The Future of Motivation: Trends That Will Redefine Engagement and Performance in 2025

Now this topic that we're digging into, I, I feel, is very timely, right? Like the environment is constantly shifting. We're working in new environments, whether that's in new economic pressures or political scenarios, or just new generations entering the workforce. It's hard to really understand what are the true motivators of our people? Like what is at the core of keeping them engaged, keeping them fired up at working at your organization to make an impact and motivated to be part of your culture and your team. So we're gonna unpack some of these things, but I would love next in chat, let's kind of get the gears turning, get, get us warmed up a little bit. This is from the actual state of motivation report that our partners attuned today as released, these 11 motivators that we found to be core, essential pillars to what motivates our people. Now we're gonna unpack at what's at the top of the list. But for you, what is your biggest motivator? I'd be curious. Like, I want to hear from all of you in our network, what are some of your biggest motivators? What gets you fired up? Is it the sense of purpose and impact? Is it the progress that you're seeing on the work that you're doing? Is it the ability to innovate and try new things? Like what is it for you that gets you motivated? Like what's at the core for you as an individual, as a professional? Is it the financial needs? Like, Hey, I'm just here to make some money. Like, I wanna, I'm incentivized and motivated by money. Like, I get it. That's cool. Like, what is it for you? What are some of the other things? Yeah, maybe even your top three. If you, if you want to keep, take it even further, Jessica, the impact, rationality, altruism, social, like social relationships. That's big for me, Lauren, for sure. I mean, I'm a community, community guy. I am all about social relationships, purpose, innovation, Chris. Yeah, altruism and social relationships, altruism, progress, sense of purpose. Okay. Trust and guidance. Mohammad, Wendy, we got a bunch of 'em, right? Altruism, security, social relationships, competition. Okay, Nina, that's a good one. I'm excited to actually dig into that. Like what does competition actually mean and is there a good and toxic competition we should be thinking about here? Connections. All right, this is awesome. Keep putting in the chat what that is. A lot of altruism. I love to see that. Christo Financial needs security. I think that's very relevant given the current state of the world and our, our environment that we're living and working in. All right, let's get to the fun stuff. Let's start to unpack this. As I said, if you have any questions or things you want dig into with these motivators, let us know. Rachel Autonomy. All right. Yeah. Workplace trauma response probably. Okay. Um, so that's what we're here to do. Let's unpack this. This is all about the future of motivation, the current state of it. What are the trends that are really redefining our engagement strategies? Like what's at the core of these strategies that can keep our people engaged, performing, and retained with our organization? Because if we're coming in with certain engagement strategies that reflect innovation, but it's not at the top of what motivates our people, we gotta change our strategy here. So let's start to unpack that. I'm excited to be joined by three amazing leaders. If we could give 'em a warm welcome to the virtual stage with me. We have Christopher Lit Littlefield, which is a founder, international speaker on employee appreciation. Chris, welcome. Uh, we have Kristen Henderson to be here, learning and development manager for, for Burberry. Welcome, Kristen. And last but not least, Casey, wall founder and CEO Atune Casey. Welcome. All right, I'm gonna stop sharing here. It's great to see all your lovely faces. I'm excited to unpack this with you all, especially 'cause you know, you're in the weeds with this. You're in the field on this topic, working with the organization. So, uh, I would love to maybe just unpack the report and the motivations a little bit at, at a high level to start, if you don't mind, Casey, talking a little bit about the report, some of the new findings for 2025 in the future. And then I would love to start unpacking these things, like what does that mean for our engagement strategy and what are strategies we do to actually enable that? So yeah, Casey, can you tell us a little bit about this report and some of the things you're starting to find? Absolutely. Thank you. Thanks for that intro. So, I'm Casey. I'm the, the CEO and the founder here of attune.ai. And, uh, maybe I should just give a, a brief overview of what we do at Attune. So we're, we're software, it's a, a tool really made for managers to try to help give managers like an extra superpower to understand the motivations of all the individuals on their team. So it can visualize that it can have the gaps of it. So, you know, it's a, a great tool for like new managers or managers going into kind of a, a new role. Or if you've got some issues going on the team, you can understand people. So it really helps you understand yourself. So what attuned is really good at is that one-to-one relationship, so that manager to the team member relationship. But what we found doing this over a while is we've got tens of thousands of people taking this all over the world, over, you know, each year. So we're getting to see big data as well. So it's not only the little data. So, you know, we've started to share this state of motivation report over the last couple of years, and I should give a shout out to the team. Like, I didn't do all the difficult work of crunching the numbers. I didn't make these beautiful infographics that you can all steal and please use in your presentations. But, uh, you know, I think what we're seeing in, uh, this 2025 report is kind of a, a return to more like stability. Like back to the revision to the norm is, or reversion to the norm is, is kind of what we're seeing. So financial needs is back at the top across, and I think it's what, 51, 1%, 52% is the average score of people needing to have that for their, their, their motivation. Um, and that's been actually the top motivator for five out of the last six years. So it was down last year, came back status. Is there very kind of high, you know, what we saw with this group is altruism is quite highly represented in a, I think this is the really interesting part. So, you know, if we're here in this group, you know, okay, hey altruism, that's probably the world around me is motivated by altruism. But actually as we're starting to look in the big data, you can start to see, okay, what are the trends? And we didn't see tremendous amount of movement, uh, this year. Uh, but there were some interesting things like social relationships started to drop, like after going up and up with a pandemic year. So I think that pandemic is kind of behind us. We've got this little bit of stability in terms of what it is across the, the big data. But, you know, as you kind of get into the details, what I am really interested, and I think some of the, the real kind of insights are the generational gap data. So, you know, between the, the baby boomers or the millennials or the Gen A, uh, gen Z and what you see in there is, is quite