Episode 1: Motivation-What to Do When You (or Your Team) Just Don't Want to Anymore

Listen to Episode 1 - Motivation: What to Do When You (or Your Team) Just Don’t Want to Anymore

In this transcript/article, I'm going to address something that pretty much everyone experiences at some point, and that is hitting a wall. It's the feeling where the motivation is just gone. Whether it's you personally, or your whole team, something changes and everything starts to feel harder than it should. Despite what you might think, feeling demotivated isn't a personal failing. It's an epidemic right now, and I'm going to highlight some of the data that backs up that claim. Gallup's most recent State of the Global Workplace report found that global employee engagement dropped to just 21% in 2024. This means that only 21% of employees feel engaged in their work. That's the lowest it's been since the pandemic, and that is a dreadful number. Here in the US, we're scoring slightly better than the global average, which is kind of surprising, but also keep in mind that this data is from 2024, so it could be worse now. But the US is still only reporting that 31% of employees feel engaged at work. So, while we're scoring higher than the global average, that's still a 10-year low for the US, so we're not doing so hot over here either. I'm sure that's not surprising to anyone reading this right now.

So, considering that information, if you look around your workplace these days thinking, “why does nobody seem to care right now?” You're not imagining it. Most people don't care right now, and it's not just your team, or your organization, or you. It's happening everywhere. Something additional to note from the 2024 Gallup report is that the engagement decline wasn't just noted in individual contributors. Manager engagement is also dropping, which means that the people responsible for keeping teams motivated are they, themselves, running low on motivation, and that's a really big problem because when demotivation is being shown from the top down, the people in the downline never have a chance. So, regardless of whether you're an individual contributor or a team leader, I'm going to give you some practical tips to tell you what you can actually do to try to turn things around.

Often, leaders especially feel like they're not allowed to be the demotivated ones in the room, but guess what? Sometimes, for a variety of reasons, leaders are demotivated. They're not perfect. So, if you're feeling demotivated, the first thing I recommend you do is ask yourself, “am I leaving something, or am I moving towards something?” A lot of demotivation at the individual level comes from being ready to move on. That's what I mean by leaving something. You might be in a role that made sense for you two years ago, but it doesn't fit where you're headed anymore. Or you might be chasing something like a salary, or a title, without a real sense of what you're actually building toward. So, before you try to fix your energy (or your team's energy), you need to get clear on your own why. Not your organization's why, but yours. And that means asking yourself the following question: “what does showing up and doing the work actually mean to me right now?” If you can't answer that, that's the first thing to work on.

The other thing I'll say is that small wins matter more than you think when motivation is tanking. Don't wait until a big project succeeds or a promotion comes through in order to celebrate. You have to find something you can actually finish this week, and then finish it. Unfortunately, momentum is self-generating. You need some motivation to actually get going, but then once you get going, it adds up really quickly. You just need a little bit to start in order to get a lot in return. Essentially, the first thing you need to do is level with yourself.

Now that I've touched on self-motivation, I want to move on to motivating teams. For this piece of info I’m going to draw on a 2025 article from Harvard Business Review by Allison Meister and Ina Togel. In this article (which I cite in my podcast show notes), they talk about something called a “team relaunch.” The authors of the article argue that most team leaders skip this completely, which doesn't seem surprising to me because I had never heard the term “team relaunch” before reading this article, and I'm guessing it's probably a new term to many of you as well. When something goes off the rails a bit with a team, whether it's something like a company re-org, or a team conflict, or a stretch of poor performance most leaders tend to either ignore the situation and just push forward like nothing's wrong, or they jump straight to fixing things without actually diagnosing or identifying what went wrong first. That jump to a fix doesn't really help anything. So, here are the six things that Meister and Togel recommend for a team relaunch that actually will help to fix this issue. These are the six things that you can take away from this article and put into practice to help with motivation in the workplace.

Step number one, diagnose before you act.

It sounds obvious, but seriously, almost nobody does it. We usually opt for a quick fix, and I actually have an upcoming episode/article on the problems associated with a quick fix, so pay attention to this one…It's important!

Before you change anything, you need to understand what's actually going on.

Is the team unclear on its priorities?

Is there a trust issue brewing for some reason?

Was there a recent change that affected the team's dynamic in a way that maybe you didn't anticipate?

It could be any of these or none of these, but whatever it is for your team, you have to identify it before you can try to fix it.

