“They just don’t seem very motivated,” Rafael explained. “I try to give them a pep talk every once in a while, it seems to energize them for a day or so, but then it goes back to the same old grind. I mean, yes, the things we do are repeated day in and day out, so I can see it gets a bit boring. It contributes to turnover on the team. It even gets ME a little down at times.”
“Yes, the grind even infects upper management,” I replied. “Why do you think that is?”
“I told you, it’s the repetitive nature of what we do. Some days are busier than others, but at the end of the day, we just look forward to coming back the next day to do it over again.”
“You produce these products, day in and day out. What do these products do for your customers?” I knew the answer already, but Rafael had not made the connection.
“We manufacture safety products for the construction industry,” he said. “Perimeter flags, traffic cones, safety vests, hard hats. Not very glamorous stuff.”
“And, so you see your work as just an endless stream of orders that come in every day? One after another, day after day? One day like the day before?” I asked.
Rafael nodded. “Pretty much.”
“What if you shifted the way your team sees the work from an endless chain of events, to see the purpose for the products you crank out? When was the last time you took your crew out to a construction site to see the way your equipment is used? Or invited a safety manager from one of your customers to talk to your team about how important your products are and how much they rely on the quality of each piece?”
“Never,” Rafael sat back. “That sounds crazy. We can’t bus a manufacturing team to a construction site,” he explained.
“Really?” I nodded. “Most work is boring and monotonous if all we think about are the events of the day. The only way to truly understand the work is to understand its purpose, how it fits into the grand scheme. Nothing changes about the mechanical assembly of what you do. The only thing that changes is the way you see your impact on the world around you.”