Teamership: Energised individuals
There are actions we can take to be more energised individuals. Photo by Emma Dau on Unsplash
In 2021, Professor Adam Grant of Wharton (an intellectual crush of mine) presented a TED talk and wrote an article in the New York Times reflecting on a very common experience of individuals - languishing. It’s the feeling between flourishing (flow) and mental illness.
During the early phases of the pandemic, it was common across the globe. It’s fair to say that languishing has been endemic in organisations for much longer than that. Gallup’s global engagement surveys have consistently shown that 80% of employees are not fully engaged. ADPRI research in 2019 found that only about 16% of respondents were fully engaged (a slightly worse outcome than Gallup’s numbers).
Grant makes a valid point that…
“Not depressed” doesn’t mean you’re not struggling. “Not burned out” doesn’t mean you’re fired up.
As the ADPRI Report puts in, the impact of only 16% of a workforce being fully engaged is that:
“84 percent of workers are just “coming to work” instead of contributing all they could to their organisations.”
How many people in our organisations are languishing?
During the TED talk and article, Grant describes the antidote to languishing as…flow.
For what it’s worth, Adam Grant suggests that there are three conditions that support flow.
Mastery - this centres around ensuring that we are making progress, often small wins are enough.
Mindfulness - not necessarily meditation. Mindfulness being the idea of focusing your full attention on one task.
Mattering - knowing that you make a difference to others.
Some questions for you to consider this week:
Where are you making progress (even slow or small) in your teams?
What can you do to help yourself focus your attention on one task at a time?
How could you show someone else that their efforts matter to you?