Is it time to change?

Is it time to change?

I have been wondering about this question for a while...
 I always thought that there needs to be passion about what you are doing. I am passionate about technology and people, i develop my own experiments about Agile and i like the freedom to do what i think is best for a company, a team, an organisation or a project. But what is to like a job? This seems like an obvious question but  in reality is a fuzzy perception that might not have a clear answer.

We spend most of our lives within the work environment, it becomes part of us and one might say professional and personal time can have strict boundaries but we are human beings and as so we build communities, we belong to communities and that's what will trip the "strict boundaries. I think it's really hard to keep separation of concerns when you spend a minimum of 8 hours a day in the same place with the same people. Our mood changes, the exterior world changes, we change, sometimes the day goes wrong, sometimes goes awesome, sometimes we lack the will to speak with people and other times we love it. After 2 years in the same company your motivation might be lost, you start to wonder what is out there. Is it time to change?

In order to assess you should know yourself, have you ever made a list of things that make you feel happy? I would start with that. 

A couple of examples that are important motivational factors and link into the core values and current goals of individuals. I collected this list by assessing my teams and myself. As a Leader I would challenge you to make this exercise with your teams and understand what are the collective values and motivational factors of a group. Ask them to pick the top 3 from each list (do it yourself by the way).

Motivational Factors

Colleagues/Team relationship
Sense of belonging
Learning
Freedom to Experiment
People who you can benchmark against
Work/Life balance
Embracing the vision of the project/company
Relationship with Managers
Organisation culture
Contributing to the society
See others use what was created
Money
Dominating a subject
Challenges
Problem Solving
Schedule freedom
Facilities
Career progression
Clear directives
Follow a lead
Clear definition of work priorities
Change
Passion for the kind of work

Etc..

You may have different motivations, I would be very interested in knowing it so please do post it in comment.  BTW this image is for a very special engineer with whom I learned a lot :D

Core Values:

Integrity
Honesty
Humility
Will Power
Balance/Well Being
Status/Social standing
Power
Help others
Serve the world
Wealth
Self Development
Intelligence
Generosity
Knowledge
Autonomy
Free will
Flat hierarchy
To be heard
Trust
Inclusion

Are you at a company/organisation that matches your Core Values? How are your motivational factors aligned with what you are doing right now?

Are you respecting your Core Values at your work? Have you, as manager, assessed your people to understand the group core values and  assess if you need to adapt the environment according to it and help them grow and achieve their full Potential?  

Note! If you are going through a burnout or general fatigue REST! Don't rush into decisions on that state. If this is because of work make it a core value , e.g. Balance/Well Being. If a job leads you into it might be do to the way your work but also means your Manager is not paying attention and can be a red flag about your work environment. Think about it.

An unmotivated manager will not Lead People as he will lack the attraction, people won't follow. I think that is highly important that a manager is motivated and able to self motivate as not being so will impact a the all group. Have you tried to list things that could trigger your motivation?

Is it Time to Change? 

I have a couple of questions I do to myself as an individual to be aware of my internal movements towards my work:

Well am I getting lost in what I am doing?
Am I Learning/Growing?
Do I lose track of time?
Do I feel involved? Passionate?
Do I care if the things go wrong?
Do I enjoy the people i am  working with?
Do I feel i am good at it?
Am I creating the difference?
Do I trust people around me?
Do I feel empowered?
Do I feel challenged?
Do I see myself at this company within 2 years?


If most of the answers are No and you have tried to regain motivation... I guess is Time to Change. Probing other opportunities can also bring you a lot of realisations about where you are and what you want to do so go for it. Remember we also go through "moods" and this might be it :)