Happy Thursday, everyone. I'm Frank Richardson, an organisational psychologist observing the workplace with curiosity and care. Each week, I share insights to help HR leaders better understand the people behind the processes and build cultures where both individuals and organisations can thrive.
Four recent essays, in case any of them got away from you. They cover different ground but they're all really asking the same question: what actually makes people try at work right now? The reliable employee, the anxious manager, the gamified dashboard, and a trillionaire who might have broken motivation entirely. Catch up below.
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In case you missed it
How effort shifted from something to be admired to something to be managed.
Being dependable used to be a form of status. Lately it's started to feel more like a trap. People aren't becoming less ambitious, they're just becoming more selective about where that ambition goes. This piece looks at why discretionary effort is going down, what's changed, and what it means when the most capable people in a team start asking whether any of it was worth it.
How dashboards, streaks, and "visibility" are reshaping what people care about.
Once something is tracked, it becomes a target. And once it becomes a target, it stops being an accurate measure. This piece looks at what happens when measurement systems start directing the work rather than reflecting it, and why the busiest-looking teams aren't always doing the most useful things.
When it comes to motivation at work, which feels most true right now?
We tend to blame ego, control, or trust issues. The psychology might be more complicated than that.
Micromanagement rarely starts with someone deciding to become a terrible boss. It usually starts with a project going sideways, a deadline moving, or an outcome that has your name on it that you don't fully control. This piece looks at what pressure does to leadership behaviour, and why fixing it requires more than just telling people to delegate.
What happens when success becomes so extreme it stops feeling motivational?
Published this week. Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire following the SpaceX IPO. Most of the commentary focused on wealth and inequality, which is fair. But the question that stuck with me was simpler: at what point does success become so extreme that it stops working as motivation for everyone else? At some point, admiration and cynicism start to look very similar.
If any of these hit differently read together, I'd love to hear it.
Until next week,
Frank
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