8 Ways to Motivate Your Team

It’s eternal conundrum, how do leaders get their teams to perform at higher levels and how do they maintain a level of high morale. It always amazes me how leaders point finger at their people and talk about them as if they are problem or an entity unto themselves responsible for all failings within department. It is a brave leader who will look at themselves first and ask some very powerful yet disturbing questions such as:

What have I done in past that worked? What’s going on with me right now and am I bringing enthusiasm to workplace? Am I being realistic in my expectations and have I communicated them to my team?

A team’s performance is a direct reflection of leader who leads them. Ouch! Think about it….people within a team will only perform to level that they see rewarded or to level that their leader brings to table. In my training seminars to management leaders I often challenge them to look at how themselves their strengths, weaknesses and how they manage before they look at problems that their people are challenging them with.

Many leaders are put into their positions with little or no training and they are doomed to fail. The assumption most employees make is that because you are leader you should know how to manage personalities and motivate. This couldn’t be further from truth. People skills are just that, a skill that is developed through training, application and experience.

I am not saying that we absolve employees of responsibility, let’s face it in a highly functioning team environment there exists a high level of accountability all way around. What I am saying is that we leaders be willing to look at ourselves and what we have control over. Here are 8 things you can do to motivate your teams:

1. Look in mirror. Are you waking up with enthusiasm and excitement about your work? Have you set goals for yourself and your team? Or are you just punching a time clock like rest of them and its all you can do to not fall asleep with boredom or scream out loud with frustration. What do you need to be more excited and enthused? If you are not excited and energetic it is not fair to expect your team to bring same to table.

2. Take a retreat. Step away from work environment for a day or if possible two. Go to a 2-day management seminar or retreat and re-fuel, re-group and re-energize so that you can bring a fresh attitude and approach back to your team. Many leaders are suffering burnout and they are not able to be creative with their solutions. Signs of burnout are: lethargy, apathy and negativity just to name a few.

3. Take a pulse. Do an assessment of your team dynamics. List all of your team members on a piece of paper and beside each person’s name indicate level of performance you feel they are currently at, what you feel they are capable of and where gap in performance exists. Then think about how you have approached this person in past in regards to performance improvement and what you can do differently this time with them to have them hear you in a new and different way.

Talking To The Generations

Nowadays in order to be an effective communicator we not only need to know how to adapt to different personality types, we also need to know different generational issues that can create conflict in workplace.

The dynamics we have today are unique to our era in that work values have made a dramatic shift with younger generations. This has caused harsh judgements and criticism of values within work environment, which hinders performance of individuals and overall team success.

We need to begin by first seeking to understand, as Steven Covey of 7 Habits would say. If we can begin to understand what is important to each generation and then learn to see things in a wider perspective we can begin to build bridges of communication and heighten tolerance towards differences in values and ultimately collaboration.

Let’s look at different generations and their values in general:

1.The Veteran age group is generally those that are 55 and older. This generation is post war and their nature is to be loyal to a single employer and they expect same loyalty displayed towards themselves. Because this generation did not grow up with material wealth in most cases they tend to be frugal and do not understand need to use debt to build business or need for anyone to have debt at all. In workplace they show up on time and they take orders- they do as they are told and they respect their boss as well as their elders.

2.The Baby boomer age group is generally 35 to 54 and are children of Veterans. They grew up with little in way of toys or nice clothes and vowed to give their children everything they couldn’t have as children. In most cases baby boomers grew up earning an allowance and understood principle of working to earn a living. In general they left home at age of 18 and survival was a real issue. If you told a baby boomer to do something at work or else they would be fired- they would do it because they were afraid of not being able to pay bills. In workplace they have a mentality of work, work, work and then you die.