12,000 Entries from Business Diaries Surprised us All: The Progress Principle

Erik Doyle, MBA, SPHR, CCP, Director Talent and Organizational Development, Patrick Industries, Inc

Trik Doyle experienced HR executive with 15+ years leading transformational change through strategic HR initiatives and operational alignment. He has proven success in reducing turnover, boosting engagement, and implementing enterprise HRIS platforms. A trusted partner to operations, I’ve consulted 130+ companies and coached 4,000+ leaders, driving measurable impact across performance, retention, and safety.

In exclusive interview with HR Tech Outlook, he shared invaluable insights on how visible progress on meaningful work is the single most powerful driver of engagement, outperforming perks, praise, and even autonomy.

A group of researchers asked more than 200 professionals to keep a work diary describing their activities, joys, and frustrations at work for two years. A question the researchers sought to answer with this data was: “What one thing brings the most joy and engagement at work?” The data from the diaries pointed to an answer that most managers mistakenly ignore or underate: Progress on Meaningful Work.

Just How Important was It? Here is Some Context:

• Nourishing Events scored 25%

• When employees felt respected and appreciated

• Catalytic Events scored 43%

• Employees received clear goals

• Were given autonomy

• Were provided resources

• Progress Events scored a whopping 76%

• Employees felt they were making headway on their priorities

• Employees sensed incremental progress toward a goal

What Was The Most Disengaging/ Discouraging Work Experience?

“Setbacks, stalls, or moving backward events” People want progress and hate to lose it – even in the smallest, most incidental ways. We’ve all heard of people who hate to stop for gas or restroom breaks on a long trip because they’ll lose progress on all the cars they just passed. Makes you smile to hear these stories, but it’s a real thing, and the person is feeling real pain. Crazy, right? This makes sense when you hear travelers complain about driving through straight, plain country because they cannot visibly determine any progress: everything looks the same.

“Progress on meaningful work isn’t just motivating, it’s transformational. When people see momentum, they find purpose, push through setbacks, and stay engaged in the journey”

Application: People can cope with and overcome depression, fear, anxiety, and even anger – some pretty heavy emotional disruptors – when they are given meaningful work on which they can make visible progress. This information precipitates two recommendations and one warning:

• Recommendation #1 – Do not miss a chance to acknowledge and commend progress made by your employees. Diminishing their efforts is destructive to everything both of you care about.

• Recommendation #2 – When there is a big task to be completed over a long period, break it up into smaller, achievable goals, and then celebrate them as they come. Instead of a long walk through a “desert of duty”, your team will be doing short sprints to many goal lines and celebrations. There is a world of difference between these two realities.

• Warning – Some managers do not acknowledge any work until ALL of it is done. This is a huge mistake especially when tasks are big and long-term. Also, leaders that keep resetting expectations, changing their minds, and reassigning priorities are an extraordinary tax on energy and morale. So much so that they ranked #1 on the list of things that employees find disengaging. If the item in this warning describes you or your organization, it’s time to rethink your plan before bad things like burnout, turnover, and underperformance become your sustained reality.

If this study intrigues you and you want to learn more, check out Teresa Amabile’s TEDX Talk on “The Progress Principle”. Or get the book by the same title that Teresa wrote with Steven Kramer.

The takeaway from this massive study is clear: progress is not just a metric, it’s a profound human motivator. As leaders, we don’t need to manufacture artificial perks or grand gestures to inspire our teams. Often, the most powerful engagement tool is already in our hands: helping people see and feel their momentum toward something that matters. When progress is visible, meaningful, and acknowledged, it becomes the fuel that drives motivation, resilience, and joy at work. So if you’re looking to elevate performance, start by asking: What meaningful progress can I help someone make today?

HRIS