S1E7 - Desirability – When Work Becomes “Want To”, Not “Have To”

You can squeeze performance out of people for a while. But if the work isn’t desirable, it won’t last. In this episode of Leadership Matters, Glenn Price and Terry Reynolds dive into the secret sauce of sustained execution: turning obligation into enthusiasm.

They explore how leaders shift teams from “I have to do this” to “I actually want to do this”, even when the goals are rational, numeric or a bit dull on paper. From creating the right environment, to connecting purpose to performance, designing work for autonomy, changing the “dopamine hit” for leaders, and celebrating progress (not perfection), this episode shows how to build real, renewable drive—not just pressure.

If your strategy depends more on compliance than genuine desire, this conversation is your circuit-breaker.

Transcript

Welcome Leadership Matters, a podcast series created by Leadership Consulting that helps leaders take their vision and deliver results. My name is Glenn Price. joined again by my business partner and co-host Terry Reynolds. And in our last podcast, we talked about believability. If we can't get people to buy in, then execution is quite hard. It was the emotional driver, if you like, on that second step of engage and excite. Today, we're talking about desirability. And I remember when we did the research, Terry, that we'd ask leaders, hey, are you willing to do something different, get uncomfortable, and to get a different result? And the room would go a bit quiet, right? Most people are willing to rock the boat, but not so much that they fall out of it. I've only got a few examples of leaders that have put up their hand and nominated out, right? And gone, I don't want to do this. doesn't fit my strengths. But when we ask the wider organization, most people are willing to do it.

But they have to have that belief component there, right? And so we say in the book, if it's not desirable, it's not sustainable. think you can get performance for a short period of time, but probably can't go on for long. But definitely desirability is that secret ingredient, isn't it? That it makes people want to deliver, not just have to. Yeah. And I think that the interesting thing around, you know, both believability and desirability is that many, many leaders will skip those steps because again, being an emotional component, think that the rational execution piece is far easier to get without the touchy-feely stuff. But we know that it's literally a key to success. If you're able to get emotional connection and emotion that people want to do something for all the right reasons, you've got way better chance of success. You know, results are far more emotional than they are operational at the beginning. Exactly. mean, too many strategies rely on that compliance bit in my feeling, not commitment. When we do leadership 360s, we always use Zenger Folkman's ExtraOrdinary Leader tool. We know that even the best of the best get 60 to 70 percent discretionary effort, right? We can't get everybody on board all the time. But if we just rely on the compliance side, I feel like leadership teams are almost wanting to force performance.

And they can do that for a quarter or two, right? But definitely it's a marathon, not a sprint. And definitely you can't sustain it if that desirability is not culturally placed in there as well. It's probably fair to say, you you're not going to win over 100 % of the audience, you? You know, we talk a lot about, know, leaders need to win hearts and minds. It's not about, you know, the positional power. It's about the personal power. I want to do it because of you. And what you're hoping, I guess, is that you have this situation where, you know, the teams that are working for you, there's an emotional connection between, trust this person, I believe in this person, I know that they've got my best interests at heart, therefore they've got me. I'll do what's necessary. And I think those types of results are going to be far greater if you're able to win those hearts and minds than not do it at all.

So that seems like to me, so in the last podcast, we talked about believability and the importance that the leader plays, but it almost says desirability requires even more from the leader, right? So if we have leaders that design work that people actually want to do, execution stops feeling a bit like an effort and starts feeling more like momentum. But I'm going to counter that and go, don't you think desirability is up to the individual to bring that level of intrinsic motivation to work?

Or do you genuinely believe that leaders need to create the right environment for desirability to be there? I think the latter. think that, you know, all of those ducks need to be in a line. And part of that is that, you know, I'm coming into an organisation or I'm coming to a workplace that the environment is set up the way that is going to excite and engage me as opposed to everything's relying on me. think there is a bit of both.

I do believe what you say is correct and that is that there is definitely a responsibility for the individual to show up. But as a leader, I think you do need to create the environment where you're going to get the best from people. So I get that and I certainly get it if the goals and the strategy are inspiring or they're aspirational or they're making a change to the way that the world works, right, etc.

