Archive for the ‘Motivating Others’ Category

Motivation is often a big challenge for leaders and managers. In this short video blog post I share some tips and insights.

Please leave a comment with your best tips.

If you are managing a team of people, I am guessing that you want to do it well.

Being more effective as a manager is partly down to understanding what employees want from managers.

This includes:

1. Clarity about what is expected of employees.
2. Regular feedback on how they are performing and particularly the things that they are doing well.
3. Support and encouragement to help the employees progress their careers and get the best from their roles.
4. Challenge and the opportunity to grow and develop.

What else would you add to the list?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

Motivating a team of people is one of the biggest challenges facing leaders and managers.

Trouble is so many managers and leaders believe, often incorrectly, that money is a motivator. Yes, people need to feel like they are fairly rewarded for what they deliver. However, as research shows, money in itself is not a long term motivator.

So how do you find out what motivates people? Well, you could simply ask them. After all, it’s important enough to ask at the time of recruiting, why would it not be useful to check with people you have not employed periodically?

Once you have an idea what motivates people, you might want to:

1. Regularly praise people when they have done a good job.
2. Learn to see challenges and problems from their perspective and acknowledge their point of view.
3. Give them new challenges or opportunities to build their skills.
4. Get them to deputise for you at a meeting or while you are on holiday.
5. Make time for staying in touch with your people rather than just being tied to your desk.
6. Understand and help them to achieve their career aspirations.

The reality is that a lot of motivation is common sense. Sadly, it is often common sense which is not all that common.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

A recent report from The Institute for Employment Studies, “The Engaging Manager”, highlights some interesting learning points for managers.

The overarching finding from the research that had been undertaken was that the line manager relationship was criticised.

Other points that came up were that:

• Engaging managers tended to be happy in their current posts and still on the development curve.
• The majority regarded themselves as good internal networkers.
• It was valuable to learn from others (the good and not so good) in order to develop a style that worked for them.
• Goals and expectations needed to be clearly stated.
• Feedback was seen as an important element as was encouraging.
• They were willing to tackle poor performance even if they did not like doing this.
• They created a strong team spirit.
• They were willing to roll up their sleeves when it was necessary.
• They supported the development of team members.
• They were very open.
• They were able to balance autonomy and monitoring progress.

So I wonder how you stack up as a manager when it comes to engaging others?

For a summary of the report go to The Institute for Employment Studies website.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

Keeping people motivated is probably one of the biggest challenges that a manager faces. So what are the top tips to be a better and more successful motivator?

Tip 1: Set clear goals

Everyone wants clarity about what they are expected to deliver. Make a point of setting crystal clear goals.

Tip 2: Listen more and speak less

People understand that decisions have to be made. At the same time, they want to feel like they have had the opportunity to contribute. Listening to the ideas of others can be hugely beneficial to motivating others.

Tip 3: Praise regularly

Make a point of praising people, not just for achievements but also for effort. Sometimes just having a go leads to confidence and motivation being lifted.

Tip 4: Encourage others

Managers who take the time to encourage and support others get that time returned in bucket loads.

Tip 5: Show them they can count on you

Sometimes, when things are not going well, the team will find themselves under incredible stress. At these times, you as the manager or leader need to show the team that you can be relied upon to stand up for them.

The bottom line

The truth is motivation is rarely about money but about doing some simple things well.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers. For more information click here

As a manager you have to deal with all types of people from all walks of life with different, attitudes and motivations.  The challenge therefore is to be as aware as you can be about the people you manage so that you can interact with them appropriately and achieve the best results.

 

The people that you manage are likely to fall into one of following behavioural zones as a default.  This does not mean they are always in this zone but the default is their natural preference.

 

Analytical

 

The people who are in the analytical zone as their default will be motivated and really keen on quality.  The analytical types tend to work best when dealing with facts.

 

Drivers

 

As the name suggests the people whose default zone is driver tend to be action orientated folks.  They get their spark not by getting into action and getting things done.

 

Amiables

 

The big focus for the amiables is on relationships.  They are motivated by co-operating and working with others.

 

Expressives 

 

The expressives tend to be at the other of the scale from the analytical folks in that they are very much interested in the big picture.

 

Chances are that you will be able to recognise some people that you manage that fit really neatly into one category or another and some that flit a bit more between more than one category.  The value of understanding which zone people tend to operate in is that as a manager:

 

1. You can choose strategies for motivating that are really going to motivate.  For example, asking a driver to reflect is probably just going to leave them confused. 
2. You can adapt your management style to the person you are interacting with so that it fits and hits a chord with the other person. 
3. You get better at seeing and appreciating different perspectives or ways of looking at things. 
4. You are open to taking on board and understanding different takes on issues which helps you deliver better results.

 

Bottom Line – Success as a manager is as much about understanding others as it is what you do personally.  So what do you need to do to create more success as a manager?

 

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps professional people to become highly effective managers and leaders.  For more information about services and programme click here

As a manager, major part of your role is to get the best from the people that you manage.  You know that a motivated employee will go that extra step to deliver or help you to deliver results.  So what are the 5 golden rules when it comes to motivating?

 

Rule 1:  Get to know your people

                                                                                                        

Yes you probably know who all of your staff are, their job title and what they do.  On the other hand do you really know what it is that motivates the people you manage.  While everyone needs to earn a wage, each of us has different things that motivate us.  For some it will be being supported, for others it will be about having autonomy and others might thrive on challenge.  If you don’t know what motivates people you could easily end up de-motivating people by using inappropriate strategies.

