Motivation. Loyalty. Honesty. These are the traits of a strong team, and our main focus for this section. You see, a staff that does not contain these values, is destined to fail. Without motivation, there's no will to persevere through the hard times. Without loyalty, there's no support when the work gets challenging. Without honesty, there's not enough candidness to prevent bad ideas from succeeding. That's why this is so important.
Now the good news is, there are a variety of methods one can use to keep the team motivated, loyal, and honest. Unfortunately, the bad news is, there are a variety of methods one can use to keep the team motivated, loyal, and honest. This means, choosing the right approach isn't always the easiest decision. However, to avoid a hit or miss scenario with your tactics, I recommend defining and/or understanding how your company's employees feel about 3 main areas...
Relationship To The Work / Drivers for Success / View of Co-Workers
By completing this task, you'll be getting to the core of what's keeping the staff motivated, loyal, and honest. You'll understand the why behind certain reactions, and that's powerful. Additionally, you'll know which methods will help bring forth these specific traits, while quickly shutting down any ineffective actions you may want to take.
Employees' Relationship To Their Work
Bringing a company's vision to life, is a monumental task that will be filled with difficult times. If you want to achieve this goal, you'll have to find ways to keep your team going. This means getting to the heart of what's pushing these people forward and giving them the energy needed to complete tasks - day in and day out. Delving into their relationship with each task, is how you do just that.
Essentially, you're determining whether the staff, finds meaning in their work or views each task as an assignment that needs to be completed. Now more often than not, this decision will be made by leadership.
For start-ups this is absolutely true. Base your position around your management style. If you're someone who sees purpose in tasks, find people that need meaning in their work. If you believe work is just a series of tasks, find someone who thrives in an environment where work is an assignment to complete.
If you're staff is already filled out, survey the employees to see which way they lean. This will help you decide on new staff members as well as new management. When a superior is taking over a group that's motivated by meaning, there's going to be inherit conflict when he/she just gives out assignments and vice versa. Unless you're trying to change the culture. But that's a article for another day.
Before I move on to the next section, I want to highlight the importance of building around a collective mindset on this topic. When everyone's on the same page, you can quickly determine which tactics will work and which will fail. Time always equals money, and the longer people are unmotivated, the more it's going to cost your company. Additionally, when management uses a motivational style that aligns with the employees' views, you're going to have a happier staff. And a happy staff, is a productive staff.
Drivers for Success
There's an old adage that goes, "there's two sides to every coin." Well in this article, drivers of success and employees' relationship with work, are those 2 different sides of the same coin; They're both motivators. The only difference, one is short term (employees' relationship to work - pushes them day-to-day), and the other is long term (drivers for success - Keeps them going year after year). Now you'll find that there are 4 main drivers for success.
- Getting a Larger Salary
- Gaining a More Prestigious Title
- Praise from Co-Workers
- Mission of the Work
Each bullet is a tool that can be used to retain employees and keep them loyal. Obviously, you don't have to use just one tactic, but the frequency and the degree in which you use these tools, will shift your culture and affect your bottom line in different ways.
Because of this, I suggest ranking them in an order from most valued to least. Again, if you're running a start-up, this decision will be based on your values and beliefs. If you're an established company, this will already be embedded among the staff, and a quick survey will give you the information needed to know what's driving your staff. (Keep an eye out for future articles, where I'll go into more details about the impact each driver has a on the culture.)
Employees' Views of One Another
If you're looking to create a thriving business and healthy culture, it's essential that you cultivate an environment where the staff can be honest with each other - in any situation. The most effective way of doing this is by understanding the relationship your staff has with one another. You want to know, do they see each other as friends or strictly co-workers?
And what you're really determining is, will this emotional connection help or hurt honesty? Some people feel that being emotionally invested with other employees, hinders their ability to perform their tasks, while others believe it can enhance the experience and bring the team to new heights.
Clearly neither option is wrong, you just have to make sure everyone is on the same page. Any misalignment here and there will be conflict. Either the employee feels as though everyone around him/her isn't taking the job seriously enough (view other staff members as co-workers) or that everyone is extremely cold to one another (view other staff members as friends). In both cases, the employee is not fulfilled.
When this happens, they withdraw from the group because they don't believe they belong. And when you don't feel like you belong, you hold back your thoughts, and that can be detrimental.
Conversely, when the person is in the right environment, they'll open up and contribute to the best of their abilities. They'll be engaged. They'll do what's needed to bring the company's vision to life.
About the Author
Tom is the creator of Fulfillingly. He absolutely enjoys giving people the tips and tools they need to find a satisfying career or dependable employee. Tom does this by combining years of experience with incredible outside sources.
Tom is the creator of Fulfillingly. He absolutely enjoys giving people the tips and tools they need to find a satisfying career or dependable employee. Tom does this by combining years of experience with incredible outside sources.
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