ArunaagiriBuilding a team, achieving goals, and staying motivated and engaged are challenging. These are proven tactics for improving productivity and efficiency in any work environment. Executives are all thinking about keeping their employees motivated and productive in an uncertain economy and the new normal of remote work.
Pick, Hire, And Lead A Team Ready To Work Together.
With the right people and the right atmosphere for their growth, you can expect a lot from your team. Use the tips below to surround yourself with hard-working, resourceful people working toward common business goals.
Diversify Your Team
First, surround yourself with a diverse team. Diversity and inclusion bring tremendous benefits to the workplace. A broad mix of colleagues from different backgrounds brings diverse thinking to the room. Several studies have shown that the more diverse companies at the conference table are, the more productive and profitable they are.
Lead with Gratitude and Share Regularly
Gratitude is beneficial in the office, virtual or not. Recognize team members personally or publicly for their achievements and determine how each person would like to be recognized.
Do you like gifts? Email your boss? Shout out more publicly on a large team conference call. Align your perception with them.
This exercise will direct the circle of appreciation towards your team and beyond. Set a weekly calendar reminder to show your teammates how much you appreciate them. It’s human nature to get recognition for a job well done. Resentment can quickly build up when good work is constantly overlooked.
Be Authentic And Vulnerable
Earlier this year, the team gave me a critical wake-up call with feedback that my credibility and vulnerability were very low. They wanted me to explain the problematic site.
Perfectionism is scary and makes it difficult for people to work with you. I was outspoken and created a safe environment where my team felt more comfortable speaking up. And the more they spoke out, the newer ideas they shared and the more innovative and productive they became.
Prioritize Health
For your team to be able to put their heart and soul into their work, you need to create a space where they can talk. Breathing, mindfulness, and sharp focus reminders are great ways to take breaks from work and promote perspective, calmness, and creativity. In addition to stimulating wellness days and downtime when needed, meetings can begin with a few minutes of meditation. Start with a quick ‘temperature check’ of your team (red, yellow, green) to see how your team is feeling, what issues they are having, and their current stress level.
Leaders should encourage their teams to be the best they can be. I tried this exercise and was very successful.
Ask them to write down health goals that are important to them. Plan to set aside time to do some stress-relieving exercises a few times a week. Encourage team members to write down what is essential for staying healthy. Schedule regular check-ins to help you prioritize and stay on track with these goals. This is a great way to build accountability and team support while encouraging healthy habits.
Accomplishing Goals
Your team should have a short list of three to four clear goals (the well-known elevator pitch) to work towards together. Repeat these goals constantly and ensure your whole team is as familiar with them as you are. Once everyone has the big picture in mind, the next step is to focus on each individual and help them achieve their goals.
Role Clarity
Everyone on the team should know their role and the unique skills needed to support them. Clarified roles reduce duplication, reduce redundancy, and increase productivity. Each group learns the special skills its members possess to mentor each other for continued growth and learning.
Take Precedence over Ruthlessness.
One of my favourite sayings is, “Don’t prioritize until it hurts.” Always ensure what you’re doing and what you can cut back to make room for more impactful things needed. With this philosophy, teams don’t waste energy and lose productivity.
Communicating with Context
A whole story is necessary for people to be successful. For example, adding these few extra sentences to your email to explain the background and goals of your project can make a big difference to your success and inspiration. If not, the method of communication needs to be completer and more impactful.
Make Your Daily Workflow More Efficient
The more insight your team has into leadership direction and decisions, the more aligned and productive your team will be. Plus, with the right tools and resources, you can spend less time on mundane tasks and more on significant projects.
Set A Single Source Of Truth
Juggling multiple fast-paced projects across multiple people is expected.
Does your team know where to find accurate and up-to-date information about each project or initiative? Creating shared documents, websites, spreadsheets, or anything else with broad access and the correct data and maintenance is essential.
Also, create his playbooks for each role and process. Record and document what is working and what is not so all team members can start working. You can also share these playbooks with other teams so they can easily and quickly collaborate and adopt best practices.
Create a culture of Coaching.
Provide regular feedback to your team. Guide them by asking questions but withholding answers. People learn when they draw their conclusions. And when people know, they are enthusiastic and productive.
We have also had great success with peer coaching, a safe way to try out new skills and scale projects. If someone has a talent valuable to others, such as an analytics platform expert, make that person a team liaison to mentor others on questions and team development. People learn much by looking at their peers and getting feedback, not just their bosses. Share your success with your team.
Make Use of The Right Technology
Today’s technology helps teams keep their skills relevant and adequate and work more efficiently. It provides every opportunity to streamline work and communication, reducing manual and time-consuming tasks. Make the most of technology to lead your team to success. A big part is investing in training your team, so they know how to use the system effectively.
Build Trust By Connecting
The more people you know and trust throughout your organization, the easier it is to collaborate on projects and complete tasks efficiently. Make sure your team has time and opportunities to network outside the group.
Connect virtually by inviting someone to a coffee chat and sending them a coffee voucher in advance. You can ask another group’s team or her leader to a weekly meeting. Join a mentoring program as a mentee or mentor. Start his channel to discuss common interests collaboratively, like sharing cute pet pictures or vacation pics. The important thing is to add names and faces that are friendly, familiar, and knowledgeable.
Keep your team motivated and inspired to maximize productivity.
Get to know your fellow players as real people. Our team runs a weekly sync where each person shares a few recent photos from their non-work life. It helps you build strong personal connections across your team, stay motivated and inspired, and be more productive.
Establish Team Identity And Vision
Create a written, shared vision with your team to build alignment and engagement. Together, define what you want people to know, how you want to treat each other, what key moments you want to celebrate, and how other teams perceive you. A team kick-off like this aligns everyone on shared values and ensures that the vision includes what motivates all team members.
Find Stretch Projects To Help Team Members Grow
Teams become more motivated and productive as they learn new skills and grow in roles. Understand which types of projects energize team members and drain batteries. Then find a stretching project to help you grow, learn, and stay energized.
Celebrate Team Victories And Failures
Not only should you know when to praise your team, but you should also be careful to be specific with your awards. Celebrate their exceptional achievements instead of just saying, “Well done!” Are they forging new relationships that make a difference? Are they learning new systems and tools? Give them a good compliment, and you will soon see the ripples of that compliment. Frequent positive feedback is associated with increased employee creativity.
Remember to acknowledge and celebrate your team’s mistakes and willingness to take calculated risks. Failure is an opportunity to learn, grow, move forward, and become more productive in the long run. Create an environment where it is okay to take significant risks and fail. Focus on lessons learned and what to try next time. The rest of the team learns from what went wrong and how the person bounced back from setbacks.
Add comment