But for many of our listeners, their strategy is quite rational. could just be chasing a particular number. It could be quite left brained in terms of what they do. It could be an engineering company or a tech company. So what happens when an organisation's goals are more logical than they are inspiring? Well, I think at the end of the day, you've got to get people or explain to people the why. There's more to it than that.

Once people understand the why, what you're hoping for I guess is this emotional connection to the why. To go, I see the part I play, I know how I can contribute, I know I'm going to be rewarded. It's a number of things that need to be there for somebody to really buy into it. That's almost that switch right between obligation and enthusiasm. You're not doing it because you have to, it's your obligation, you're paid, right, etc. To doing it, I'll do it because I believe in it, back to the previous podcast. And I think that brings a natural momentum with it. In fact, I would say that sometimes desirability is easier when the organisation is making some progress. There's that dopamine effect that comes, momentum builds momentum, energy builds energy. I think the hardest times are where you're requiring that level of desirability and energy and discretionary effort, but the progress may not be there yet.

So do you think leaders can make execution emotionally rewarding if the progress isn't there and people are just needing to grind it out? Yeah, I think that you will get workplaces that are like that. I think what you've got to do, though, is that the softer skills, know, what you just said there at the beginning there is that, you know, this obligation to enthusiasm, I think that obligation to some degree creates the compliance easy, right? I can manage compliance. People do what's required, but enthusiasm will create the ownership to do that. And I think that the ownership, once I have ownership for something, then I'm going to take responsibility for the execution of it. And that's really the, you want to hand over the baton from I'm doing it because I have to, versus I'm doing it because I want to. I think that is a massive step for leaders to be able to work on, to be able to get that baton changed over. And it keeps moving constantly. People change.

I think often there's a connection between what happens at work and what happens at home and vice versa. We don't know the lives that people are having outside the work and the level of battery that they're bringing to work. The goal, I guess, back to this step around, engage and excite us to create that environment that enables people to choose to be motivated themselves or be self-motivated and have some level of drive. Do you think you can make work too enjoyable?

And let me explain that is that, you know, I said on an earlier podcast, no pressure, no diamond for me, the best performance, whether it be sports teams, business teams, our defense forces, they work best when there's some level of edge. There's some level of accountability there. It's not, it's not just happy families. Can you make work too enjoyable? No, I'd love to work in a place where I love showing up, I'm having a good time while I'm there because emotionally if I'm connected to the environment, performance becomes easy. And in actual fact, it doesn't feel like I'm being forced to do anything. I'm doing it because I want to do it. And I think that's where we need to get people too. And part of that probably for me is around you know, to some degree celebrating the progress of what you're doing as opposed to, you know, celebrating or rewarding perfection. Because you're not going to get the perfection part of it. What you want to do is see that people every day are moving towards that plan. Part of that is the demonstration of how people are tracking on that plan. And that, for me, is definitely a part of the leadership role that they need to be talking to people about the progress. Well then it becomes part of the culture.

That's just the DNA of how we do it here. And then desirability or motivation, intrinsic motivation is not just a mood, right? And so through some of the suggestions that you've said, I can see how senior leaders can create a genuine desire for people to perform, not just that big bang fizzle, that temporary excitement after a workshop or a launch of a strategy or a leadership conference, that natural energy that comes from getting people together.

One of the most powerful things that I've seen leaders do at all levels in an organisation is just free up time to give people leadership exposure, to be able to ask the right questions, to understand that we're all human, that these were some of the choices we had before we made these decisions. But availability is hard. Availability is hard. I mean, I think it has to be done tactically and intentionally and
and build it into your diary. know I used to create three slots a week. I'm not saying I kept to those, but the three slots a week that said team time. And if there's an emergency, then you can use that. really it was... Do you think... I understand the intention of doing that. Do you think that people see that as authentic because I've had to put it in my diary to do it versus just being available? Because I think of a CEO that I work with and, you know, he's available 24-7. You know, you go into his office and there's not a scrap of paper there, there's nothing in the basket. And some people, to begin with, I used to look and go, what is he actually doing? But what he did was he made it very, very clear to any of his executive team that he was there to support them and he was always available to them.

