The Pyramid of Team Member Needs: a map for enhancing engagement and performance
Almost a decade ago, my company was going through a crisis. The team didn't seem on fire, even though I knew they cared deeply about the company.
The situation looked so bad, I didn't know where to begin addressing the issues.
Then I discovered a map that could guide me - the Pyramid of Team Member Needs.
But first a bit of groundwork before I present you the full map.
What is team engagement?
Engagement is sometimes misunderstood as satisfaction. While engagement positively influences satisfaction, it is more than that.
Gallup defines employee engagement as the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in their work and workplace.
So, engagement has components of motivation, action, and well-being.
How engaged are we?
Gallup regularly measures engagement across the world, and unfortunately, the picture doesn't look bright.
Globally:
23% of employees are engaged (which is an all time high)
59% are not engaged
18% are actively disengaged (essentially sabotaging the firm)
You're reading that correctly. 77% of people worldwide spend most of their awake adult life doing something that doesn't engage them.
It gets worse. In Europe... only 13% are engaged.
But there's hope. In best-practice organizations across regions and industries, 72% are engaged.
That means the average company in Europe has the opportunity to 5x their team engagement.
To see why that matters, read on...
How does engagement relate to performance?
Research by Bain & Company shows that employee engagement directly impacts performance. While it's certainly not the only driver of performance, it's highly correlated.
The most engaged employees are 3x as productive as the least engaged ones:
McKinsey found similar results, with the top quartile of publicly traded companies in McKinsey’s Organizational Health Index delivering roughly three times the returns to shareholders as those in the bottom quartile.
How do you enhance team engagement?
You enhance engagement by helping to meet team members' needs.
The more you are able to have team members' needs met, the more you improve engagement and consequently, team productivity.
What are these team member needs?
To find out, I've dug into research by Bain & Company, Gallup, Maslow, Google, Dan Pink, and Simon Sinek. I've summarized their key findings into the following Pyramid of Team Member Needs:
This hierarchy is not a ladder. The principle of "transcend and include" applies.
You can address needs at different levels simultaneously.
You don't need perfection at a lower level before it becomes beneficial to address higher-level needs.
Excelling at higher levels doesn't free you from having to satisfy lower levels. Neglecting to do so would decrease engagement and performance.
While it sounds logical, in practice I see many companies ignoring this: "Let's first fix the basics, then we'll have time and space for that fancy stuff." Or the opposite: "As long as we have a strong purpose, everything else follows."
How worthwhile is investing in engagement?
I suggest considering two findings, which are consistent with my own experience:
If you think you're fine because your team seems satisfied, realize that if your entire team were inspired, you'd need less than half the people for the same output (see chart by Bain).
Work on organizational health leads to tangible performance gains in as little as 6 to 12 months for big corporations, and even sooner for SMEs (McKinsey).
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I remember looking at an earlier version of this framework every few nights for months on end during those times of crisis. I used it as a lens through which to view the organization. This greatly helped me self-reflect on what could be further opportunities for improvement. Each time I would experiment with new approaches, review results, and revisit the framework.
Today, many years later, I have translated the Pyramid of Team Member Needs into a more systematic methodology and roadmap for proactively building healthy, high-performing organizations.
I hope this map helps you bring out the best in your team, too.
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