How to keep Team Motivated

 It is always a challenge to keep yourself and your team motivated for a long time. If the team is motivated, it can take up any Herculean tasks and if things are wrong manager has to take some corrective measures at right time to ensure that team is back in right spirit. There is no set of rules which will apply to all the individuals, for some appreciation and reward may work but may not work for others.

There are few things which I have learnt from experience to keep your team members motivated and there is still a lot to learn. Following are the ways that I think will keep your colleagues motivated –

Do yourself and then ask others to follow – If you want any new thing to be implemented – take lead. There is no other way that you can get others to follow until you do not start doing it yourself. For e.g. – You want to take initiative that all of your members should converse in English then you ahve to start talking with all in English.

Freedom of Expression – Allow your colleagues to speak their opinion. For e.g – Finalizing the timeline, best way to solve critical issues, future course of action. At times opinion of your colleage’s opinion might vary a lot but you should listen to them, keeping your bias aside. Put you points, discuss and try to come to a conclusion. Explain the reason behind your decision

Appreciate – Never miss a chance to appreciate someone. Appreciate work, Appreciate Dedication, Appreciate Leadership Skills, Appreciate Initiator, Appreciate in front of crowd, Provide reward as a certificate of Appreciation.

Never Loose your temper if some one is not up to the mark – There are times when some one is not up to your expectation. Reasons can be not correct skill set, lot of pressure, not correct tools, not in right frame of mind. Identify the issue and discuss it with individually and let them know that he is not up to the mark and areas of improvement.

Team Meetings – Keep meeting with your team members regularly. Discuss the progress, discuss road blocks , future course of actions. Involve all. Keep team informed about the latest updated about the project. Team meetings do help you know each other better. It also keep them updated about status of project.

Be Transparent – Be very transparent with your colleagues. If you are not satisfied with the performance of the team then do let them know. At times we take decision in haste w/o realizing what might be the reason of bad performance. So discuss this with members and then take decision. If a project is very critical and you want some extra effort from your team then talk to team and let them know why this is critical. I am sure all team members will put extra effort in 99% of cases.

Relax and Enjoy – Take Members Out for Lunch/Dinner. This help them gel with you, will provide a level of comfort. Have some team building activities and it will bring forward other aspects of your team.

Provide Ownership/Responsibility – Provide team members with Ownership/Responsibility of tasks. This will help them to think by themselves and come up with an idea.

Celebrate all achievements – Celebrate any success and achievements may be just with Diary Milk, Five Start. It bring sense of accomplishment. Spread the news of your success and share the celebration with everybody. Give credits to all.

Assign Fresh Challenge/Experiment/Allow Creativity – Keep on experimenting with processes, ways to work, new solution to same problem. Keep on giving fresh challenges so that things don’t get boring and there is always something new to learn. Allow your team to experiment and show creativity.

Provide Feedback – Keep on providing feedback in a positive manner.

Support team – Always support your team. Be a leader that team members can rely on you for any kind of situation.

Comfortable Environment – Provide an Environment so that everyone feels comfortable. Environment means proper infrastructure and tools for them to work efficiently.

Ronak