You have just landed the job and you are excited that you will be able to put all your skills and effort in achieving some great things. Despite these positive feelings, you still can’t quite shake the fact that your work environment or colleagues might cause you to become DE-motivated.
There are 3 elements that enhance long term performance; Play, Potential & Purpose. You can determine these 3 P’s right from the start. A company that looks to excel will maximize on these 3 P’s for their employees. These elements will essentially help you understand the culture of the company you are joining and how it links with your values and ambitions.
PLAY
In this context, we don’t mean the “hide & seek” game. Here we are referring to working because you genuinely enjoy the work you do- you work because you enjoy it. It is actually one of the strongest motivators for any professional. For example, an editor that enjoys choosing between words and formatting documents will outperform the peer who does the job so that he can complete the task and get paid. Therefore, a question like; what kind of projects would a person in this position be able to own from beginning to end? Would essentially give you a feel of weather the company will give you the freedom to be innovative or will be stringent in its ideas and methods.
PURPOSE
No single person wants to feel like they have to wake up every morning and work for 8 or more hours each day to do something that doesn’t matter. Purpose is the ultimate element that keeps a worker going; even a farmer in the fields needs a sense of purpose. Therefore, it is important to check that a company’s purpose aligns with yours. An important question would be; how would a person in this role measure the impact of their work? The interviewer’s response would help you assess if the impact is something you would want to achieve.
POTENTIAL
Most noteworthy, no matter the ambition or drive for your career, you still want to see yourself grow. Growth is what shows that indeed those sleepless nights and tireless research hours were worth it. Hence, you need to know whether your role has potential (opportunities for growth). An important question would be; where have other employees in this position gone to in the past or does the company promote from within? A question of this statue would enable you understand the perks of working with the company bottom-up.
So don’t hesitate on taking your pick of questions that will give you an objective view before accepting the job offer. This will obviously depend on what matters to you the most; Play, Purpose or Potential.
