7 Top Tips on How to Motivate Your Team

Have a Clear Purpose and Well Defined Goals

It is vital that you communicate with your team and share your vision of what you want to achieve and how you want to go about it. You should set clear goals and targets so that your team members have absolute transparency about what is expected from them in terms of performance and results. In the communicating of your message you should share your passion and consequently inspire passion. Passion about what we do, whatever it may be is the greatest motivator of all.

Develop a Team Spirit

You can promote a team culture in a variety of ways, from conducting team building activities, leading by example and just plain having fun. Clearly there are times when it is important to take tasks and activities seriously, but by creating opportunities to have fun and participating yourself, you will foster a team with synergy. There is nothing like shared humour to bring people together.

Promote a Team Culture

Let the group make its own rules and utilise your influence only if the rules get off track. Encourage team members to offer their opinions or suggestions no matter how unimportant they may seem. Giving and receiving feedback is a vital part of keeping the lines of communication open and thus fostering a cohesive culture within the team.

Conduct Productive Meetings

Meetings are a fact of life and not always welcomed by participants due to time imposts and other factors. However if you ensure that there is clarity in purpose for the meeting and ensure that discussions stay on track and all team members participate equally then you will find that it is more likely that team members will look to meetings as being a positive and beneficial experience. And as a consequence it is also more likely that the meetings will actually be tangibly productive.

Encourage Team Initiative

Encourage team members to use their initiative and to think outside of the box. Creativity and innovation should be encouraged to build a climate of continuous improvement. Be sure to accept and implement team recommendations insofar as is possible. Most important of all, reward and recognise excellence in a tangible way whether this be financial or simply by way of a certificate of achievement or special presentation. The odd box of chocolates or a bottle of wine goes down well too.

Develop Self Managed Work Teams

Ensure that you delegate tasks. It is not always easy to delegate, but it is important that you do. By delegating you demonstrate to your team that you trust in their ability to do the job and to do it well. This will also encourage and promote a feeling of ownership, accountability and responsibility on the part of your team members and develop their sense of commitment to the business. Be mindful that micro managing your team will not support a positive response from your team – let go and let your team get on with it!

Stay Connected

Make sure you walk the walk and talk the talk. Even if your team is functioning like a well-oiled machine, issues can still arise. If you are in touch with your team, you will be in a position to identify potential issues and resolve them before they can morph into a larger problem that might have the potential to undo all your team building work.