"When people are crystal clear about the most important priorities of the organization and team they work with and prioritize their work around those top priorities, not only are they many times more productive, they discover they have the time they need to have a whole life." -- Stephen Covey, American educator and keynote speaker.
Toward More Productive Leadership: Seven Tips for Motivating Your Team |
You can spend months defining your team's core values, articulating your Mission and Vision, and fashioning a flexible, up-to-the-minute strategy---but your whole tower will crumble if your team members don't feel motivated enough to execute rapidly and consistently. If their collective attitude boils down to "Who cares?" then you've lost the game before you've even begun.
If that's true, then who's at fault? Well, you can blame your team if you like. You can even punish them for being unmotivated---a dangerous form of self-sabotage that will most likely force you farther toward failure. Or you can decide to shoulder the responsibility and work to engage your team and rev their motivational engines. The Lowdown
"Individual commitment to a group effort---that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work." So said legendary football coach Vince Lombardi, who had plenty of experience with both commitment and motivation. The son of a second-generation Italian-American butcher whose business prospered during the Great Depression, he grew up with daily exposure to the type of commitment required not just to survive but to thrive during hard times. He later earned a football scholarship to Fordham University, where he picked up the skills necessary to excel as a coach at West Point, and later with the New York Giants, Green Bay Packers, and Washington Redskins.
What can you do to inspire your team to the Lombardi level of commitment? Start by showing them you believe in them; you are going to hold them to a higher standard, because you have confidence they can achieve it. Try these tips, especially when the going gets tough:
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1. Make sure everyone understands the big picture.
If your team isn't already familiar with the organization's main goals, then lay them out in plain language. Show them where they fit within the organizational structure, and why their work moves everyone toward those goals. Make them feel valued, so they'll have reason to engage with and "own" their jobs.
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A Special Message from Laura |
Napoleon Hill's book Think and Grow Rich made a profound impact upon me as a young adult. So when I was asked to be featured in an interview on "The Power of Self-Discipline" with his grandson, J.B. Hill, and fellow speaker Jim Cathcart, I was thrilled. That recording, along with 16 other recordings with experts such as Ken Blanchard, Brian Tracy, and Harvey Mackay, have been compiled into an album called "17 Principles of Success" and released by Nightingale Conant.
As an introduction to this amazing resource, Nightingale is offering the complimentary "Napoleon Hill 17 Success Principles Reality Plan." It will motivate and inspire you, while giving you added focus, as well as the action steps that will propel you to greater levels of achievement, contentment, and successful living. Each component of this download serves a different purpose. One will give you the focus you need to change your life in dramatic ways. The next will present high-impact ideas that will keep you motivated and on track. And the last will reinforce Napoleon Hill's amazing principles, so you can improve who you are and what you accomplish. Please feel free to share this gift with friends and loved ones.
Laura
Thanks for reading! Make it a productive day.™ |
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All Articles (C) 2013 Laura Stack. All rights reserved. This information may not be distributed, sold, publicly presented, or used in any other manner, except as described below. Permission to reprint all or part of this article in your magazine, e-zine, website, blog, or organization newsletter is hereby GRANTED, provided: (1) The ENTIRE credit line below is present, (2) the website link to www.TheProductivityPro.com is clickable (LIVE), and (3) you send a copy, PDF, link, tearsheet, etc. of the work in which the article is used when published.
This credit line MUST be reprinted in its entirety to use any articles from Laura Stack: (C) 2013 Laura Stack. Laura Stack is America's premier expert in personal productivity. For over 20 years, her speeches and seminars have helped professionals, leaders, teams, and organizations improve output, execute efficiently, and save time at work. She's the author or coauthor of 10 books, most recently, What to Do When There's Too Much to Do. To invite Laura to speak at your next meet or register for her free monthly newsletter, visit www.TheProductivityPro.com. |
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