As organisations grow, many leaders reach for ready-made management consultant solutions to manage teams, drive performance, and navigate complexity. In an era re-defined by AI adoption, hybrid working, and global workforce competition, these solutions often mistake innovative surface activity for real progress.
You can’t incentivise your way out of disengagement. You can’t command your way to innovation. And you definitely can’t app install a healthy team culture.
If you're tired of shallow engagement schemes, frustrated by templated change programmes, and aware that your people want more than free coffee and vague values, you are not alone. This article proposes a return to deeper psychological truths, foundational principles and a collaborative path forward as modern teams.
One of the great misunderstandings in organisational life is the belief that motivation can be added like a fuel injection.
In reality, as Frederick Herzberg (1966) explained in his Two-Factor Theory, the causes of dissatisfaction are different from the causes of satisfaction and true motivation. Salary, policies, job security, and working conditions, these are hygiene factors. Their issues cause dissatisfaction and demotivation, but their presence does not automatically motivate, it just sets the stage for other more intrinsic and complex human sources to flourish.
One might say,
“The way to motivate people is to stop demotivating them.”
– paraphrasing Herzberg
In modern work environments, the digital equivalent of poor hygiene can be:
Instead of layering on perks, leaders must identify and remove these subtle sources of dissatisfaction. They must ask why these measurable outputs matter to meaningful outcomes for their employees.
Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985; 2000) remains one of the most robust frameworks for understanding human motivation. It identifies three core needs:
These are not nice-to-haves. They are fundamental psychological needs.
Yet they are often undermined, especially in high-growth, tech-enabled environments, by:
The irony? Many organisations spend more time designing office perks and distractions, than crafting roles that enable human creativity and true mastery.
In high-performance environments, success rarely comes from lone brilliance. It comes from psychological safety, clarity of roles, shared goals, and mutual accountability, all elements found in effective team models, such as those researched by Tannenbaum & Salas (2020).
Teams function best when they are:
In global or hybrid teams, this requires even more attention to communication norms, cultural awareness, and relationship maintenance. One heroic high performer can no longer carry the load if collaboration breaks down across time zones.
“You can lead with ease if you work smarter not harder, by removing friction, enabling autonomy, and earning trust.”
Instead of applying solutions to teams, leaders should learn to work with them.
This shift, from direction to co-creation, means:
These actions are not soft. They are strategic as they require real choices and consensus building. Think, soft skills for tough times. They allow organisational interventions that also improve health and well being, as shown by Neilsen and Noblet (2018) in their evidence based handbook.
Creating space for autonomy and aligned collaboration is one of the most reliable predictors of sustained performance, particularly during change, growth, or uncertainty.
If you make a decision alone you had better be right. If you make a decision together then everyone is invested in adapting to make right what inevitably goes wrong.
Consider the contrast between two hypothetical scaling companies:
The second company may not look as efficient on a dashboard. But in reality, it is building resilience, loyalty, and innovation—not just compliance.
Of course, not all organisations are ready for deep collaboration. Some industries demand more directive leadership, or must navigate highly regulated environments.
Additionally, the pursuit of autonomy or purpose must be balanced with accountability and organisational alignment. Leaders still need to lead, with humility, clarity, and curiosity, not merely to control.
Co-creation doesn't mean chaos. It means shared vision, purpose and authorship.
In our search for productivity, we may have lost sight of the deeper architecture of great organisations. The best teams are not driven by carrot or stick, but by a shared sense of progress, partnership, and purpose.
Together they find a shared rhythm
If you're leading through growth, complexity, or change, ask not “How can I motivate my team?” which puts all the emphasis on the individual as a leader.
“What’s getting in our way, and how can we remove it, together?”
This is leadership.
If you want to learn more about How to Lead with EASE then get in touch and book a clarity call