If you’ve been a manager for some time now, you’ve probably noticed that your team’s motivation has peaks and valleys. But have you noticed lately that your employees aren’t showing the same spark as they used to months or even years ago?
If this is the case, you may want to look at the tactics you're using to help create and support the right working culture for your employees. The great thing is there are various proven strategies that can help your teams stay motivated while helping them work towards common business goals.
Encourage Productive Dialogue
Have you ever held a meeting that you were hoping would be productive but only started and ended with awkward silence? This can often discourage managers from even taking the time to meet regularly. However, you shouldn’t let your team’s reserved nature discourage you from having regular communication.
Impromptu meetings with very little context will often put your employees on edge, and they won't have time to prepare questions or comments. A great way to do this is by making each meeting an important event by creating agendas in advance for team discussions with action items that each employee can contribute to.
Try to make all of your discussions with team members productive by outlining a specific objective you’re trying to have in each meeting. Part of this objective should always be to allow your employees to voice any concerns or opinions they have so they feel heard and respected at all times.
Instill the Importance of a Proactive Company Culture
As a manager, it’s important that you avoid waiting around for things to go around before you get involved. Remaining proactive in your team’s development and supporting the right company culture are important.
But being a proactive company leader doesn’t just mean identifying potential issues going on with your teams and being an active problem solver. Although this can be important, your proactivity should also extend to regularly looking for ways to reward individuals who show initiative.
By finding ways to highlight your team’s accomplishments rather than just looking for situations where they could have done better helps you build a trusting relationship with your teams. This is an important part of encouraging your team to grow.
Champion Diversity Within Your Team
No one wants to work with a team of office drones. Everyone sitting in rows of cubicles doing the same tasks and not contributing anything of interest is boring for the employees and can be bad for business. This is where focusing on diversity in your teams can help make discussions more lively and introduce fresh perspectives on how to get work accomplished.
When you have a team made up of individuals from all walks of life and from varying professional backgrounds, you can leverage their unique creativity and problem-solving skillsets.
Leadership teams should work closely with their HR departments to make sure they’re implementing diverse hiring practices and have a great pool of candidates to choose from when filling new roles.
Promote Shared Responsibility
It’s very common today - especially as so many companies operate distributed workforces remotely - for there to be confusion regarding who has responsibility for certain tasks or projects. Lack of visibility across teams can be part of the issue, but also, there can also be barriers that some employees put up when they do not want to share accountability.
The “that’s not my job” mindset can quickly creep up when team projects are not properly communicated or when managers don’t check in with their employees regularly. It’s important to avoid allowing toxic attitudes to develop towards other members of the team if they’re feeling overwhelmed with their own tasks and unwilling to support others.
Instead, instill the importance of team spirit with all of your employees. More hands make the work lighter, and when employees always notice others helping them out in different areas of their own assignments, they’ll be more inclined to do the same for others.
Establish Clear Objectives
If your employees don’t have a clear vision of the direction they should be moving, your projects are almost doomed to fail. This is the case when trying to meet important deadlines or when coordinating production efforts for tradeshows.
It’s important for all of your team members to have full transparency when it comes to the big-picture objectives and the goals and milestones they should be hitting regularly to get there.
Individual goal setting can be such an important part of this process, as it allows each employee to understand what their role is when contributing to the company’s overall success. Keep the goals you set reasonable and attainable to help them from feeling overwhelmed or anxious day-to-day.
When employees feel like they have purpose in their roles, it helps them avoid feeling like they’re constantly “out of the loop” when it comes to the priorities of the company and their department.
Adapt and Thrive With Change
There are a few things that are as scary to business leaders and their employees as change. While many people like to claim that they love change when it comes, most are usually caught off guard by the stress it can cause them.
The truth is that change can be hard to accept in many settings because it disrupts the normal flow of activities - and, by extension, our own comfort levels. However, as a leader, your job is to help your team be more accepting of change and help them view these moments as opportunities for positive improvement.
This all starts with your attitude when new changes are introduced to the company or your department. Rather than showing an indifferent or even defensive attitude toward these changes, showcase your excitement when improving team processes or making things more efficient. This can help your team recognize that not all change is bad and be more on board with helping you execute any shifts in the department's day-to-day functions.
Create a Cohesive Team You Can Count On
There are always challenges that come up when trying to keep your team regularly motivated every day. However, by applying some of these fundamental leadership strategies, you’ll be sure to get the best work out of all of your employees while helping to reinforce a supportive and dynamic company culture.
Author Name: Cameron Magee
Author Bio:
Cameron Magee, the owner of avad3 Event Production, is a passionate and dedicated professional who began his journey in event production as a curious 12-year-old at his childhood church. Today, he leads a team of hard-working production professionals, having built avad3 from his college dorm room into a national production company, committed to both client success and the well-being of his team.
