What makes people stay?

Last week I shared the most important thing I've discovered in the last five years. It's called the learning loop, and it's a model that captures the four-step cycle that truly engaged people follow. Whether pursuing a career, a sporting activity, a creative expression, or anything else, when humans are fully engaged in a process of growth, you'll find them progressing through these four stages.

We learn something new, take it out into the world and face challenge, we make progress (and receive a reward) and then contribute something back to the community from which we learned it. Then... we do it all again. And again, and again, and again.

For some people in some pursuits, this is a life-long journey without end. Luciano Pavarotti never gave up on opera. It was his obsession for life.

If you're the chief of a tribe (as a leader in an organisation, or a thought leader with a commercial following, or the president of a sporting club, etc), you'd love to have a tribe full of people as obsessed about 'your thing' as Pavarotti was about opera... but you probably don't. Most of your employees, or clients, or players are going to have other priorities and things in life that are as (or more) important to them as 'your thing' is, and that's okay. People are human.

(If you were able to work only with people who were completely obsessed, you wouldn't need to spend much time keeping them engaged, and none of my work would be of much use to you! 😂)

Your job as the chief is to design an experience which is as engaging as possible... which simply means "help them learn something new, apply it to a challenge, make progress, and contribute something back". Lather, rinse, repeat.