How to motivate a team: 5 powerful things you’ve probably never thought of
In many businesses, team motivation is easily put on the back burner in favour of more tangible things like sales, recruitment, business development or the next big project.
However, team motivation is paramount to success as it helps reduce absenteeism and staff turnover, and supports a more enjoyable work environment leading to greater productivity.
Ultimately, when a team is highly motivated it has a positive impact on results and the bottom line.
So what can you do to motivate your team? Here are 5 powerful things you’ve probably never thought of.
1. Reward the behaviour not the result
When it comes to rewarding teams and individuals, we’re typically only focused on the result. If you surpass your monthly KPIs, you get a pat on the back. But if you fall short, the response generally isn’t as encouraging (and in some cases may be discouraging). Purely focusing on the results and ignoring the behaviours can send the wrong message to the team.particularly detrimental case is when individuals who aren’t ‘team players’ receive praise from their manager when they hit their KPIs, while others who support the team but miss their KPIs aren’t acknowledged. If you start rewarding the behaviour, and provide the necessary support, the team will feel acknowledged and valued, which will help drive motivation.
2. Revisit how you set goals for your team
Setting goals for teams and individuals is important because goals clarify what people are working towards and act as a measuring stick for desired outcomes. If you haven’t set goals with your team; or you’ve only created goals as a ‘box ticking’ exercise’; or perhaps you’ve tried to set goals but you’re not getting much buy-in, then you should revisit your team’s goals and how you set them. When we set goals with individuals and teams, we use the tried and true SMART method. However, when setting SMART goals we also consider 3 important aspects to ensure individuals and teams have the motivation and discipline to do what’s needed.
The goals should be clear so there’s no ambiguity and your team knows what needs to be done. S is for Specific.
The goals should be achievable given your team’s current skill set. Being able to see the finish line keeps them interested and focused. R is for Realistic given current Resources.
The goals should be meaningful for your team by being connected to their unique individual intrinsic motivators. A is for Alignedwith my values.
3. Be a better listener
Listen more when your team is talking to you. Sounds easy right? In theory it is easy, but in reality it doesn’t always happen. As managers, senior leaders, executives, and business owners - we get it, your work days are busy. You’re likely being pulled in a million different directions, have back-to-back meetings all day, an ever growing to-do list and barely any time to actually get any work done. Regardless of how busy you are though, when your team is talking to you, you need to actually listen.
Listen to understand. Respond to what is being said and ask questions to understand more deeply.
Listen with attentive body language. Don’t try to multitask by replying to emails on your laptop. Don’t get distracted by your phone (get it out of sight and put it on silent). Don’t check the time on your watch 5 minutes into the meeting.
Listen beyond the words being spoken. Communication is an all-five-senses experience. Tone of voice, facial expressions, the speaker’s body language etc - try and tune into all of it.
By actually listening you’ll gain a deeper understanding of your team’s needs, but more importantly you’ll be showing them that they’re an important and valued part of your team.
4. Get your team to create key daily behaviours
Key daily behaviours are actions your team members can take to feel more fulfilment in their respective roles.
Their key daily behaviours should align to their personal values - the things that they stand for, their morals and the attributes they want to be known for.
By doing tasks (i.e. key daily behaviours) that align with their personal values, they’ll feel more fulfilment in their roles, which naturally leads to greater motivation.
For example, if a team member’s personal value is creativity, a key daily behaviour related to this is to ensure they block out 1 hour per day to spend working on creative projects.
Similarly, if their personal value is connection with others, they could join the office social committee and block out 1 hour per week for this work.
Each team member should aim to create 5-6 key daily behaviours that they can insert into their workload. Note: these don’t have to be executed every day - some days they might complete one daily behaviour, other they might complete 3.
As a manager, you need to encourage your team to ‘lean into’ the types of projects or aspects of their roles that resonate with their personal values.
5. Take (repeated) action
You can’t begin to motivate your team without action. And you can’t build and maintain motivation in your team without repeated action.
Unfortunately, as managers, leaders, executives and business owners, working on team motivation can easily fall down your to-do list when you have 100 other competing priorities.
However, if you really want to create positive change in your team, at some point you’re going to have to take action, and do so repeatedly. And if you don’t have the time to do it yourself, then you should look to engage specialised help. Because the truth is, the cost of inaction will be far greater.
Take action now
As executive coaches, we work as an extension of your team and use researched, evidenced-based techniques to help motivate your staff and create your own high-performing team. Want to find out more? We’d love to hear from you.