interesting. So, uh, you know, Kristen, Christopher, I don't know if you had any thoughts, uh, so far, uh, from what you've seen from the data and, and what you're experiencing as well. Yeah, I think, um, just to kind of jump in, I think that this idea, this notion of return to normal, like, is that even possible? Is that even what we want? Right? Because the reality is we are not necessarily living in a world that looked like it did before covid. So we have economical, societal, behavioral, technological, organizational changes. Uh, so, you know, this makes our reality different. So let's acknowledge it and then let's see how we can use it to move forward. So that's my, my first thought for sure. And, and I think that's really interesting. Like, the world around us is constantly changing. It's only gonna keep getting faster and faster. And you know, as leaders and as practitioners, it's like, okay, what's happening inside of people as well? Like their motivations and their values are shifting, and usually we're not able to see this. So, you know, you've got shifting on the, the outside world, shifting on the inside world, and now how can we bring this to together as well? So I think with that stability, you know, it says, okay, this is generally what the trend is, so okay, maybe can we reassess how can we use this data to make our organizations a bit more resilient? You know, because we're going to have to face all of these changes that we can predict. So, um, maybe that's a good framing of it. So, uh, I, I think the thing that I would just add is, I think this one stability is that it's always changing. And I think every time it, you know, there's that need where everyone is like, are we going to, are we gonna be remote forever? Because I want to be able to plan my life and I want to go buy a house and make a financial decision. And I have a good friend who did that. 'cause the company said, we are gonna be remote forever. Well, guess what? Now they're back in the office. Because saying forever, I think addresses the concern and the need for stability, which I think many people want so that they can make decisions. But I think what we're really addressing is someone wants to figure out how am I gonna survive inside the current world that I'm living right now? And I think I know for myself being a speaker who was living in South America at the time, uh, when the pandemic happened, wait, how am I gonna survive this? How am I gonna pivot? How am I gonna do this? And what I needed to know is if I've got no money coming in, how, how am I gonna take care of my family? How am I gonna live? How am I gonna do this? And when that, that, uh, need is not met, it's hard to focus on anything else because I think uncertainty makes movies exciting, but it's what makes life exhausting. And so I think that reminder that it's always shifting and understanding where each one of our people are at in their journey and their motivator right now, right? And their motivator six months from now and six years from now is constantly changing. And that's the big thing I saw looking at the report. Yeah, I think it's really interesting. And, and this is kind of just a theory, like I don't have the the academic total research to back it up, nor the data. But I, I think like if you look at it and like a, a Maslow's hierarchy kind of pyramid, right? So I think many people are, are still in the lower to the mid stage. Like, okay, I need that financial stability, I need the basic respect that I'm doing something meaningful. The, the purpose kind of within that and maybe some of the other motivators. Okay, whether it's altruism or rationality or autonomy, those are a bit more kind of higher maybe in the needs. Again, this is a, a concept I'm shooting from the hip a little bit from now in terms of the, the, the kind of self-awareness or, or expression part of it or, uh, could be a way to look at it too. Yeah. And I think that with that in mind, stability, what does that mean for us? I think it's time for us to catch up as organizations. So if those kind of base level needs are not being met, let's let's address those. Let's, let's entertain those so that we can progress and we can lay a strong foundation for what the future of work looks like. Yeah. I I, Casey, when you were, when you were coming on to, to build on what Kristen just shared right there, and I'm gonna just, there's, I think it was on under financial, um, on your screen is like looking at Gen Z versus millennial, gen X and baby boomers. How important need to have was financial. And I was just looking at that and I'm thinking if I was Gen Z or that age range right now, of course finances are important, but maybe I still have a relationship with my family. And if my family has money, then maybe I feel like I can take risks. 'cause my family doesn't have money, then I need that financial resources. My niece, who's 22 years old, is trying to figure out how to pay a $1,600 a month rent, which is splitting an apartment in Portland, Maine right now making $20 an hour. That's huge. And without financial support, she can't do that in her job. And then I think, think of, you know, millennials, which are maybe starting to have kids now, maybe looking at buying a house and why that financial need goes up, thinking about where we're at and Gen X, it's like, yeah, well I'm, I'm at my, I think they say, what is the, you hit hit your biggest earning potential like 45 to 55. And so when you're there, you're like, no, finances aren't very important because look at why, why do they need money? 'cause we're good. And then think about it, baby boomers are starting to retire and if they've got money, they're not thinking about it. It's more so, Hey, am I gonna make enough off of my investments? But if they're not the people and, and Kristen, I think what you were just sharing is, are we taking time to understand where each one of our people are at? Because there's the assumption that they're where we are. And then there's also I think the assumption that, uh, depending on what phase they're at, they have certain needs. And I feel like that's one of my things of like, hey, these are some things we can use to guide our conversation, but I still need to ask where you're at and what your goals are right now to understand why this is a motivator to you right now. Yeah, absolutely. I think you just nailed it, uh, pretty much right there. Like this data is kind of the trigger to look, you know, more deeply, uh, that it, it can get to your blind spot. So I'm Gen X or maybe, you know, a higher part of the, the, the Gen X side of things and um, you know, but if you looked at the baby boomers versus millennials on the ground, like baby boomers are almost twice as much less need for financial needs than the millennials, right? And I think, you know, what happens to us just as humans is we get blind spots. Like we can only see the world from like our needs and our values and our motivation. So, you know, if you're millennials and you came out after onto the workforce after the, the lehman shock and the financial crisis at that time, and you entered a difficult market and you've always been struggling with that market, and you're probably getting into the years where you're buying a house and doing all of these things. So, you know, it's prompting that conversation or hey, there is a real human story. And