In their HBR article, Meister and Togel give an example of a leader who assumed his team wasn't motivated because they had gotten complacent. Turns out the actual problem, uncovered courtesy of an anonymous company survey, was that the people felt overlooked and undervalued after a change in their reporting structure. The real reason for the lack of motivation was a totally different issue than what the manager had assumed it was, which means that the functional solution to the issue is totally different than what the manager likely would have tried to do had he continued under his original incorrect assumption. And then nothing would have gotten fixed because the solution wouldn't match the problem.

The point of step one is don't prescribe before you can describe. Don't prescribe a fix before you can describe the problem.

Step number two, rebuild trust.

If your team has been through a rough time, and most teams have at some point, trust among the group has probably been negatively affected. The thing to keep in mind about trust is that it doesn't automatically come back just because the rough patch is over. You really have to be intentional about rebuilding it. What that means is that you have to create a space for people to actually say how they're doing. It can't be a performative check-in. It has to be a real one, which means that you, as a leader of the team, have to be willing to be vulnerable. Share with your team what you learned from the rough patch. Acknowledge what you’d do differently next time and highlight if you made any mistakes. People can't (and won't) open up to you if you're not willing to open up first. So, in order to create a trusting environment, you have to model the behavior you want to see out of your team. Essentially, the whole “be the change you wish to see in the world” kind of thing.

Step number three, get aligned on where things are headed.

This one catches a lot of team leaders off guard because they assume (and we all know what happens when we assume) that everyone on the team is aligned on the vision and the goals, but they're usually wrong about that. People will sit and nod along in team meetings, but that doesn't mean they understand, and are aligned with, what's being said. What usually happens is that, instead of asking for clarification (because no one wants to be that person), people will just fill in the gaps with their own assumptions. You have to make the implicit explicit. You have to say what you mean.

What does success look like? Tell your team.

What are the two or three outcomes that matter the most to the team right now? Identify them. Verbally, written. Doesn't matter. Identify them.

Where is the team headed and why does it matter? You have to freaking tell them.

Don't just assume people know. You have to say it out loud. Alignment cannot occur when things aren't spoken into existence. Speaking them makes them feel more real and understandable, so foster that alignment. Get on the same page. It will help tremendously.

Step number four, clarify how you all work together.

This might make some people think, “well, what does that mean? We all have our own roles on the team.” Here's the thing: a lot of times, demotivation pops up as a result of friction from unclear roles, or confusing decision-making processes, or meetings that take up half the day with nothing to show for it and that feel like a waste of time. I know many of us have felt that frustration before. Once a team can get clear and specific about who needs to be in which meetings (and why), or who needs to do what (and why), their work quality generally improves because they’re actually able to focus on what matters to them in their role.

This step about clarifying how you work together is about creating a team structure that supports people instead of just grinding them down. So, figure out who needs to do what and then let them focus on that. If the rest of it doesn't matter to them in their role, don't involve them.

Step number five, build momentum with small wins.

I mentioned this in the beginning of the article when I was talking about individual motivation, but it also applies to teams. As a leader, you can't wait for some big transformation to announce itself in order to find something to celebrate. For a team environment, come up with an achievable goal for the next 30 days. A week, like I mentioned for the individual motivation, might be a bit too tight of a timeline for a team achievement, so give the group more time. 30 days should be plenty of time to achieve something. Make it an achievable goal. Then, once you achieve the goal, celebrate it. Recognize the people who were involved, and be specific and genuine with your recognition. Positive and negative energy are contagious, so build the positive energy with the small wins.

Celebrating the small things also helps to build confidence that the bigger things are actually possible.

And the last step…

Step six, keep adjusting.

This is a step that most people tend to forget about. A reset is not a one-time thing. It's not a set it and forget it event. You have to check in on whether the new norms you are building are actually sticking, whether roles are still clear, whether the team's needs have shifted, and whether other issues have popped up. Build a regular cadence for these adjustment check-ins so an issue doesn't catch you off guard next time. If you keep adjusting and keep checking in, you'll be able to stay on top of the status of your team and nip any potential issue in the bud before it becomes a large problem.

Ultimately, here's what I want you to take away from this article. Demotivation, yours or your teams, is not a character flaw. It's a signal that something needs attention. The leaders and individuals who get good at reading that signal early are the ones who can prevent it from spiraling out of control. Whether you need to reconnect with your own personal direction, or you're a leader of a team that's running on empty, you have more levers to pull than you think. You just have to be willing to slow down enough to pull the right ones.

I guarantee that if you follow the steps and suggestions outlined in this article, you and your team will be well on your way to rediscovering your motivation.

I'm Lauren, and this is Glass Ceiling Smashed. Go grab your hammer and let's break something together.

You can find the sources used to write this episode/article in the show notes for this episode linked at the beginning of this post.