Why More Motivation Isn’t the Answer

grow

As we were building our $30M engineering and built-environment consultancy, we kept thinking that motivation was the problem.

If we just pushed harder.
Stayed more disciplined.
Held ourselves to a higher standard.

But the real issue wasn’t effort at all.

It was that the business had no rhythm.

Every week was reactive.
Everything felt urgent.
And the important work — leadership, BD and strategy — kept getting drowned out by day-to-day noise.

So we made a simple but strategic shift:

We separated running the business from leading the business.

First, we installed a fixed weekly operations meeting.

Same time. Same agenda.
Projects. People. Delivery. Capacity.
Operations only.

No strategy.
No big ideas.
No future-focused discussions.

If it was operational, it lived here.
If it wasn’t, it waited.

Then, separately, we locked in a monthly strategic / board meeting.

This was big-picture only:

Direction.
Priorities.
What to stop.
What to double down on.

And we were ruthless.

Any time someone drifted back into ops, we pulled it up and parked it for the weekly ops meeting.

Once we made that split, the business changed fast.

Weeks felt calmer.
Decisions stuck.
And we finally had space to lead instead of react.

Same people.
Same workload.
Completely different momentum.

If your business feels heavy or chaotic, it’s probably not a motivation problem.

It’s a rhythm problem.

To your success,

Josh

PS: If you’re interested, here are 4 ways I can help you right now:

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