basically what these motivators are is they're real deep emotions that are imprinted on people's, you know, psyche that are driving these needs type of thing. And I think this data and these gaps are, are what should prompt those conversations and try to get to the heart of those stories so we can understand the individual. Hmm. Casey, can I ask you a question? Of course. Is, do you notice in your research patterns and motivational changes as people age or go through different stages in their life, are there things that you started to notice or see in your research? Yeah, like as we're talking about the life stages, as you're getting higher, like social relationships will drop, you know, as you get older, you've already got your kind of core group type of thing. As we're seeing, like with Gen Z, they're getting into the workplace, they want to build their network, they want to build their connections, they want to have that relatedness in the work. So social relationships are very high. So definitely life stage plays a role in, you know, I think what we're seeing with this big data is backing up a lot of what we've heard in, you know, the media about what is actually happening through the different life stages. But the interesting part is everybody's an individual. So like at the big level, like, okay, here's what Gen Z, you know, this is what they need in the workplace. They wanna work in person, they want to build those relationships, they want to get that hands-on men mentoring type of situation. But if you break it down to just a random Gen Z person, they're just as statistically likely to be the same as a, a baby boomer, right? You know? So it's big data like shows you this, but individually, uh, it could be a little bit all over the place. Fascinating, super fascinating. I love how we've taken off in this discussion already, and one of the other top motivators that also showed up that I was hoping to unpack with the group was also status and what that means for different people. And one thing, Kristen, you and I even talked about ahead of time was like, what does this actually mean? Does this actually always, uh, follow being defined as like a job title within the organization? So Kristen, can you maybe share some thoughts on that piece of the status motivator and are there different meanings behind that that you're seeing in your role? Yeah, definitely. I think, you know, at the root of it, status is about an achievement that makes you feel good, that satisfies you in some way. And traditionally, you know, I think it was about, yeah, job title, it was about financial gain, um, you know, about getting that plaque for recognition. But I feel like increasingly in organizations that are flat, where compensation elevated job titles may not be as readily available as they had been in the past, start status does start to mean different things for different people. You know, maybe it's the status of having a flexible work situation so you can get to that fitness class that you want, or, you know, maybe it's about becoming a subject matter expert cross-functionally across your organization that is consulted when bigger projects are happening. Um, you know, I think organizations need to start understanding the balance between offering traditional status, but also respecting alternative status options that drive motivation and drive that performance. So for me, this is where, you know, we talk about employee engagement all the time, but employee engagement can't happen if workplace experience is not, is not considered. So this is kind of like a root cause for me. Like if we start to think about the experience of working as it relates to status, that could have massive implications on engagement. Yeah. It's like really getting to the core, and I think back to what Chrissy you were even talking about is like at the macro level, you can maybe find some of these themes with status, but as you actually start to kind of take individuals directly for, you know, and ask 'em themselves status will have many different meanings, right? Is it being the subject matter expert? Is it, you know what, no, I'm, I do want that job title and that promotion. Um, yeah. Casey and Chris, anything to add on this? Oh, I, I'd love to, just as you were sharing that, I think one of the most eye-opening situations, actually two recently is one, uh, somebody I was working with was at a large credit card company, we won't say a name, but anyway, was working there and was just on the road nonstop. Was a senior project manager on the road, on the road, on the road on the road nonstop, did very well, was very successful, and then moved over to another company in San Francisco because it was one block from their house and they wanted a job where they weren't gonna travel, got there, killed it in the first three months, and then the boss promoted them into a job where they'd go on the role because the boss thought, Hey, you wanna move up? Or what the person wanted was stability right there. And I think this comes back to understanding where people are on their career journey and not necessarily, and I say career journey or maybe life journey is the better one. I don't love the term life journey, but it's like, hey, we're all on a journey and where we are and what we want at that point changes, right? Like Zach, you and I were just talking about being on the road all the time, and I'm like, I would love a month where I'm not on the road right now. Right? And I love traveling for my work, but I think it's understanding, it's like, Hey, is this something you'd want right now instead of assuming that this is what you want, because that's what status looks like for me, opposed to what does status look like for you right now based on where you are in your life and what matters to you at work and at home? Um, I think is the question that we need to ask before we have people jump into assuming somebody wants that title increase. Uh, I would say absolutely. And what fantastic, you know, fellow panelists I've got right here, like, uh, like Christine, what you said, like you, you said about respect and like as we see this applied, you know, with our customers and in organization when people are talking about status, when you start to have those deeper conversation, a lot of it comes down to respect. And it, it can be just the quieter side of status, the quieter respect that I need, rather than the loud, you know, title about it. And Christopher, what you just mentioned, uh, as well, and I think this is a big problem as humans and managers and leaders, we just don't have the time to think and we're, we're assuming, right? And you know, when you assume it makes an ass of, you know, yeah, okay. Um, right. And like, it's usually, okay, this person wants the promotion, I, you know, this person's killing it, they're doing so well, so I should give them the promotion, I should give them that extra job title. Or, you know, I spent so much of my life when I was early in like a, a younger sales leader, like thinking of the new coolest incentive that I could get to, you know, hit these financial needs. And it was a total waste of time because, you know, okay, there's this certain cohort that, you know, I kept hitting with it, but then there's totally other people that are motivated by by different things. So, you know, really getting to the heart of it and