Motivate Your Team! Eight Quick Tips to Motivate for Success
Motivate Your Team! Eight Quick Tips to Motivate for Success
The following are eight quick tips to motivate your team:
1. Everyone Has Motivation
Your employees are motivated on some level. It is your job to find the level of their motivation and move your employees to the next level.
2. Listen to WIIFM
I wake up every morning listening to a very important radio station, WIIFM. I hope you do too. WIIFM stands for What’s In It For Me? To truly be a motivator, you must always be in tune to your employees’ WIIFM. Find out why it is beneficial for your employees to do a task, etc. Once you find out the employees’ motives, you find out how to motivate them.
3. It’s about Pain or Pleasure
Motivate your employees toward pleasure or away from pain. You motivate toward the pleasure by providing recognition, incentives, and rewards for doing a good job. You motivate away from the pain of a corrective action, losing a position, or doing a poor job. The key to this motivation is to be consistent with all your employees at all times.
4. Give Me a Reason
Do it because I said so! Well, with our educated workforce these days, that doesn’t work anymore. Employees like to know why tasks are being requested of them so that they can feel involved and that the task has worth. Let your employees know why doing the task is important to you, the organization, and for them.
5. Let Me Understand You
Take time to show sincere interest in your employees as people. Understand what your employees are passionate about in their lives. What are their special passions? What are their personal needs? What brings them joy or pain? What are their short-range and long-range goals? Once you understand the answers to these questions, you can move them to a new level of motivation, because you cared enough to ask the questions and show interest in their success. Once you understand your employee’s needs and goals, they will take more interest in understanding and achieving your goals.
6. Make Me Proud
Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.” Give your employees the opportunity to be proud of their work. Reward team members publicly for a job well done. Give them an opportunity in a team meeting to explain how they accomplished the job. Have your organization’s Director, President, Vice President, etc., give recognition to these employees by personally sending a note, recognizing them in an organizational or team meeting, or creating a “Hall or Wall of Fame” recognition for employees that really have gone beyond the call of duty.
7. Expect the Best
Expect the best and your employees will rise to that level. How do you do this? You do it with the words you use. Are you expressing positive expectations, or are you using words (kind of, sort of, we’ll try, we have to, we haven’t done that before, and that will never work) that communicate negative expectations? What does your body language say about you? Does it say, “I’m ready to take on any challenge, and I expect you can also;” or does your body language say “Please don’t give me another problem. I can’t handle it.”
Do our recognitions and rewards move our employees to do their best? Do we consistently communicate our standards and expectations for the best? Do we coach our team to always do better?
8. Walk the Talk
Our employees model our behavior. If we are confident about a major change in the organization, our employees will follow our behavior. If we come in late and leave early, guess what will happen? Remember, even when you don’t think someone is watching…they are always watching. Set the example for others to follow.
Apply these eight simple rules of motivation and you, too, will have the skills to motivate your team to be inspired, innovative, self-directed, and highly productive employees.
Motivate Your Team Eight Quick Tips to Motivate for Success - To learn more about this author, visit Ed Sykes's Website.
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Motivation is the key ingredient for success in any organization. You can have all the technical skills in the world; however, if you can’t motivate your team, you will not achieve success. As a leader, a majority of your job is to motivate others to succeed so that everyone’s goals are accomplished.
The following are eight quick tips to motivate your team:
1. Everyone Has Motivation
Your employees are motivated on some level. It is your job to find the level of their motivation and move your employees to the next level.
2. Listen to WIIFM
I wake up every morning listening to a very important radio station, WIIFM. I hope you do too. WIIFM stands for What’s In It For Me? To truly be a motivator, you must always be in tune to your employees’ WIIFM. Find out why it is beneficial for your employees to do a task, etc. Once you find out the employees’ motives, you find out how to motivate them.
3. It’s about Pain or Pleasure
Motivate your employees toward pleasure or away from pain. You motivate toward the pleasure by providing recognition, incentives, and rewards for doing a good job. You motivate away from the pain of a corrective action, losing a position, or doing a poor job. The key to this motivation is to be consistent with all your employees at all times.
4. Give Me a Reason
Do it because I said so! Well, with our educated workforce these days, that doesn’t work anymore. Employees like to know why tasks are being requested of them so that they can feel involved and that the task has worth. Let your employees know why doing the task is important to you, the organization, and for them.
5. Let Me Understand You
Take time to show sincere interest in your employees as people. Understand what your employees are passionate about in their lives. What are their special passions? What are their personal needs? What brings them joy or pain? What are their short-range and long-range goals? Once you understand the answers to these questions, you can move them to a new level of motivation, because you cared enough to ask the questions and show interest in their success. Once you understand your employee’s needs and goals, they will take more interest in understanding and achieving your goals.
6. Make Me Proud
Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.” Give your employees the opportunity to be proud of their work. Reward team members publicly for a job well done. Give them an opportunity in a team meeting to explain how they accomplished the job. Have your organization’s Director, President, Vice President, etc., give recognition to these employees by personally sending a note, recognizing them in an organizational or team meeting, or creating a “Hall or Wall of Fame” recognition for employees that really have gone beyond the call of duty.
7. Expect the Best
Expect the best and your employees will rise to that level. How do you do this? You do it with the words you use. Are you expressing positive expectations, or are you using words (kind of, sort of, we’ll try, we have to, we haven’t done that before, and that will never work) that communicate negative expectations? What does your body language say about you? Does it say, “I’m ready to take on any challenge, and I expect you can also;” or does your body language say “Please don’t give me another problem. I can’t handle it.”
Do our recognitions and rewards move our employees to do their best? Do we consistently communicate our standards and expectations for the best? Do we coach our team to always do better?
8. Walk the Talk
Our employees model our behavior. If we are confident about a major change in the organization, our employees will follow our behavior. If we come in late and leave early, guess what will happen? Remember, even when you don’t think someone is watching…they are always watching. Set the example for others to follow.
Apply these eight simple rules of motivation and you, too, will have the skills to motivate your team to be inspired, innovative, self-directed, and highly productive employees.
Motivate Your Team Eight Quick Tips to Motivate for Success - To learn more about this author, visit Ed Sykes's Website.
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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