How to inspire your team
How To Inspire Your Team
There’s no doubt about it—inspired teams are more productive, efficient, and profitable. A research study by Deloitte finds that 88% of employees and 94% of executives agree that strong company culture is key to the success of a business.
Benefits Of Having A Motivated Team
Beyond company culture being a success, and productivity skyrocketing, there are a ton of other benefits to having a motivated team on your side. Here are just a couple:
Retention
Employees that feel empowered at their place of work are more likely to stick around. Don’t forget, people leave management not jobs. The more inspired your team feels by you, the better.
Less Call Outs
There will be fewer used sick days by your team when they are feeling appropriately motivated.
Improved Performance
It may go without saying but a person who feels motivated will always work their hardest.
How To Inspire Your Team
Discuss the “why”
As humans, we have a longing to be a part of something bigger. Fortunately, regardless of your industry, there is a reason that you do what you do—a mission that is separate from the bottom line. For example, If you manufacture rubber bands, you help people organize their living spaces and wrangle things they love—favorite pens, their child’s crayons, or cards from loved ones. Hold a company meeting with the goal of helping people understand how their work directly or indirectly impacts that people that you serve. You may consider working together to write a new mission statement for your company. This mission statement will help your employees get a great understanding of the “why” and feel like they have a stake in determining the company’s higher purpose. It is important to hold all hands meetings after your quarterly meetings and make sure the entire team understands the VTO™, quarterly rocks and goals got each quarter. These quarterly campfires as some organizations call them, are just as, if not more important than the quarterly EOS® meetings.
Set S.M.A.R.T. goals
Once your team has a grasp on the “why” behind their work, set goals as an organization within your VTO and align smaller departmental and individual rocks with those broader goals. By setting goals, your team gains a clear vision of where they are aiming, and they see how their day-to-day work connects to the big picture. Your employees will have a greater sense of their value as employees and will feel some buy-in to help the company succeed. To set effective goals at all levels, make sure they are S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-sensitive). Use departmental scorecards to track weekly traction being made for each goal and rock. We encourage teams as professional integrators to have department VTO’s, goals and rocks that align with the corporate VTO.
Help them stretch
When setting goals, make sure that you set targets for employees that are going to make them stretch a little to reach them. Easy-to-reach goals breed complacency. On this flipside, employees thrive when they are mastering a new skill and growing personally and professionally. Once, you’ve set your goals for departments and individual employees, track progress and keep encouraging everyone to keep their eyes on the prize. The sense of accomplishment that everyone will feel after reaching a challenging goal will help create a positive, productive company culture.
Know Your Employees
There are a few different ways you can motivate your employees by knowing them. Every person is motivated by different things and find different styles motivating. When you get to know your team and dig a little deeper than a superficial level, you can understand what will make them feel motivated and passionate to work for and with you.
Encourage teamwork
Just as being a great leader is important, having your team work together can be huge motivation. When everyone works together on one common goal they feel a sense of togetherness. Working together also creates bonds and friendships making the workplace a fun place to be and an atmosphere people enjoy being in.
Provide opportunities for development
Motivating people to grow their career and grow within the company is one of the best ways to motivate your team. Allowing your employees to see that hard work pays off and how the company rewards hard work will keep your colleagues motivated and ready to work hard.
Celebrate victories
Finally, celebrate victories. Be sure to let everyone know that you see how hard he or she worked to accomplish their goals by making a huge deal about it. Consider holding a company-wide celebration, offering a small bonus, or a half-day off. If your employees felt celebrated and appreciated for working hard to help the company succeed, they’ll be more likely to jump on board when it’s time to start reaching for the next goal. Once you’ve completed this four-step process, we have no doubt that your company leadership will be pleased with the level of morale and the health of the bottom line at your company. It’s important to note, however, that this is not a one-time process. To keep your employees inspired, this will need to be an ongoing cycle of identifying the “why,” setting and achieving challenging goals and celebrating victories.
Inspire Today for a Great Tomorrow
Sometimes it can feel hard to find different ways to inspire your team but the effort of doing so is well worth the reward. A team that is feeling good about their work and who their working for will always go the extra mile and productivity will soar. If you’re looking for coaching in this area or others, GCE can help. Let’s start the conversation today.