 

Rule 2: Make time for those that you manage

 

Most managers are busy people and no doubt you are to.  When you have your deadlines to meet and results to deliver it is all too easy to forget about the people that you manage.  If you fail to set aside time for interacting with the people that you manage it simply will not happen.  If your boss never made any time for you, how motivated would you be?

 

Rule 3:  Make a point of noticing effort and achievement

 

The best mangers realise that time spent letting people know that you are aware of the effort they are making or the result that they have delivered is time well spent.  All of us to a greater or lesser extent thrive on getting feedback so don’t lose out on the opportunity.

 

Rule 4: Create a sense of excitement

 

All jobs after a while become more routine and less fresh and exciting.  As the manager you need to try and keep that sense of excitement in roles.  This might be by challenging people to find new or better ways of doing something or giving them more freedom to do things their way.

 

Rule 5: Remember it is rarely about money

 

Yes everyone needs to earn what they view is a reasonable rate of pay for the time, expertise and effort that they have given.  On the other hand study after study into what matters to employees reveal that the source of dissatisfaction is rarely just about money.  Make a point of keeping the things that make people tick at the forefront of your mind.

 

 

Bottom Line – A happy, motivated team of people who you manage can help you deliver great results.  So what do you need to give more attention to in order to be a more successful manager?

I have been running a survey recently on newsletter topics that my readers would find most helpful and motivation is a theme that is continually being highlighted. With so much uncertainty in many industries and sectors right now because of the challenging economic conditions, it is easy to see why keeping people motivated would be a major challenge for managers.

So what would be my top tips for keeping people motivated in these challenging times?

Tip 1:  Make time for people

Yes you might have so much to do that you think you cannot sit down with individuals and your team to discuss challenges and what you can collectively do about them.  The reality is that a short regular meeting can go a long way to keeping spirits up.  It takes little or no time and the payback will be significant.

Tip 2:  Listen more

You might have heard the phrase a problem shared is a problem halved.  In other words sometimes people just need you to listen to and acknowledge their worries and fears, even if they know that there is no immediate answer or solution.

Tip 3: Say thank you

It never ceases to amaze me that managers forget about the cheapest and sometimes most powerful form of motivation which is to say thank you when people have met the deadline, pulled out the stops and generally done that little bit extra to deliver.  Even a two line e-mail can have a positive impact.

At the end of the day keeping people motivated is a key part of your success as a manager right now.  Let me have your thoughts and tips on what works when it comes to keeping people motivated. 

Ask any manager or leader about some of their key challenges and chances are that motivating staff will be on the list.  We all know that better motivated staff produce better results and are more productive.  So what are my 8 top tips?

Tip 1: Give effective feedback

We all like to know how we are doing.  What we are doing well and what we need to work on.  Without feedback we are in the dark.  Effective feedback will not only praise the results but also highlight the traits or behaviours that are making them happen.  On the flip side, it will let people know what attributes or behaviours are not getting results.

Tip 2: Supportive leadership

Teams follow leaders that they know they can rely on.  Supportive leadership is about being there for people when things are tough and helping them to move forward.  It is about standing up for the team when they are coming under attack.  Like any form of leadership, you need to “walk the talk” or put more simply make sure your actions and words tie up.

Tip 3: Delegate

Yes it is great to hold on to things that we like doing but should not be doing.  It gives a message to staff that you don’t trust them.  Delegating is probably one area that leaders at all levels struggle with.  Yet if you are going to exploit your full potential you need to be ready to delegate both task and responsibility.

Tip 4: Allow risk taking

Let’s be clear, I am not talking about recklessness, but allowing staff to take some risk.  The benefits you get include:

• Staff feel more creative

• They find new ways of overcoming barriers

• It spurs them on when things go well

• They learn a lot when things do not go as expected

Tip 5: Train and develop

Yes there will always be people who are quite happy doing what they are doing and have no aspirations.  The vast majority of staff however, want to learn new skills, gain new experience, build their personal attributes and take on new challenges.  Make sure this opportunity is not lost.

Tip 6: Generate high expectations

When you set high expectations you inspire people to reach out and meet them.  The challenge is to ensure that your expectations require effort and some discomfort but are not completely out of reach.  Generating high expectations will mean that you will achieve a better result even if it is not the ideal.

Tip 7: Set goals

Goals are outcomes that you and your team want.  Setting goals gives you a clear destination to aim for.  It allows you to plan and set strategies in place to get there.  Think about goals a bit like a car journey.  Where you want to get to is the destination.  The mode of transport, the route and stop off points are the strategies you employ to get there.

Tip 8: Acknowledge achievements

Do you ever find yourself dismissing progress because you have not quite achieved the outcome you wanted?  This is easy to do and a simple technique to use is to remind the team of where you started, the progress that has been made and to celebrate achievements.

Motivating staff is challenging, but by adopting these 8 simple steps, you can start to move forward to greater success.

One of the key roles of anyone who is managing is to get results through others.  To get others to deliver results for you, it is vital that you motivate them.  Managers often believe that pay and rewards are the key things that motivate people.  Without doubt pay and rewards play a part of motivating people you manage but contrary to common belief, they are not the primary motivators of the majority of staff. 

The truth is that is often things that cost little or nothing which motivate.  For example:

• Saying thank you when people have put in extra effort
• Praising people when they have done a good job
• Offering opportunities to acquire new skills or experience

What do you find is most powerful when it comes to motivating others?