Always. So that came across and now what's happened is he's got a reputation of going, he's available because he sees his role not as execution of things, he sees his role very much as a support mechanism for people to be able to execute. He doesn't want to get in the way of them. Well, I think that's the leadership art. And so the first question you asked is, do people see it as authentic? I think it depends on the person. I'm quite logical and left brained. I need to make sure that I have a disciplined system designed that enables me to free up the time. Otherwise, I'll fill it with other things that may have less priority. I think the gentleman that you're talking about has got a system that works for him and it's called Clearing His Diary and making sure that he's that support mechanism. That's what really resonated with me. And that would build not only a level of belief, but a level of desirability. So I think you can have both.

The key is that you are intentionally finding time to help create results through your team, not despite the team. Now the challenge we often get there is, Glenn, I get that, and if I could 100 % lead in my time, then I would have time to do that. But I think a lot of the leaders that I'm seeing these days, even at an executive level, still wear a fourth hat. So they've got the leadership hat, the management hat, the coaching and development hat. And then they've got an individual contributor hat where they're trying to do work themselves, tactical, operational type work. And I just wonder whether we undervalue the leadership hat and whether we should be pushing down and creating that support mechanism which drives desirability. I think that last hat you talk about with the individual contributor hat is an excuse for leaders to put that first. And the reason why they often put that first is because they genuinely see… …they get a feeling of execution. They see themselves doing something. I'm contributing to something. And it's tangible, Yeah, I can see it. I feel like I've done something. From a leadership perspective, a lot of the things that you actually do… …you don't see a result of in immediately. We all search for results immediately. That gives us the hit.

I did this, I got that. Whereas if I do this and I don't see a result for three months, that's a very, very hard thing to do. And that's probably why often you'll see leaders fall towards the things that get results immediate for them. I, individual contributor, the sales, the big client, whatever the case would be, as opposed to the coaching conversation that I've just had that's going to get a result 12 weeks down the track.

So listening to you, it's changing what gives you the dopamine hit. And in the book, Vision to Results, we talk about that neuroscience and behavioral insight about how you can get people to increase their level of desirability. I think that does start first from the individual leader. You can only give people what you've got. And so you need to go there first, if that makes sense, and then provide autonomy and mastery and purpose for the people around you.

So here are some top tips for leaders on how you build desirability. Number one, connect your purpose to performance. People will push through discomfort if they know why it matters, as you said before. So you've got to make that why really explicit. We'd suggest that that comes out in those one-on-one leadership conversations. 

Two, design work for autonomy. Terry's talked about it. I've talked about it. Dan Ping talked about it in his book, Drive. When people have choice and ownership, desirability goes up. And so command and control tends to kill motivation, even in the highest of operational theaters. So design work to give people autonomy, we are able to share where we want them to go. They help us work out how we get there. 

Celebrating that progress, that dopamine hit, Terry, that you talked about, celebrate the small wins really, really loudly. Humans are built, they're reward mechanism is in-built in humans. We're reward oriented. And so we know that momentum is emotional, like you started saying. And so public recognition fuels that desire to keep going. And so make sure that we catch people out doing great work, however large and however small. 

Four, make results personal. Show individuals how success benefits them, not just the organization. And last of all, back to that point that you made, on authenticity. Don't fake inspiration.

You being just you, I don't think when you or I coach an executive, we ask them to be anybody different. We just need the best versions of them. Authenticity will beat hype every single time. And people see through motivational theater in a heartbeat, right? And then once you've lost that credibility, it's really, really hard to bring that back. And that enables us to end with a reflection. Would your people still choose to do the work if the pressure disappeared?

Would your people still choose to do the work if the pressure disappeared? Looking forward to talking with you and sharing more thoughts on our next podcast.