then understanding that our team, you know, has these different needs. And I think Kristen going to the point of it, like for engagement, like increasing, if you can understand somebody's motivations, the individual's motivations, and give that feeling like understanding, especially when they're different than yourself. Like for me, I've got like 2% status needs. Like, it's really low. Like I, I'm a, a startup founder, like I'm used to getting, you know, crapped on a, a little bit, like, you know, sorry, but you know, and I'll do whatever it needs to be done. My first job was working as a trash man, you know, like that was my first job going in the market. So I really don't mind, uh, you know, that type of thing. But as I'm working with people with higher needs of status, like I just have such a blind spot and I need to really consciously understand this and kind of just get out of my, you know, uh, what is it, like muscle memory of how to like act as a, as a manager and then I can make them, okay, quiet, just don't react like this. You know, give them a little bit more respect and understand and have this objectivity. And then what we see is engagement stores go up, you know, three months later or six months later because I am just taking a breath to understand what they need. Yeah. And I, yeah, Go, go ahead, Kristen. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, no. I think you know, this, this idea of status also, if we can tap into an element of status personalization, I think this contributes a lot to security, which is one of those top five motivators in the report. And I do believe that most organizations can find the balance between consistency and standardization and some allowance for that personalization around status, et cetera. Yeah, I would on on that, when you were saying Casey, what I was thinking is what your data, I think allows people to do is I think it reminds folks that you can waste a lot of money at guessing, right? And it's, what I realize is a lot of times I do a lot of stuff on rewards and, and recognition and helping people decouple rewards and awards from recognition, because we often make that mistake, but people always fall back on the rewards and other words because it's easier to do that. And there's a process and agreement. So we avoid the discomfort of asking and having a conversation that may be uncertain on how someone's gonna respond. And so we don't have that conversation, but when we don't have that conversation, we waste a lot of money. I was at a, speaking at a wellness summit at, uh, Jones' Hospital Philadelphia, and we watched this really cool moment happen and we were asking, what's a mistake you made that you learned from when it came to supporting employees? And one person said, you know, we are trying to support all our nurses and all the rest, and we, we organized all these yoga classes and all these other things, and then we realized nobody wanted any of that. What they really wanted was control over their schedule so they could go home at the end of the day, and so they could pick their kid up and that didn't cost anything, but we spent all this money and I watched a, a bank in Lebanon, they dropped like, I don't know, it was like $200,000 to increase people's lunch benefit by a dollar. Nobody even knew that they did it. It was just a waste of money opposed to asking what people actually cared about. But it takes a little bit more emotional vulnerability to ask a question where the answer may not be certain. And I feel like that's the piece where we do that. And if we use this data to say, Hey, here's what I think that people want, what matters to you right now. And then by asking that we have the data to be able to support, and then remembering that that que the answer to that question may change every six months or six days. I think you're absolutely right. And you know, not only is it a waste of money, but it's a waste of time. It's a waste of energy. And you, you've given two great examples, one with, uh, you know, the, the nurses I believe, and the other one about somebody getting promoted and having to travel again. And like they might just leave. Like, and then you, you've lost all kinds of stuff. Like not only money did, right? Right. And you know, what we've found, like as this gets more practical, it's like, okay, you know, I understand that we need to personalize, and I understand you're a little bit different, but I think there's this huge fear of, I don't know what to ask or how to ask, or is this going to be too blunt, or what's gonna come back and, and just prevents it. And you know, this is kind of one of the things that we're starting to use AI a little bit more is those, when you don't have that question, that right question to ask, here are some prompts that you can ask. Here's some based on these gaps, why don't you ask this? Or why don't you listen for this type of thing like that. So, you know, and that's, I think the real challenge is how to get people to be vulnerable, like to have those conversations. That was a big conversation for us, Kristen yesterday about the, the simple but not easy truths of leadership, right? Like, we know we should be asking these questions, we know we should be giving more consistent feedback and having difficult dialogues with our people. And you can see basically even on the middle, uh, the middle of the, the report, like that's a huge motivator, like that's right in near the top five. Um, so how do we enable people to be more comfortable to lean into those conversations? And yeah, maybe we can talk through some actual tactical strategies now. I'd love to like maybe, you know, start to kind of go through what are some of the actions and things we can do to, to bring this to life And, and Chris, and can I pass it to you, especially on the l and d side? Yeah. What are some of the ways that we can maybe enable or work with our leaders to ask these questions and be more vulnerable or, you know, practice more feedback and things like that? Things like that. Yeah, I think, you know, first off, it starts with empathy. I think there's, you know, a tremendous amount of room for growth around emotional intelligence in business. Um, when you can see where someone's at that's not like yourself and be able to, you know, not necessarily agree, but understand it, uh, that's when you can start to have those more human natural conversations and not have to wait till performance review time or revert to guessing. So I think, you know, when we're looking at how we're developing our leaders, especially our senior leaders who are setting vision and, um, setting the direction of the organization, it's about finding the balance between tactical, uh, skills as well as those essential human-centered people first skills. Um, I think, you know, that when someone can practice empathy, well that leads to compassion, which is this idea of like, you know, empathy plus action is compassion. So, um, not just, you know, seeing where someone's at, but doing something about it. That's, that's where I think the synergy starts. I think other practical things are too, is that sometimes it's about mindset shifts. You know, people are just as intimidated to have these conversations about what motivates others as they are about giving feedback around performance. And at the end of the day, it's all about our mindset shift. When