Team performance is about more than skills or incentives. How team members perceive the value of their work is often the most impactful feature of high performing teams. Teams who believe that their efforts are meaningful are more committed, adaptable, and satisfied.
Leaders make work meaningful by:
Aligning goals and strategies with culture. Connecting purpose and values, with goals and strategies, transforms routine work into contributions toward something larger, helping teams find meaning in their labor and achievements. This alignment drives strategy execution and performance.
- Strengthen the “why”: Start meetings with purpose, goals and/or strategy, not just tactical status. Encourage team sharing about wins, challenges, and impactful stories that clarify the “why” behind their work.
- Reinforce values: Ensure performance metrics and recognition systems consistently support stated values and expected behaviors.
- Connect daily work: Help teams articulate how their tasks advance organizational mission.
Fostering curiosity. Treat team members as thinking partners rather than just task doers by encouraging them to improve methods through exploration, questioning, and exchanging ideas with leaders and colleagues across related functions.
- Create idea flow: Make it easier, and safer, to challenge the status quo. Provide structured opportunities for cross-functional idea-sharing and collaboration to increase agility or accelerate productivity.
- Support exploration: Implement dedicated “learning times” where teams can investigate better methods.
- Model curiosity: Listen more than speak, and ask more questions than you answer.
Challenging their teams. Set high expectations and empower teams to act on improvement ideas. This approach builds trust, respect, and confidence, while creating a sense of progress and impact where team members feel stretched but not overwhelmed.
- Pair stretch goals with support: Every challenging expectation needs a clear development plan and resources to inspire growth, not just increase pressure.
- Create safe spaces to discuss obstacles: Establish forums to openly discuss obstacles and possible solutions.
- Celebrate growth: Applaud successes, and recognize failures as learning opportunities. Both fuel growth.
Making work meaningful delivers individual fulfillment, talent retention, continuous improvement, and sustained high performance.
How are you making work more meaningful for your team?