3 Simple and Powerful Ways to Motivate Your Team
Anju Debnath
Founder | Midlife Reinvention | Turning Experience into Unstoppable Growth
Do you want to boost your team’s spirit and create a more productive environment? Here are three simple techniques:
1) Remember to appreciate the work that they do
If you lead an extremely large team you may not have exact insight into what each one does in your unit. But a simple, “thank you” will make a person feel like they are appreciated, and that they matter.
A while ago I met this very nice woman, she worked as a janitor; whenever I saw her she seemed happy and content, at times we would chit-chat a bit. One day she seemed a bit sad. When I asked her about this, she said that she had a sick kid at home, but she couldn’t afford to take time-off from work. I felt bad not knowing what else I could say or offer, I just tried to comfort her by saying that “you know, without you this place won’t be the same. People may not say much but everyone appreciates the work that you do”. I still remember she had this big smile on her face and that just made my day.
2) Treat your team as you’d treat your family
A LinkedIn member once wrote, “Your team is not like your family... they are your family.” I totally agree with that statement. We always say that our teams are like our families, but when it comes to raising a family we make many sacrifices. It’s worth thinking about, if we would make the same sacrifices for our teams if situation arises?
Imagine that the world is ending, and you got lucky to get on a spaceship that will travel to a livable planet. And you can take limited number of people along with you. Of course, you will take your family with you; but, if your team members didn’t cross your mind then you haven’t built that meaningful connection yet, so keep connecting.
3) Invest in them, your return will be ten-fold
Take the time to learn about the people who report to you, and also the people who report to them. Figure out what motivates them to come into work every single morning, clear their pathways so that they can do more of the things that motivates them.
Several years ago, one of my team members came up with this cool side project idea that he wanted to do. I figured it will take him only a couple of hours each week, but this project had the potential to automate a lot of manual work and save the organization about $200k. I took a chance, did the project, and it took about 10 hours within a span of one month. It saved the company $200k every year from then on. It may not seem like a lot, but imagine doing that for 5 side projects, and you could save the organization one million dollars every year!