3 Tips on How to Motivate Your Team

Motivation is a key part of improving productivity and therefore achieving your goals. Here are 3 quick techniques that I use to improve motivation

1. Spend a 30 minutes each day walking or talking to your team. Make sure you are asking them about how they are feeling, ask about their life outside of work, ask what is going well, what is their biggest concern. Time invested here is so important to show that you care, that you value them not only as a team member but as a human being.
2. Hold a monthly session with small groups of people who are direct reports of your direct reports.....no agenda...just ask them for their ideas...how can we make our work lives better, what is working well and we want to do more of, ask about their understanding of goals/objectives.....then act on the feedback.
3. Use surprises to break the monotony. Be it holding meetings outside, giving each person a small budget to woo their internal customers, thanking them with a treat, send cards to individuals with personal messages about achievement, go and work alongside during busy times....and understand their issues.
   

Facts or Communication of the facts?

Often at work it is not the facts that are important it is how we portray them.

An example

A company always held a summer picnic, which included a hugely contested softball game between 2 departments that had developed a great rivalry over the years. They only played one game every summer, but argued over it all year!

Dept A won the game, but Dept B posted the following write up..." Department B is proud to announce that following this year's softball game, we finished in second place, having lost only one game all year. We also offer condolences to Department A who finished next to last, after only winning one game all year"

Truth - yes! But what a great way to turn a potential negative into a positive...

Boxing clever for Suggestions

I am not a lover of suggestion boxes...though it is a start, I have to admit that in getting feedback. The problem tends to be that they become moaning posts so what about having two!

One for problems/threats
One for solutions/opportunities

This builds into the culture a sense of acccountability and responsibility for driving improvement. Post the problems that people see and get them to suggest improvements...with the winner being based on the solution rather than the issue.