we seek to understand, when we share feedback, knowing that it's our perspective and people can take it or leave it, they can do with it what they will, that's when we start to see a shift in like pro leadership protocol to like leadership in action with a people first mindset. So a very general answer, but I think really practical tips make feedback a part of your everyday culture for sure. Yeah, I would can't, uh, agree more. And I think that one of the ways we we make that happen is we need to get our senior leaders to ask for feedback themselves. Because I think what senior leaders, uh, make time for sends messages to others of what we value. And when we can get a couple key leaders to ask for feedback from their leaders, then that tends to get replicated. Because when someone has a positive experience with it, they're like, oh, that wasn't so hard. And I also feel like there's a, you know, I I always use the analogy of like, nobody goes out and buys a plant with the intention of killing it, but I think we unintentionally neglect it because we get going so fast. And I think that's what happens specifically with our, our best employees is leaders tend to think they're set. I don't need to do anything because we're, we're spinning so many plates at the same time. And I think what you were saying is like trying to make it, bake it into the routine, whether it's that regular one-on-one, right? Which we have it on the calendar, but the problem is then it gets canceled, then we forget to put it back on. But then making those one-on-ones easy by just giving people like, Hey, here are three questions we're gonna use each time. And then I, one of my just kind of really tactical things is that we often don't know where people are at, and specifically when we're meeting remotely, I think it's hard to understand 'cause we get in and we have no clue what's going on in people's worlds. And so we just kind of hop in and be like, Hey, how are you doing? I'm good. You good? Okay, great. And the timer's ticking down so we don't wanna ask that question at the end. So I think creating those spaces, so one of my favorite things to, to in my work it should be able to do is use, use pulse check questions. Like if I was to ask right now in the chat, on a scale of one to 10, what's your energy level today? Go. So go ahead and put it into the chat right now. Uh, and everybody can put their answer in. Um, and then you put in the answers and then 6, 7, 10, 10, 10, 10, 5, 4, 3, 3, whatever it is. And then you see people's response. 'cause it's easier to answer on a pain scale and then ask people to explain out, Hey, why did you pick the number you did? And is there anything you or I could do to be able to bring that number up? And so I think that gives us a place, 'cause it's hard to explain where we're at. And I think many times we need to help give people tools to make that mental transition from the busy, the busy, the busy. I'm so stressed out to I need to slow down and have a conversation. And I feel like the last thing I'll say on this, 'cause now I'm, maybe I'm starting to ramble here, is this, I think we need to, throughout human history, I feel like if you look at history, and I know a new pope was just selected for anyone who didn't just see it just happen in the news right now. Like every faith in one way or another has some sort of daily or weekly ritual. And if you look at just humanity, we commit to treating people with empathy and kindness. And then we walk out into the world, we get busy, we get frustrated, we get angry. And I think we as l and d people, as leaders, as speakers, as software companies, as everything, our job is to remind people of the common sense things that they already need to do. We just have to keep on nudging it and putting them in front of them in a different way every single time. It reminds me of, even before this, Chris, you and I were talking about the design of almost nudges and micro experiences into our people's work. Yeah. And enabling them with the tools or you know, the guide or the questions they should be asking to have these conversations. And these are not, hey, attend a one hour training on how to motivate your people. This is, hey, spend 10 minutes having this conversation with one of your people in your daily check-in and you're gonna, you're gonna get the momentum you need with motivating your people by doing this, like this small experience. Right? So I think that's a big thing too, is like, I think sometimes part of leaders get very, uh, intimidated by, by this whole like, okay, engage in these things because they're like, well, I don't know how I'm gonna handle the conversation afterwards or what to do with it about if I can't do anything about it. Um, so how do, so how do we can, how can we take the pressure off of that and just make it these like small bite sized experiences that they can execute in their daily conversations? It, I'm just gonna throw this out just 'cause I, uh, a friend of mine worked at Fidelity and I remember him telling me he is like, at one point they auto scheduled conversations with all of our leaders and it was on the calendar and they gave us five questions. And he's like, I looked at it and this guy's your kind of like, old Marine doesn't want to get into these conversations. And he's like, honestly, I thought I was gonna suck. But it was really good and it was really helpful 'cause it's just kind of like forcing you to have it. And I think we forget that, you know, I ran a retreat last Monday for a, a, a senior team that didn't want to talk. And I interviewed everyone before and nobody wanted to come. Everyone was happy after we had it. And I feel like we forget, we kind of gotta push people out of the discomfort, have them show up, give them a structure, maybe create the container and then, I don't know, Kristen, I'd love to hear your experience. It's kind of like you're putting them there, but don't just show 'em like, here's some theory. Like go have this conversation. Here's a script, have it now. Uh, 'cause after five times of having it, they're like, oh, that wasn't so bad. And then they keep on going and then they get busy and then they stop and then we nudge it back out again and say, oh, that wasn't so bad. And then we keep on reminding them and over time they're like, oh, maybe I need to have this conversation on my own. Yeah, definitely. We bake this feedback culture into kind of a lot of different areas that we work and we also set the expectation that it doesn't have to be top down. I think as leaders we feel like we have to have all the answers and we have to drive things. Our responsibility is to show up and start the conversations. We are all working with adults and people meet us halfway. So a great example of that is, you know, traditional feedback is, you know, the boss telling someone what they did right or wrong, and we move on with our day. What we're trying to do right now is create self feedback with a little bit of guidance from leaders. So leaders bring people together. Maybe it's a postmortem after a project or you know, in a meeting space or in a regular team touch base and start the conversation that facilitates feedback. What went well, what did you do well? What would you do differently next time? And have people start to engage in a conversation, in a dialogue. So the leader is responsible for asking those