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A growing body of research suggests that the concept of “small wins” in the workplace is one of the key ingredients for successful employee motivation and one of the most effective ways to begin the process of changing your workplace culture. Small wins can have a disproportionate amount of power and influence beyond the achievement they represent.
It’s not just the big victories that are meaningful for people… It’s the little ones, too. And remembering that important fact is crucial to maximizing each person’s potential…
Psychologists Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer interviewed over 600 managers and found a shocking result. 95 percent of managers misunderstood what motivates employees. They thought what motivates employees was making money, getting raises and bonuses. They listed “supporting progress” as the least most important motivator at work, contrary to what all the research suggests! In fact, after analyzing over 12,000 employee diary entries, they discovered that the number one work motivator was emotion, not financial incentive: it’s the feeling of making progress every day toward a meaningful goal.
As Teresa Amabile and Steven J. Kramer further explain in the Harvard Business Review, making progress toward meaningful goals creates better performance. Subsequently, better performance depends on consistent progress, which enhances the importance of what you do. That’s called the Progress Loop, and, when used correctly, it reveals how important self-reinforcing habits can be.
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Previously published on Medium.
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