Imagine you are a player on a professional sports team on a winning streak. Everything is clicking. Everything is flowing seamlessly, without even consciously understanding how it’s happening. Team confidence continues to grow. You feel unbeatable. It’s some X-factor that makes you unstoppable. And the more frequently you win, the more this momentum grows. The momentum grows further if you continue to win over a long time. If you win against tough rivals, it grows even more.
This is positive psychological momentum — a cognitive force that changes human behavior and performance. It enables people to achieve at a level not ordinarily possible. When people experience success, it propels them to amplify their efforts. This positive momentum builds a greater likelihood of success in future endeavors.
This can apply to anything — even something as basic as raking leaves. Once you look back and see you’re 2/3 done, you realize the project is almost done, you’re making good time, and that gives you the momentum to complete the task. You perceive it as easier and smoother.
When someone is experiencing positive psychological momentum, the last thing you want to do is interrupt it. But many bosses do this all the time. They change directions and projects on a whim, requiring their employees to increase energy output to start, stop, and start again. It also changes employees’ perceptions of the new task’s difficulty. It will seem like a bigger hill to climb, with more work required for success. It creates negative momentum.
Negative momentum is like a losing streak. A team that creates more scoring opportunities early in a match can increase their chances of winning. A losing team, without this momentum, may start to doubt themselves or struggle with frustration.
What happens to momentum when a project is killed halfway through only to have to start a completely different project? Or when you get it done but can’t see it through to fruition? You get frustrated. You get unmotivated.
But when organizational productivity starts to dip, and a culture of apathy starts to creep in, leaders can be caught off guard. Maybe they pick a scapegoat. All blissfully unaware that their behavior is the cause.
About the Author
Trained as a behavioral scientist and customer-centricity expert, Andrea Belk Olson helps executives implement the art and science of operationalizing corporate strategy through understanding organizational mindsets. She is the author of three business books, including her most recent, What To Ask: How To Learn What Customers Need but Don’t Tell You.
She is a 4x ADDY award winner and contributing writer to Entrepreneur Magazine, Harvard Business Review, Rotman Magazine, World Economic Forum, and more. Andrea is also an entrepreneurial adjunct instructor at the University of Iowa and TEDx speaker coach.