two questions, but the dialogue comes from the partnership and the relationship. And that's not only an accelerator of high performance, it's the quickest way to drive high performance. Um, but it also helps people to feel comfortable building trust, rapport, respect, psychological safety with each other through open, honest, casual, not super formal dialogue. And that's, that's one of the ways that we are looking to leverage feedback, especially with our early careers leaders, um, to be able to accelerate performance without having to wait for a huge training program or for an annual performance review. Which totally, if you're doing it that way, you're just slowing down your ability to succeed. Yeah. So Casey, I have a, I have a question that actually came in the q and a that I would love to maybe point towards you and then open it up to the group. But this is a very common scenario we've all heard in the past. And Nina, I appreciate you asking this. Um, what about when you ask about people's motivations, such as, let's say they say they want flexibility, but it's not something you can offer, right? Like let's say we're in a blue collar manufacturing environment, there's shift schedules, it's not much flexibility we can have maybe in certain elements of it. So what do we do in those scenarios? Like when you ask, but you can't give 'em what they need. And sometimes maybe that's even like a de-motivator. And I think that's sometimes the biggest concern from leadership teams is like, well, if we ask and we can't do anything about it, what now do we do? So should we just not ask at all then? Right? Uh, so yeah. Uh, any thoughts around like that scenario one on how do you maybe talk to those executive teams that are scared to ask because they're not sure they're gonna be able to fulfill it, but then let's say we do find ourselves in those scenarios where flexibility is at the top and it's not really in our organizational structure to be able to provide that. Yeah, I I think this was, greatness kind of resonates with everything that, uh, has just been talked about, but um, it, it's, I think this is like, I know I've hesitated personally, like with conversations like this, I kind of feel like there's uncomfortableness in team members, but, you know, I ki and I kind of intuit what they want, but I don't quite in, I, there's been times in the past where I don't get into the conversation because I, I know I can't deliver it to it. And I think when I have my more mature days and I'm doing better as a leader and better as a manager, it's just about listening, right? And even if you can't deliver or give 'em, it's like if you understand and I think like understanding is a real gift and especially like in a workplace and you know, as Kristen said, where we're adults and people want to be treated as adults. Say like, yeah, I understand that you can't make it more flexible with a contractual situations and Nina's question is fantastic, but I understand it. Like, I understand that's what you're looking for. You know, I don't know where I can help help you out with this, you know, to make it more flexible. But it's on my mind. I'll keep thinking about it. If I have a chance to advocate for you, I'll advocate for you, you know, probably keep your expectations low. Like I can't, you know, promise everything, but I understand and I think that person will have been heard and they'll walk away and do this. And, but how do you get your managers at scale to do this? This? And I think this is kind of the big question, and of course I'm coming through like a software lens, but you know, where people learn is in a stretch assignment. Like if I get somehow thrown into this conversation and I somehow survived, I can probably, and I get a good response, I can probably do it again. The second one where people are stretched, they tend to learn or you know, we've talked about leaders, you know, um, modeling the behavior that we want, right? About feedback. If you have the leaders talk about being, giving feedback, uh, and do that. So if you have other peers that are doing this where we can learn from this, and I think this is kind of one of the drawbacks from like remote work as well and you know, okay, I'm getting older and like going back in person, but it's easier to do these conversations in person. And especially for me in a walking scenario like where as you're doing it, like online, it becomes, you're looking at each other's eyes. You can't really look away when we're on a screen like this type of thing and it's confrontational and you know, you feel this more, but if we're kind of sitting and we're not totally sitting at each other, but we're in this like mountain formation, like you remember you, when you drive a car, that's usually where you have your deeper conversations or you're walking with somebody in a park for a while. You have your deeper conversation. So if you can have that type of just physical setup where you're not quite looking at the person, but you're like directionally there, then you don't feel as challenged and you don't get this flight or fight response where I just have to say something immediately and you tend to choose the wrong thing. But if you have that moment, okay, I'm not being confronted. I think our, our managers and leaders can do better if just that physical setup. I love that. I mean the use case of like the power of the environment in which these conversations are being done, right? And that was actually part of the reason we designed our leadership exchanges to happen over dinner and while we're eating food and like breaking bread together kind of takes away the pressure to be more vulnerable. So Chris, any thoughts on that piece too? Yeah, Uh, Kristen, you wanna go? Um, I was just saying as a completely remote employee with a team in London, I'm based in Chicago, I would say we've tried to to reduce some of that like, or create some of those environments remotely. Some ways we've done that is sometimes it does feel awkward eating in front of a screen, but when you're both doing it together, a little bit less awkward. So we'll set up, um, like we'll do we, we call it spill the tea, where we just have like, get your favorite beverage, sit somewhere that you're, is not your normal desk space. Like sit on the sofa, go outside, find a different environment to set up your laptop. Um, and either yeah, have a tea or have a lunch together. And that's been one of the ways that even in a remote environment, we've tried to reduce some of that tension and make it feel a little bit more like an organic relationship. Um, and also the occasional like, uh, team yoga class kind of helps to ease the tension as well. I, I think I am trying to bing back the retro phone call. I can't tell you how many times I've just asked clients, I'm like, Hey, I love this too. I was like, do you wanna just shift this to a phone call and go for a walk? Or you can do something around your house while you have the conversation and then you remove the need for eye contact and you read, remove the need to try to keep yourself centered in the screen to look right and it just removes one thing that your brain is focusing on. And it also gives people a little more vulnerability to be able to have emotions come out without feeling like you're being seen or recorded. And I think that that also can help. One question I would