What are basic psychological needs?
Are you and your team having them met?
These are important questions and ones that more teams should reflect on.
To do this, let's understand what psychological needs are:
-Autonomy: I can make my own choices -Competence: I am learning and growing -Relatednesss: I am part of something bigger than myself
If any of these is missing it can decrease motivation to do a behavior, which means that when you are either working on a change program or being part of one, you need to really know if these needs are being satisfied or if they are the cause of frustration.
At least in my client projects with Aim For Behavior - I have always found it useful to explore this as part of my work.
Therefore, I wanted to give you 9 starter questions you can ask yourself in order to understand where your gaps and opportunities lie. (Feel free to adapt these), or to go to Center for Self-Determination Theory (CSDT) to look at more resources.
1. Does our leadership give us autonomy? 2. Are we learning new and different skills? 3.
Are the projects we are doing significant enough? 4. Do we have autonomy in our role? 5. Do we feel socially supported? 6.
Do we get the right performance feedback? 7. Do we have autonomy in our projects? 8. Are we getting overworked? 9.
Are we clear about our role?
Answering these questions and mapping them as a team will help you know in what areas you need to work, so your team can: 1) feel as though they are doing meaningful work, that... 2) helps them learn and get better, and at the same time... 3) have the social support at work they need.
#behavioralscience #changemanagement