Short YouTube video (shorts) by Susan Drumm advising managers to discover what energizes team members by asking about specific projects and tasks rather than directly asking what motivates them. Recommends questions about projects that gave energy, tasks that were draining, growth desires, and areas of contribution to enable assigning more engaging work.
Chapters
When you know what energizes your team, you can look for opportunities to give them more work that lights them up. Ask your team members what project gave you the most energy last quarter? Or what had you feel the most engaged at work over the past few months? As strange as it sounds, directly asking your team members what motivates you probably won't result in the answer you're looking for. Humans are notoriously bad at understanding or communicating what motivates them, and even if they do know, they may hesitate to share that information with their boss. So? So instead of asking them a question they probably can't or won't answer, try asking them about the projects that energize them. Did they get energy from facilitating meetings, negotiating contracts? Maybe mentoring new hires? When you know what energizes your team, you can look for opportunities to give them more work that lights them up. Other potential questions could be what projects or tasks were the most draining? Where would you like to most grow, and how can I help you with that? Where do you feel like you're contributing most to the team, and where are you not contributing enough, but you'd like to contribute.
