How to Improve Team Performance
Although the business world is increasingly digital, the talent and expertise of the people remain the critical difference between companies.
Consequently empowering and enabling the people in the business makes absolute business sense. In the vast majority of businesses, the people are the biggest operational cost.
And as we sit here in 2022, getting the right talent is a strategic imperative and a scarce commodity. It has become a massive constraint on company performance/achievement and is, therefore, one of the biggest challenges a business has.
This all makes enhancing team performance of vital importance. And since the pandemic, the number of teams working entirely remotely has increased dramatically. Traditional means of motivating and improving the skills of our people have been under a lot of pressure.
For many, it looks as if this change is set to become a permanent reality, with a significant percentage of the workforce adopting a hybrid model and an altered working week.
As a result of adapting to wholesale post-pandemic workplace transformation, our ways and systems of working have become more multifaceted and varied. So, our approaches will also need to be more adaptable.
If you're wondering how to improve team performance post-2020, you might find some of our tips helpful. Motivating teams in this transformed landscape will have its challenges and easy fits. But whether your teams are working remotely or on-site, here are a few things to keep in mind.
Get Creative
Being curious about what’s going on in different fields and markets is imperative.
Remaining creative and rising to the challenge is a more interesting approach than remaining frozen in indecision and wondering how to make it all work.
Researching more ingenious ways to communicate with staff and keep teams connected could be a fun adventure. It may well be a steep learning curve for some, but it's also an opportunity to learn new things and be inventive.
Experiment with Workflows
Identify better processes that make life more meaningful for people. Create workflows that work for everyone.
Check in with staff regularly to assess their comfort levels with each new tool. Offer more training where necessary.
Encourage a spirit of experimentation rather than perfectionism. If team members feel safe experimenting and making a few small errors along the way, they are more likely to persevere, succeed and grow to love the new technologies.
Ownership And Engagement
Maintaining and rewarding an attitude of curious experimentation will increase motivation among staff members who are less adept at dealing with technology.
Late adopters will thrive when given the time and support they need to adjust. Keep an eye on these team members to make sure they are thriving whilst adapting. Teams and individuals are far more motivated when they feel supported, competent, and confident in their abilities.
Learning new things can be fun and highly motivating. It can breathe fresh life into stagnating workaday mindsets and worn-out ways of operating.
Our intrinsic motivation increases when we feel we have ownership of our work and our study programs and can see their immediate impact on our work and productivity.
Increase Team Communication
Although remote working has proven to be extremely popular among staff and leaders alike, many employees miss connecting with colleagues on a daily basis.
Sending messages on various workflows can work extremely well to increase the sense of cohesion and connection. It can also help to improve communication and collective motivation within your teams.
Applying Tools That Work
Spend more time helping people appreciate the tools that already exist. And if necessary remove the ones that are disliked or are not contributing to value.
Make sure everyone is using any newly introduced project management systems effectively and correctly.
Help people understand who and where to go for expertise, support and resource. Far too many companies don’t even know what strengths they already possess.
Make sure team members can communicate easily and have improved ease of retrieving essential information.
Team members can focus on their own tasks far better when they are less caught up in wondering what Sara from marketing is doing today and whether she has received the latest email about planning layouts.
Knowing what’s happening day-to-day and sometimes minute-by-minute can be reassuring when it isn't possible to pop across to someone’s desk or exchange concerns at the water cooler.
Be Human and Encourage Humanness!
Share your thoughts with your team and let them know what your current thinking is on the way things are going.
If you are transparent and authentic, your teams will feel more connected to you, their day, their work, and their tasks. This is a far more motivating mindset than simply holding their breath until their real life can begin again at 5 pm.
There's more flexibility when working at home, so let your staff see that it's okay that they have lives that might sometimes influence scheduling.
Focus on an achievement-based culture rather than one that’s purely time-based, and you’ll gain a much greater level of commitment from your staff.
Truly mature, hardworking team members will relish the freedom and are much more likely to do a better job when they feel trusted and empowered.
As long as you know the work is being done, make allowances for human circumstances, as working from home does create unique concerns that were never an issue when working from an office space.
Provide a Context for Tasks
Always put the work in the proper context. Always explain why and what the purpose is. Leading a team can be fraught with dangers, especially if leaders remain shielded and resistant to the idea of offering a rationale for tasks.
When team members are included in the thinking process behind a task, this can not only increase their understanding of its importance but will also help them to understand why their role is important in the grand scheme of things.
Feeling as if our contribution has value is an essential ingredient to motivation. Understanding why a task is important helps us to feel a greater sense of responsibility for making it work. It also engenders a sense of pride in doing a great job in the fastest time.
Understanding context allows team members to feel included in a common goal. This sense of larger motivation will also increase motivation, productivity and efficiency.
Meetings That Matter
Go beyond the idea of meetings. Establish clear purpose for gatherings with clear and meaningful objectives. If meetings can be avoided - avoid them.
Wherever possible create meetings that will keep everyone on track, motivation high and which, at the very least, do nothing to decrease it.
Teams will feel their energy and motivation dissipating if they believe they are wasting time in unproductive meetings. This is something to be celebrated! Team members who lack drive and motivation will love nothing more than a time-wasting meeting. They love wasting time, watching the clock, and waiting to clock off.
Highly motivated and effective teams want to get back to work quickly and get things done. So, keep meetings short and to the point and celebrate high motivation.
Try having occasional gatherings in which you brainstorm with your teams over what improvements could be made to increase team productivity. Hearing directly from your teams exactly what causes them to feel motivated might pleasantly surprise you!
It’s OK and very valuable to set meetings and social time that can coincide. One of the big wins coming back from Covid has been the ability for humans to increase connection beyond the screen. Returning to countless intangible moments where humanity is regained and trust restored.
Celebrate Wins
Sharing regular positive feedback has been shown to not only increase motivation but also increase creativity.
When team members understand that their work is having a meaningful impact, their motivation and satisfaction levels increase.
Create ways for your teams to see the results of their actions in the form of measurable wins. Celebrate these wins with a thank you, a small gift, a mention, or extra holiday time.
Knowing that the results of their hard work are truly making a difference will increase your team’s motivation even more.
Communicate Certainty and Stability
In these uncertain times, there will always be moments of insecurity and instability within the business landscape. A prolonged sense of uncertainty will quickly undermine the confidence and motivation of your team members.
Make sure your teams feel calm and assured about the future of the business and are aware of how their roles and responsibilities will continue to contribute to its long-term stability.
Create Opportunities for Teams to Meet
When high-performance teams are focused on getting results, they may sometimes begin to view each other as faceless droids, carrying out tasks.
Arranging occasional opportunities for teams to meet, either online or offline, can help to diminish this sense of disconnection. It could be a simple session in which everyone has a chance to share a few sentences about how they're doing, how they feel about the work that's been assigned to them, and how things are going in general.
Organise occasional team-building meetings that are fun and keep teams connected in other meaningful ways.
Essentially, when all is said and done, one of the best ways to achieve continued motivation is to maintain clear communication with your staff teams. This way, you’ll be able to spot and correct any issues before they become problems.
Looking for exciting, creative ways to enhance motivation across all your teams? Find out how Group Partners can help you. Dive into their ground-breaking collection of team building and business transformation resources.
