It’s tough times, so hold your team together and keep the flock motivated. Uplift their drive or you’re on the hot seat.
Connect to them
This is a priority in motivating your folks. Spend more time with them, understand if they have any issues at work that’s bothering them and offer a fix. Give them scope to do something that they are passionate about. Let them utilize 15 to 20 percent of their time on this. Look at Google’s policy of allowing employees to pursue their passion 20 percent of the time. It has produced a lot of new application for the company. Many innovative ideas will roll out of this rule. It’s the time for mentoring your key team mates. As a supervisor you have the responsibility to chart a career path and help people grow.
What makes employees tick?
Not everyone is motivated by money. A few may be driven by position. Yet others may be happy with recognition. As a supervisor, you must find out what makes your team mates tick. What really drives them. And use individual triggers to pump up their motivation levels.
Do they see meaning in the work they do?
Happiness is much more than just a job. There needs to be a purpose. Employees must be aware of the mission of the company. They must feel happy about contributing meaningfully to the team’s cause. Is the individual in alignment with the team’s cause. Or does one feel better off doing something else. As a manager you must harness the team’s capabilities and push them in the same direction.
Chalk a growth path
If team mates don’t know where they are headed, then you know that you’re heading nowhere. A sense of belonging will arise when the individual feels the company is long at his long term interests and chalking a growth path for him or her. Make him aware of a career path available for him. He’ll get his efforts and enthusiasm in the right direction.
Is the team gelling well as a unit
The binding factor of joy in a team is critical to keeping juniors motivated. How long is it since you took them out for coffee? Do you know if there are any fissures within the team. Step in now and save your team. Bonding between members is very important during bad times. Employees need to feel good about working on your team.
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How To Motivate
ReplyDeleteThe ability to get things done through other people is the greatest skill you need to become a successful manager.
That's easier said than done. In fact, managing the activities of others is the most difficult task in the world. After all, each human being has a mind of his own. Furthermore, the idea of depending on others to get things done is inherently at odds with the traits normally found in successful people such as confidence in one's own ability, controlled urgency, assertiveness and a yearning for control.
But if you crave success, you have to accept the proposition that you must learn to do less of the assignment at hand yourself and spend more time motivating others.
The fact is a manager can't motivate people. In the real world, people have to motivate themselves. The manager is most likely to accomplish his responsibilities as a motivator by providing an environment in which motivation can happen.
This environment exists when people are working in an organization that provides satisfactory answers to one simple question that everyone has on his or her mind: What's in it for me?
The answer may take many forms, but it will usually have to be made up of one or more of these ingredients:
• Money is the most obvious answer to the basic matter of self-interest that drives us all.
Money represents the power to buy the necessities, as well as the "good things" of life. It means security and prestige. It provides a yardstick of success.
• Respect and recognition combine to make a set of highly prized rewards. Mary Kay Ash, who built a merchandising power house by creating opportunities for people to motivate themselves to success, declared: "There are two things people want more than s*x and money; they are recognition and praise."
• People want to be rewarded by having work they can enjoy doing and take pride in.
• Everyone wants to feel what he or she does is important as an individual with influence over the outcome.
Parachutes used by U.S. airmen early in World War II were failing to open five times out of 100 jumps. Obviously, nothing less than perfection could be accepted. Repeated attempts to motivate parachute packers and inspectors to do a better job showed little results.
Finally, the workers motivated themselves to 100 percent quality when they were required to jump from airplanes wearing one of the 'chutes they had packed.
• People will motivate themselves to do good work when they feel they have an opportunity for personal growth and advancement.
• People have a strong incentive to motivate themselves when they believe they have a hand in determining the purpose of their work.
What's in it for you when you master the skills of motivation? Success as a manager with all the rewards that it provides.
Ramon Greenwood, Head Career Coach
commonsenseatwork.com