Meaning Matters

Results Beyond the Numbers

Alena Bennett, Mish Phillips

• Publisher: Hambone Publishing
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780648201182
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Women in Business
• Index: Business

Women in finance often have a disconnect between their purpose and their number crunching hyper-analytical jobs. Yet women in finance want more than money and status! They want to deliver results beyond the numbers.

This book coversexactly why prioritising discovering your purpose is the key to exceptional performance, unwavering confidence and continued career progress. In the first book specifically written for this audience, Alena shows you how to figure out where you want to go, the capabilities and principles you need, and how to bring it all to life.

In a male dominated field, discovering your purpose and integrating it into your work isessential to thrive. This practical guidebook for women in finance will help you find your purpose and execute it exactly where you're at.

 

PART 1:

ASPIRATION

1 LIGHT UP YOUR MOTIVATORS

“When you have a strong enough ‘why’, the ‘how’ will appear – it’s like that sudden clarity when you de-mist your windscreen.”

Kerri Pottharst

One of the things I’ve really struggled with in my leadership consultancy practice is that much of the IP and content creation process is done alone. As someone who is energised by working with people, spending even two consecutive days alone can feel like torture. I’m at my best when I’m surrounded by people, which is why I choose to partner with organisations and individuals who share the same values as me and who are keen to invest in hands-on work on a longer-term basis. If I’m on my own for too long, my productivity goes down, my mojo goes down, and no doubt the quality of my work eventually goes with it.

Lack of motivation can become a vicious downward spiral. When we aren’t motivated, everything feels like a grind. Our performance goes down. And when we let that attitude permeate our work, our decision-making ability becomes impaired. For example, if you’re knee-deep in a spreadsheet and you hate getting into that level of detail, you might unknowingly shortcut the detailed analysis process by making an incorrect assumption. In so doing, you risk coming to the wrong conclusion simply so you can get out of the weeds.

The link between motivation and performance

Working in ways that don’t align with our motivators jeopardises all-important accuracy, makes us less efficient, closes our minds to good ideas and solutions, and therefore reduces our overall effectiveness. Not only that, but when we are constantly working in conditions that are fundamentally at odds with our work preferences, we often catastrophise and waste time analysing scenarios that may never even come to pass. You might know this as ‘entropy’.

When we don’t know our motivators, we lack the basic information we need to be successful. Of course you feel dissatisfied if you’ve never even taken the time to identify what would satisfy you! Until you know what truly motivates you within your core, you don’t know what will fulfil you. Do you sometimes find yourself feeling like you’re banging your head against the wall? Or wondering why seemingly simple tasks feel so painfully difficult? How many times have you felt yourself slipping down this path? These are signs that you’re out of touch with your motivators.

But what is it that gives us our motivation? How can we first understand, and then intentionally foster it? This chapter is your opportunity to find out.

When you know your motivators, you can align your tasks, resources, and working conditions with them. By doing this, you reduce the base level of friction in your workday. It’s similar to removing the non-value-added steps from a process, or sending a different person to a meeting because their skill set better matches the task. By working in line with your motivators, you accelerate the process of reaching your ideal outcome.

What do you think of when you hear the word ‘motivation’? Maybe you jump straight to the “ra-ra, we’ve got this” kind of motivation, or the motivational quotes on your Instagram feed that give you a pep in your step for all of about five minutes before fading from memory. That’s not what I’m talking about here. For me, motivation is about implementing action-oriented, results-based preferences at work so that you can work faster and smarter. It’s about having the awareness to take a step back, stop waiting for motivation to magically happen, and actively approach your work in a way that inspires you and makes you feel good.

In his book Drive8, Daniel Pink explores the notions of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, taking us through the evolution of humanity and the forces that drive our behaviour. Back in prehistoric times, we were motivated primarily by our need to find resources to survive. Pink calls this ‘Motivation 1.0’. Over time, and with the Industrial Revolution, ‘Motivation 2.0’ emerged, which is all about the ‘carrot or stick’. That is, we began to be motivated not only to survive but also to either obtain a reward (carrot), or escape a threat or punishment (stick). The idea is that we will repeat behaviours that result in a reward, and stop behaviours that are associated with a punishment. Most companies are aware of this type of motivation, and have some sort of EBITDA or UPAT target that drives the ‘corporate bonus’ element of employees’ remuneration. By giving everyone some ‘skin in the game’, they motivate their employees to achieve better results for the company. Motivations 1.0 and 2.0 are both extrinsic, meaning they are reliant on factors outside of ourselves.

Pink then moves on to Motivation 3.0: intrinsic motivation. He asserts that people are motivated to do things to achieve a feeling of fulfilment within themselves, regardless of any potential reward. We see this every day. Women in finance often have a deep need to help people, not because they expect to get anything from providing that assistance, but because it feels inherently rewarding. This is at the core of intrinsic motivation. Now consider the decision to learn a new language at a mature age. For most people, this choice would have nothing to do with their job, and everything to do with a love of learning new things, or a desire to connect with a different culture. In my spare time, I teach ladies to run. These ladies don’t do it to win a race or to receive anything in exchange for learning to run. They do it because it’s fun, and it makes them feel good.

The distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is critically important in the fast-paced world of finance. Finance is deeply results focused – it’s literally all about extrinsic rewards. We’re focused on delivering outcomes – and rightly so! Without outcomes, the company would cease to exist. But to focus on this at the exclusion of all else is dangerous. Instead of considering what drives people to do their best, many companies allow politics and corporate scapegoating to creep into the workplace. Colleagues are thrown under the bus for individual gain. Work becomes compartmentalised and inefficient. And the culture becomes toxic. Ultimately, it’s the most valuable, hard-working employees that resign.

So what’s the answer? We need a balance between the two styles of motivation.

The challenge for women in finance is: How do we bring intrinsic forms of motivation into such a results-driven world?

Think about what drives you to willingly work those late nights at year-end, or when a transaction is about to close, or when your team needs a bit of extra support. Yes, there’s a deadline you need to meet. And maybe you’ll get some sort of recognition for the extra hours. But at the heart of it, that’s not what makes you stay. It’s about being there for your team and your boss. It’s about sticking around because you fundamentally believe that you are the right person to help out. It’s about knowing you’ve done your best and delivered to your values. That’s what keeps you there. I’ve got to say, I will never forget the insanely late nights I pulled for one particular audit client. It was ridiculous! I would pull repeated all-nighters, only leaving my desk at 6 am when the manager finally walked in the door to start her shift. It was pure self-determination that kept me going.

In contrast, it’s those late nights where you start to feel resentful towards your work, your boss, and possibly even your team that show you’ve fallen out of sync with your intrinsic motivation. It’s actually got nothing to do with your boss or your team – it’s nothing personal. It’s not even the relative lateness of the nights. It’s that you’ve lost that sense of control – you’ve stopped doing it for your reasons. When you’re not working in alignment with your intrinsic motivators, the impact on your efficiency, effectiveness, and fulfilment is tangible.

The type of motivation that we can best control, and that allows us to very quickly increase our impact at work, is intrinsic. Why? Because it exists entirely within ourselves, and doesn’t rely on any external factors. It revs you up and gets you going because it’s meaningful to you as a person.

The thing about intrinsic motivators is that they happen at a subconscious level. It takes purposeful intervention to bring them to a conscious level. But once we do that – once we make the intangible tangible, and the implicit explicit – we have more knowledge at our disposal. And we can apply that knowledge not only to our own situation, but to those around us as well. When we take actions based on conscious awareness of what motivates us, the return on investment is immediate and visible. Imagine how your team’s output would change if you set everyone up to work in ways that aligned with their motivators. All of a sudden, everyone would be working in fifth gear – not just for longer hours, but at their most efficient and effective. Performance would skyrocket, and your team would be happy!

I do a lot of work using the Inventory of Work Attitudes and Motivators (iWAM) tool. iWAM measures 48 ‘metaprograms’ in your brain, which all operate at the subconscious level. Up to 60% of our behaviour at work is driven by these subconscious patterns, and yet they occur mostly outside of our conscious awareness. It’s a bit of a daunting thought, I know! These ‘motivating patterns’ show which parts of your work, and which ways of working, are most interesting to you.

What I find particularly useful about iWAM is that it is highly detailed, but the language is simple and the information practical. iWAM scores you low or high for a particular pattern depending on how well it aligns with your personal preferences. For example, if you prefer to work in groups, your ‘Group environment’ pattern is high. If you prefer to pull together a plan before you start a new activity, your ‘Structure’ pattern is high.

When you are working in an environment that is aligned with your higher motivating patterns, everything feels easy, enjoyable, and efficient. You’re putting in less effort but making more progress. It’s a bit like driving on a freeway in fifth gear. You’re doing 110 km/hr, but it couldn’t feel smoother and the fuel meter is barely even budging. On the other hand, when you’re working in an environment that is not aligned with your high patterns, you’re more likely to feel a lot of friction at work – like you’re pushing the accelerator but someone’s got their foot on the brake.

Let’s look at a few of the iWAM patterns that are most relevant to women in finance. This is only a handful of the patterns iWAM assesses, but they are a great starting point for you to start to visualise what your motivators might be in these areas.

Environment

Whether we prefer to work in a group or individual environment has a huge impact on our productivity and effectiveness. Nobody understands that better than me, especially after two days sitting at a desk by myself! It’s interesting at the moment to see how the rise of activity-based working is affecting workflow in organisations. If you’re used to sitting with your team every day, a change to the office plan might make you feel more disconnected from them. On the other hand, if you’re suddenly placed among a group of chatty people in an open-plan environment, you might find yourself struggling to concentrate. The environment we work in makes a big difference to how we feel about work.

Methodology

In a highly regulated environment such as finance, there are many established processes and procedures that must be followed. If you like following processes and don’t feel...