Tell me why!
Connecting our people with purpose is something we talk about a lot in the public service – helping staff to understand the why of what they are doing. I firmly believe that it is intrinsically more motivating to understand the why – it makes more sense and it helps the team solve problems or find ways through. It stops the perennial complaint of those who are told just to do – I don’t understand why I have to do this. It also demonstrates more respect for your team – you are valuing them by taking the time to talk about why rather than just giving them tasks.
I am sure none of that is at all controversial. We all look for more understanding. The question is how do we make this connection for staff more effectively, and particularly for regulators?
I think there are a number of levels and approaches to this. Starting at the top, it can be very powerful to demonstrate to people how the work they are doing contributes to a high level agenda. For example, when I took over Trades Recognition Australia (TRA) many years ago, it was just before a machinery of government changes (in the Skills portfolio, this happened with clockwork regularity). In a session with all my branch and the new Secretary, I described how the work of TRA in recognising the qualifications of potential and actual migrants linked to the government’s agenda around building a skilled workforce. Afterwards, one of the team said to me that they had never heard their work described that way before. To them, their job was processing applications without a link to any greater purpose. Understanding the why at this level brings a greater level of motivation, pride and a broader perspective.
It is also really important that a regulatory team understands what the policy outcome is that they are trying to achieve and what the legislative framework is that they are using. Doing this allows them to exercise judgement and be innovative in their approaches rather than just following instructions. Why are we doing this and does the legislation let us? Again when I was with TRA, I still remember how happy I was when I got two policy minutes in one day. Both of them suggested changes to our policy because what we were doing was not achieving the outcomes we wanted at a policy level. It showed me that the team were thinking about purpose not just process – critical for good regulators.
It is, however, important to go a bit deeper than this. Finding a way to allow every team member to see how their specific job contributes to the functioning of the machine and how that machine helps create the outcome is where you can really help to create better results. This is particularly important in regulatory environments where getting it wrong anywhere along the line can cause problems or legal risk. How does each cog contribute to the machine and why if one cog gets stuck can the whole machine fall apart? Where people have no reason to care, or don’t understand what the result of sloppy work is, why would they bother ensuring they always get it right? Working with teams to make sure that everyone understands how their specific job contributes is important, particularly as some regulatory processes can be labyrinthine!
Telling people why is a relatively easy thing to do, but it can have incredible results – greater motivation, more pride, innovation and improvement. Why is the most popular question from toddlers to adults for a reason – we all want to make sense of our world and we all work better when we do.
