you asked? Have you had the purpose talk with your team? How many times did you? Have you ever done that? That's one of the things I always do when I do any workshop. Any workshop I do when it comes to coaching leaders, coaching exec teams, C-suite, I'm always asking. What's your purpose? Why do you get up in the morning? What motivates you to get up in the morning and do what you do? Why does it matter? Why what you do matters to you? And how does that affect the people around you, your family, your colleagues, your boss, their boss, the organization? And I'm zooming out, if in case you haven't noticed. Your city, your community, your country, the world. How does that affect what you do? The little thing that you do. I mean, as little or big that you do every day. How at the end of the day, we go one step at a time and zoom out all the way to global. How is that affecting the whole world? And most of the time, my clients and their teams realize, you know, we get to the last, you know, the actual purpose is that we're saving lives or we're providing safe something-something for our children. I mean, it's always so big. And then when they connect the dots, And go from I am writing proposals every day from nine to five, all the way to I'm saving lives. It's huge. Then they feel automatically motivated, driven, and excited about they do. I'm like, oh my God! If I don't write that proposal, or if I don't write that report, or if I don't show up with my full energy, if I don't show up with my creativity, my and bring in my energy to the team, then if I'm not being who I need to be, then I'm affecting my environment around me, which affects everything. And then we go boom, boom, boom, zoom out, zoom out, zoom out all the way to that really affects the world. So knowing and recognizing our purpose of what we're doing And our work is huge. And most importantly, what does that matter to me personally besides the money and providing a roof on top of my head? Yeah, but why? Because I want to be financially independent. But why? Just keep asking that why. And usually, somebody can say, oh, because I want to provide a good life for my kids. Why? Because I want my kids to be successful and happy. Why? Because if they're successful and happy, then they're gonna grow into amazing people and impact the world in an amazing way. You know, just, I mean, this is just a brainstorming. Here are some answers. And imagine that is very specific to each person in your team. And you need to ask those questions. But you're not being a therapist. You're just asking questions. And it's a genuine fun discussion. Make it fun. All right. So that's one. 2, we need to build a momentum of progress. Okay? So nothing kills motivation faster than working hard and feeling like it doesn't matter. Okay, so building the micro progress momentum is about celebrating small wins weekly, daily, the minute they happen. Visualizing micro progress, not just like the big goals. Okay, that's so huge and it's so simple. I mean, I work from home. My team is remote. First thing we do is when we meet is that we celebrate the first thing that we What is something that you did that really changed somebody's life or made their day better? Celebrate a win that helps somebody else and celebrate a win, a personal win. We do that and we vary it up. And I personally, I work on rewiring my brain every day. It's hard. You know, it's— you need to do it. You need to do the work. It's not theory. You need to do work. And the way I rewire my brain is I always celebrate my wins. You know, I had a great conversation with somebody, for instance. Yay, that was great! Or I just closed the deal and booked a session with a big client. I give myself a tap on the shoulder. Sometimes, I do a little dance. I play some music. What that does, it sends signals to your brain Telling your brain, and you know rising dopamine and everything, telling your brain, "Oh, that's good. That's good. We want more of these." And so your brain gets addicted to those wins, and those like in a good way addicted. I don't want to say addicted because it's like a negative connotation. But then it associates wins, these wins, these types of wins, and then gets used to that. It gets used to the positive. It gets used to the Wow, you're doing a good job. Just keep going. So, it feeds itself up. It boosts its self-motivation. And yeah. So actually, don't take my word for it. HBR study says that small wins are the number one driver of motivation at work. How many times did you celebrate wins? How many times did you do that? I have about a couple of minutes here left. I'm going to go to Manul right after this. She has a really cool— I want to read your comment here, Mano. But let me just jump into the third one. The third lever is reset your culture rhythm. Okay, people, your culture is not what's on the walls. It's what happens in meetings when shit hits the fan. All right. What happens in meetings when things are not going well? That's your culture. So, replace