10 Top Tips to Motivate Your Team

Motivation comes from within an individual and so only the individual themselves can decide if they will be motivated or not. Managers can't do it for them, however hard they try, so this might explain why motivation is still a hot topic.

But what managers and leaders can do is to develop a skill set which will enable them to create the right environment within which an employee will be self-motivated. If that doesn't exist then it is by chance that people will be motivated.

This motivating and empowering environment needs to include at the very least the following:

• Support and encouragement
• Access to training and development opportunities
• Feedback on performance
• Praise

3 Key Motivational Practices

Three great ways to achieve this are:

1 Coaching

Criticism could be seen as an effective means of motivating someone and in former times, it was a popular motivational tool used by managers. But we now know that rather than encourage people to achieve more, criticism can have the opposite effect and reinforce lack of confidence and poor performance.

As a one-to-one interaction aimed at supporting and developing the individual, coaching is a prime motivational tool and can be a means to discovering the individual motivators of each team member. It is vital for managers to know this so they can set up the environment for each of their employees.

2 Feedback

Feedback is a way of helping another person to consider changing his/her behaviour and is normally two-fold in its intention: motivational and developmental. It is a communication process which gives someone information about how s/he performs and, if appropriate, how s/he affects others. Feedback helps the individual to keep their performance "on target" in order to achieve certain standards and goals.

3 Goal Setting

Staff cannot be given feedback on progress and target achievement if they are not clear on their targets in the first place! Thus setting goals and targets, or assisting team members to set their own as appropriate, is an essential part of the motivational process.

10 Tips to Motivate your Team

Everyone is motivated by different needs but generally when people feel good about themselves, the work they do, and the organisation they work for, it is much easier to gain their cooperation. Below is a list of ten ways in which managers and leaders can extract the very best out of staff which is of benefit to the team, the manager and the organisation as a whole.

1. Involve team members in the decision-making process. Give them a share in decision making. If not deciding what is to be done, then how it is to be done, or when or in what way, by whom. Let their participation increase over time.
2. Keep them informed about changes that can directly affect them such as policy changes, procedure or rule changes, product information changes, and performance changes.
3. Be aware of the morale level of your team Be sensitive to changes in morale. Know when and why it goes up or down.
4. Maintain an 'open-door' policy. Be approachable, available, and interested, not distant.
5. Develop a caring attitude. A good manager trains, develops, counsels, guides, and supports their team and be sure to listen. Always listen to and try to understand what people are really saying.
6. Outline job responsibilities. Make certain that team members know exactly what is expected of them and how their performance will be evaluated.
7. Always treat people with respect. Be thoughtful and considerate of the person you are dealing with.
8. Ask for suggestions. Be sure to invite suggestions and new ideas from team members concerning work. Be willing to put good ideas into action by making changes.
9. Give recognition. Give appropriate praise and recognition for a job well done.
10. Maintain high standards. By involving team members in establishing high standards of performance, you will build their pride and self-confidence

Top tip

Remember that we are all motivated by different factors; find out what these are for each of your team and you will be on the way to creating a environment within which they can do their best work.