add, Casey, to go back to the, the, um, conversation you were asking about having those conversation is, um, one I like to ask is, I think many times people share their summary emotion first or their summary need first. And I think we need to ask. And one of my favorite ones was like, uh, do you have more flexibility? And I think we always want to just go yes or no. Instead of asking the question, why is that something that's important to you right now? And many times by asking that question we find out because it's like people will always ask, it's like, is money's a motivator? And I'll go, uh, no, it's just purpose. And it's like, no, that's not actually true. People wouldn't show up if they didn't get money, but no one's motivated by money. They're motivated by what money allows them to do. And so when you understand why they need the money, then you start to understand the motivation. So if you ask, I need flexibility, why is that important to you right now? Well, I'm just struggling. I'm always late every single day because I need to drop my kid off at the bus at this time and then I can't get in because the traffic picks up by this and I don't have somebody else 'cause my spouse is on the road or I'm solo or whatever it is. Or I am taking a college class right now. And many times we do have the ability to be flexible in those scenarios. We don't have the ability to say, Hey, uh, your flight crew, no, uh, we're gonna let you come home early. No. 'cause the job requires that. And I think the other thing that we often I see organizations do is they lie in the interview process because they're so desperate to get people into positions. I work with a lot of nonprofits in the, um, in social work and they're not necessarily honest about the schedule upfront 'cause they want to get people in the job and then they get in and people are surprised. And so I feel like we've gotta be honest, this is what this looks like. Does this work for your schedule right now? And are you gonna be able to make this because these are the requirements coming in. People may not like that, but they need to know that. And then also when someone says, Hey, I can't do this. Well, we may need to start looking at other options for you. 'cause that's actually showing we care. And uh, the last thing on that is that when we have unflexible jobs or you know, only with tenure do you get to choose your shift, here's what it's gonna take to be able to get you into one of those other positions. Here's some creative things that people have done in the past and if it's not a fit, let's look at what you need to start working towards to be able to get into a job that is gonna allow you to be able to do that. Right. If that's a not a non-negotiable right now. And I think those honest conversations that we avoid, um, because it's uncomfortable are the ones that often get us into the situations where, where we're struggling the most. Yeah, I was gonna say back to even your response at the beginning, Casey of like, most of it is just rooted in listening and having the conversation, right? It's not always can we solve it directly in this moment, but are we willing to engage in the dialogue, hold space and listen and empathize to understand these motivators? And then yeah, I really like that. How do we try deeper? Like how do we ask, you know, the five why's behind it to really understand what is at the root of this motivation that maybe we can actually work around? And then it kind of comes home with all of it with transparency, right? Like how can we still, it's not necessarily like a motivation, like I'm motivated by people who are transparent with me, but it's something we expect and it's like we become more engaged and and connected to the things that are transparent with us. So it's like, okay, if you can't offer the ultimate flexibility, can you just be transparent and honest with why? And can we create a shared understanding of that why, of like the decision behind it? Uh, so I love, I love kind of how we brought that home there and we have a couple minutes, we have about nine minutes left here. I do wanna maybe touch on like a little bit of the Gen Z stuff. Uh, I, we did really get too deep into it. We touched onto it at the beginning and Quinn asked also a wonderful question that I, I'd love to kick this off with. And then maybe we can just talk about how maybe how Gen Z's motivators are, are kind of gonna impact our future engagement strategies as they make their way into the workforce more and more. But Quinn has this great, this, uh, this gr great question and I would probably say this is maybe a challenge with anyone that's young in their life, but uh, works with a ton of organizations in Indonesia, motivation is an interesting topic for the past few years. They're sensing a trend where even the most active youths in the organization struggle to put a name towards their motivators. Like they aren't even clear what motivates them, right? And they're not able to maybe describe or articulate it. So I wanted to maybe yeah, Casey to start with you. Like, is that a common trend or pattern with Gen Z or younger that you've maybe seen and, and um, is that yeah, is that something you've seen and how do we navigate that when people maybe don't understand their motivators? Yeah, this kind of goes to the origin story of why I wanted to build a tune is like, uh, uh, I think most, not even only young people, but even, you know, people in their journeys, uh, sorry to use that word, Christopher, uh, thirties. No, no, I think it's a good word. I just said the way I was journey. Yeah, The life journey. Um, you know, I guess, sorry Zach to take it a little bit of a, uh, a tangent, but, um, you know what's really interesting for me and I, I guess quite meaningful sometimes is when we're working with our customers and we hear like manager feedback or you know, team member feedback and they're in their forties, fifties, sixties, and they're like, oh wow, I didn't realize like, you know, I knew these motivators, but this one I didn't really know it, but that's why I hated my last boss, you know? And I, I just couldn't get it. Like when I hear those stories, I'm like, okay, we're we, we're creating something meaningful. But I I think when you're just coming into the workforce and you're young, you, you just don't have the tools, right? And you don't have the shared language. So we don't have the foundational language to share it and okay, maybe something that I say, I'm trying to say what you think I might want to hear and you know, trying to please their boss if they're there. But I think just self-awareness is so low. So I think that's the very start of it is just, let's get a little bit more self-awareness. This is based on, you know, rigorous kind of creation of an assessment to give you real data that you can use from there. And then it's a conversation to like, what do these specific kind of motivators mean for you? Yeah, I think, you know, we do, um, you know, we do a lot of values based work and motivations kind of based work with our early careers leaders because exactly to your point, Casey, like you can't, if you recognize something but you don't have a language for it, it's really hard to be able to work with it and to use it to your advantage, um, and let and let it drive your career. So those are my like top two recommendations is early, early