How to Motivate Others on Your Team

There isn’t much problem when it comes to yours, but when you want to motivate others in your team, then you can’t just tell them “you need to be more motivated, you need passion in your job.” In fact, that sometimes can affect the total opposite way you’ve expected it to. But it’s true, with one member in the team who isn’t as excited or motivated about the project will drop productivity for all team members. What can you do to avoid this? In this article, we’ll talk about how to manage motivation as a team leader.

Raise

The quickest, the most effective, and the most difficult way of motivating someone is giving them a raise. I think there’s no need for a detailed explanation, and I do believe you can understand the effect of a raise is bringing one’s thoughts to “I’m not satisfied about my job” to “I’m not satisfied about my job, but the manager appreciates my efforts.” This will reduce stress. But it’s also very toxic. Once you solve a problem with money, it becomes difficult to solve other problems another way. Give a raise or bonus when they deserve it, and try to treat all team members equally.

Talk

Stress builds up when you can’t relieve it. You have no one to talk about how you are feeling, you feel like you’re treated differently or underestimated, you feel like you’re not cared about considering your contribution… That builds up and drops motivation dramatically. No one wants to work for someone who won’t appreciate you. To solve this, there is a need for engagement in the team. Old school, but drinks and dinners after work provides an opportunity for communication. Learn what others are thinking, what they value, and think of how you as a team leader or manager can assist in that. Key here is don’t just let yourself in the conversation with an “I want to hear all about you” attitude. Asking someone out for a drink without trust or rapport will come in with a shock, so do some chatting and build that internal communication before you jump into the core topic.

Create a easy to work environment

Once you’ve established the problem, or to create a better working environment, making changes internally is also very important. It could be something ideal, such as one can take a snack break without notifying anyone if it’s under 10 minutes, or something physical, like upgrading technology or software for easier use. It could even be just having a comfortable sofa in the office, or the team sharing a specific hobby outside of work. There are countless ways in making one wanting to work in the team and for other team members. What people want differs by individual, but that can be solved by a quick meeting. What’s important is, to make one feel “I want to work for this team” and that’s the motivation you want to build.

Make clear the outcomes of one’s work

Sometimes people don’t know what or why they’re working. They aren’t feeling the satisfaction in work. And unfortunately, satisfaction isn’t something that can be handed over from someone else. What a team leader or manager can do, is to share everything, including the decision making process and management of others, sometimes maybe even letting that individual try it out, and show the whole picture to show them how their work affects the whole outcome. Understanding what and why one works, might help that one find passion. Of course, some people won’t care. It’s not a master key solution, but it is an option.

Competition

Competing brings passion. When one races for a solution, usually there is some sort of energy to motivate actions. Think of games; you always compete with other players, ranking, strong enemies and your past score, and focus on winning with creativity and many trials. When the goal is reached, you rejoice. Having competition in the team can really be a game changer.

Give management

Having responsibility, or the ability to do more, pulls the motivation up. Understanding why you work must come first, but once that is gained, you can give some authority to other team members that might speed up the whole process. And the feel of contribution could possibly motivate that individual. Usually this is called a promotion, but if the team leader or manager can take all the responsibility, leaving the decision making to team members not only could create strong responsibility and motivation, and even get you off some of your duties.