I never cease to be amazed by the differences in the workplace, when compared to 20-30 years ago. My mother, although not a self-confessed “bra-burner”, was a Managing Director, long before it was socially acceptable to be a working mother. She was no stranger to stress, long hours or balancing work-life, yet when I catch her today observing me at work, her look is similar to that of an overwhelmed labrador. Her body language cries out “What on earth do you actually DO – and HOW, when you just sit staring at a screen all day??” The world I work in is a million miles away from her office full of filing cabinets, a solitary wired phone, the occasional computer and a fax machine. Yet it’s not just the technological changes that confuse and overwhelm my parents’ generation, it’s the way that technology, and particularly the availability of data, has caused organizations and their cultures to evolve.

My father once marvelled at the amount of “company confidential” content on my laptop. “Wow – the company must trust you so much to expose themselves in that way. Back in our day, a confidential file would have been locked in a cabinet and no-one would have been authorized to take that home.” Is that really the case? Do companies trust us so much more than the employees of yesteryear?

I’ve worked for various Silicon Valley companies for the last 18 years. At the beginning of one fiscal year, as we sat down as a team to discuss the MBOs and KPIs for the year, the most common feedback was “It’s as if we’re not trusted to do our jobs.” What leads a team to feel that way? Simon Sinek, the author of “Start with Why” wrote, “Very few people or companies can clearly articulate WHY they do WHAT they do.”

Individuals are inspired by the “Why?” when they decide where they want to work and what they will buy. I have most definitely been most successful and fulfilled when working for managers who attracted me to their teams with a compelling “Why?”, but then gave me the freedom (and trust) to determine how I would reach our collective goal. In return for that, they received my loyalty, blood, sweat and occasional tears.

If that’s the case, why don’t more companies focus on the “Why?” instead of the “What?” and “How?". I understand the drivers behind MBOs and KPIs. By linking compensation to certain objectives, it is much easier to provide governance and ensure that employees are all pulling in a consistent direction. On the other hand, MBOs can be the enemy of success (and certainly fulfillment), when they become so prescriptive that people feel they are being told how to do their jobs. The situation is further complicated in larger, matrix organizations where people have multiple “dotted-line” managers from completely different parts of the business. A dotted-line manager is rarely responsible for defining an individual’s MBOs, but may set looser “KPIs”, which can often conflict with the MBOs. Individuals are often left to determine for themselves how they will prioritize their time, and which of the many MBOs and KPIs they’re measured on, they will choose to focus on.

The modern world assumes that everyone is equipped with innate strategies to cope in such environments: to be able to prioritize, to keep focus on what can be achieved, and to communicate what will not get done with all of these conflicting demands. Those that tend to thrive in these environments are the strategists, the dreamers and the entrepreneurs, who embrace change and risk, think fast and rely less on data, but on their gut. However, what about those who are more focused on structure, process and data? These are some of the most valuable people in any team, because they are focused on execution and quality. Treated well, these will be some of the most loyal people who have ever worked for you, and they will yield results – every time.

Every strategist or dreamer needs someone seated in reality, who brings them back down to “execution earth”. However, our realists often tend to be perfectionists. Asked to deliver on 3 MBOs and 5 more KPIs, they will attempt to hit every target, on time, with 100% accuracy. Set those goals incorrectly and you will overwhelm and frustrate an individual until they feel crushed under the weight of expectation. I have witnessed it too many times amongst some of my dearest colleagues and friends. Without the strategies to cope in these environments, these individuals break down, and negativity creeps into a team like a seaside fog – Killing Productivity Instantly. Our structured, data-oriented realists should not be expected to adapt their personalities to suit the modern world, but it is our duty to be more responsible in how we incentivize and measure people, whether doctors, project managers, teachers or engineers. The “metric-overload” phenomenon is endemic in our modern society.

Modern day stress has less to do with technology, the multitude of devices we own, or the need to be “always on” 24-7 and more to do with the way we are incentivized and measured. Managing a company using data and metrics is a science. However the art of inspiring people of all personality types, is to create a climate of trust in which individuals can be creative, successful and most of all fulfilled.

Now try explaining that to my mother!