on, do the work to help people understand their values and help people understand their motivations and, and how to recognize it. It's the same as the way, you know, we all learned how to name emotions by experiencing it and then having someone teach us what that word was that was associated to that feeling. And it's the same Yeah, same idea. And Zach, thanks for posting all of that great, great work in the intrinsic mo motivation because to me it's, it's the quickest way and it's what our Gen Z team members are asking us for. They're asking us for more guidance, they're asking us for more feedback. So what better way then to, to guide them in those early days on, on that type of work. And I, I would say on top of that is I think we also need to work on having a lot more uncomfortable situations is I think that when I looked at the generational differences and I look at how easy it is to escape and not be face to face, to be able to, you know, uh, pull out a distraction in a second as soon as it's uncomfortable. And I think our ability to be able to build relationships right now and to be able to realize that our relationships get stronger, the tougher the conversations we have. And I think there's been so much talk about vulnerability that I think it's also maybe in a way swung us so far over to avoiding discomfort. And I don't know if that's, this is just kind of a read, but I feel like there's so much avoidance of discomfort right now in our conversations and relationships that it's easier to step out of discomfort than to go towards it. And it's the discomfort with our boss with not getting what we want. Uh, sitting with something that's uncomfortable without being distracted, having difficult conversations, getting feedback to realize that we roll our eyes in every staff meeting, and why am I not getting promoted to not getting what we want? I think is one of the greatest gifts to figure out how, what we really want and how to get there. And it's, I think getting those mentors, getting people in conversations, pushing people to have the real conversations. I think, uh, learning from our motivators and understanding, Hey, why did I have that visceral reaction when the boss told me that my presentation wasn't good, is actually how we grow. Not saying that was really great. Uh, good job. You're excellent when it wasn't. And I think that being able to give that feedback, and if you go to like radical candor, you need the praise, you need the criticism. And those both need to be there together to be able to establish that trusting relationship. I guess as we we start to bring this home, I would love to maybe go around the table and hear some, some closing thoughts on like, as we think of our audience, we have HR leaders, people leaders are leading the charge on how to engage and motivate our people, right? Uh, what are some of maybe your closing thoughts, like words of wisdom or strategies you would encourage 'em to do? And I'll share the first one. I think one, ask the questions. I think that's the easy one. We've clearly pointed out today was like, have the conversation. Understand what motivates your people. Encourage leaders to have the discussions with their people. Maybe take the attuned, you know, motivation assessment and, and help get some data behind it. So, okay, we got that action out of the way. What would be maybe some of your, your closing recommendations for our group? And, uh, and Chris, I'll, uh, I'll go to you first. Um, yes, slow down. I think that we get going so fast that it's easy to get stuck in the spin, and it's just carving out that time to slow down both for ourselves and then just kind of taking a list of the people on my team or the people that I work with on other teams, and then just do a one to five ranking. Uh, how, when was the last time I had a conversation? Five in the last week. Uh, one, uh, it's been a long time. And then just actively go out and check in just with that one question. Hey, what are you working on that I don't see what matters to you most right now? And just check in with folks. Take time to do that. And I think we can do that in three to five minutes with people without even realizing it. And that right there will help us know what's going on, and then work on doing what we can to support them. I love, I wanna expand that even for our audience. Like, think of your circle of influence, like your own HR team or your own department. Like, just start having those conversations there. Like, I think that would be an awesome start for some of you. All right. Kristen, what about you? Okay, I'll play on the, uh, the slow down piece. Um, you know, we've all gone through in the past few years, transformational organizational change. Um, and my question would be, you know, look at your people. Have you taken them along on the ride with you? Um, and are they as much of a part of that journey? Um, and on the same page as those leaders who created that strategy in the first place. Incredible. Thank you. All right. Casey, bring us home. Yeah, I would, uh, I challenge all of us on the panel and, uh, everybody that is, uh, is attending, like, I'm sure we all have a hard conversation or a difficult conversation that we should be doing, and, uh, I think we should do it and do it today and ask somebody, you know, the question and ask a question. And, you know, I'm not, I'm an awkward person, so I've kind of gotten used to embracing my awkwardness. So like, just, okay, be ready for the discomfort. Be ready for the awkwardness, and ask those follow up questions. And, you know, like I, I'm never the most articulate and don't usually find the right question. So it's, you know, what do you mean by that? Like, whatever they give me back, what do you mean by that? And that gets kind of a way to get to those five why's. So, uh, yeah, I, I challenge you all to, to prompt one of those conversations and maybe do it by phone. Do it by voice message. It doesn't have to be, you know, with these, uh, eyes facing each other. I was gonna say maybe like find your courage spot, right? Like, maybe there's the couch that you move to when you're gonna have the difficult conversation or your courage pillow. I remember when I first started putting myself on my comfort zone, I had this like sweater that I got from Peru that was made, you know, it was like my cur, it was kind of like colorful. I was like, all right, I, I'm gonna put that on when I need to be courageous. 'cause it's kind of bold, right? So, uh, maybe find that for you all and have the conversations just start engaging in the dialogue and understand what motivates you, what it motivates your peers, the people around you. And you can really start to have that, that deep connection of impact towards what you're trying to do together. So let's give a huge, uh, virtual round of applause and appreciation for these amazing leaders for sharing their time and their wisdom with us. Thank you so much for the three of you. Thank you to everyone joining as well. It means a lot as, as my motivator on the social relationship side to see like a community come together and learn and try to develop themselves and arm themselves with more tools and support each other on these journeys, means the world to me and keeps me extremely motivated to keep going. So thank you for showing up today.

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