one status meeting with a weekly 20-minute energy sync. Okay, so take 20 minutes and just sync your energy. Here's how you do that. Okay, it's like, well, what do you mean energy sync? Okay, so ask questions like, what gave you energy this week? Take a note of that. What drained you? What's one shift you'd make next week? So, what gave you energy this week? What drained you? And what's one shift you'd make next week? What is something you would change in the coming week? This boosts psychological safety, trust, and alignment. Okay. And I want to actually challenge you to Pick one lever and try it this week. So tell me which one you're gonna pick and that you're gonna try this week: purpose, progress, or rhythm. Please do put it in the chat. Okay, I'm gonna jump in here and highlight what Manon said. So Manon said we lose purpose—the purpose when there's so many projects—they are thorn. between run and all changes that they hardly remember what it means. Yeah. So thank you, Mano. And that's what happens because life happens. Remember the noise I was talking about? The noise. Okay. This is why it's important to bring people and anchor them. You need to anchor your people. You need to anchor yourself before you're able to anchor your people, right? So, life will happen. Problems will happen. Overload will happen. But if you're not doing something about it, then you got to bring back that purpose. You got to remind people about their purpose. Put it up on a wall. Encourage people to put a Post-it note in front of their desktop, on their wall to remind them what their purpose is. Make a point every meeting to remember. What's our purpose? Let's remember what is our purpose. Why are we doing this? When things are really going bad and everybody's yelling and whatever, whatever the case may be, stress is up, etc., bring it back to the purpose. It's not something you say once and you forget about it. It's something you got to bring back because the brain has to— you're gonna rewire that brain. Refocus the brain. Tell the brain, this is why we're doing what we're doing. So then, you know, when you bring back the reward, the purpose, dopamine surge, everybody's feeling happy. Then, they're engaged, back engaged. They're motivated. But you got to do that. You got to do those little steps. These are all theory I'm telling you here. But if you're not taking action, nothing will work. This doesn't stay in your head. You need to apply this. And this is why I said, you know, what is a purpose lover? That you're going to try this week? Sorry, what's one lever you're going to try this week? You're going to talk about the purpose. You're going to look at micro progress and small wins and talk about the culture rhythm. So, by doing the energy sync. Remember, energy sync. What gave you energy this week? What drained you? So, realizing what the problem is, realizing what's giving us energy, being self-aware of that. And Being self-aware of what's draining us, then we can take action and try a shift. And what is the shift, the change I'm going to make this week, this coming week, or this week knowing this right now? It's called self-awareness. Okay? And this is where your team will be aligned. So, I'm going to wrap this up here. Again, remember, your team isn't a project to manage. They're not a project. They're people. They're people that you need to lead. And when you lead with inspiration, purpose, not exhaustion, not being pushy and micromanaging, you don't just get results. You're going to build loyalty. You're going to build momentum. You're going to build real performance. And if your company culture is flat, If your team's stuck, if you know this hit a nerve, then what we hear today, it's your move to fix it. Nobody else will fix it for you. You need to fix it. But you need to be aligned and grounded yourself before you can fix it. And if I can help you in any way to make this real inside your company, do reach out. Simple. Okay, I'm gonna put up here on the screen, if people are listening to this and not watching this, I want you to drop the word glow in the chat if you want more information and I will send you a free guide on how this can help you, you know, basically tell you a bit more about the glow method. Okay, so if you're also watching this live, you can scan a code. You can see it up here. I'm pointing at it, and that will give you a link to download the Glow PDF where it'll basically show you how you can be more grounded. You can label what's going on. You can open up for new opportunities in order to rewire your brain. So I don't know if you noticed what I just did there. That's GLOW. G-L-O-W. Grounding, label what you're feeling, label, um, O, open to new possibilities, W, wire new behavior. All right, so do scan the code or drop it in the comment and I will send you that free guide. I hope that today's session was helpful and it really brought a lot of value to you. And I will be announcing the next episode soon. Really looking forward to seeing you all.