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Transcript

How to Create a Hard Working Team WITHOUT Demotivating Or Upsetting · Enhance.training

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Managers are under pressure to deliver more with less people and less resources.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: The impossible situation.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: It really is easy to push that pressure onto your team and demotivate them, cause burnout, people to lead the team or damage team performance.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sharing how to push your team harder without demotivating them, causing burnout, or the team feeling that they are in an unfair situation.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: The key is not to pressurize the team but to create the conditions where the team wants to work harder, where working harder makes sense to them.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Put in place the conditions to create a hard-working team that performs, hits targets, and remains motivated and happy.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: This will make you a manager very much in demand, appreciated and rewarded by bosses.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: I started a new job with a team of 17.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was like walking into a morgue.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: No one was talking, there was little collaboration and little teamwork.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't have any goals and didn't know much about what was happening in the company.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was no surprise to discover that the team wasn't producing much in terms of output.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Twelve months later they were formally recognized as the best team in the company.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Their output had gone up by literally millions in value.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: The office was buzzing with lots of chatting, lots of collaboration, and lots of teamwork.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: They had transformed from a lethargic team into a hard-working team with a ton of energy.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the people remained the same over that 12 months.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is one example of many team transformations I have led.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: How to motivate your team to work hard is all about creating the environment where people want to work hard.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Trying to force people to work harder is very counterproductive in my experience.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: The first approach for how to create a hardworking team is to co-create challenging goals with the team.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Co-creating goals is about creating acceptance and ownership of the goals agreed.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Individuals and teams work harder to achieve goals they helped create rather than ones that have been imposed upon them.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: There are usually many ways to reach an outcome.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Many ways are better, quicker, easier, less risky, and others go in the opposite direction.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Work with the team to choose intelligent goals that focus on getting more from the team in terms of their time and effort put in rather than just adding to the work they do.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: A great example is choosing a goal of making five team processes 20% more efficient, rather than increasing the output targets of the team by 10%.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Achieve either and you increase output by 10%.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Increasing efficiency is a much more attractive goal to have as a team member.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Another really important factor in co-creating goals, focus a lot of time on how the team is going to achieve the goal.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: When individuals and teams know how to reach a goal, the tasks, activities, and projects they need to do, the final goal is much less of a concern.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Work with the team to create the route to beating the goals set, and you'll find the team very happily accepting more challenging goals when they believe they can realistically achieve them.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Co-create challenging goals with your team members for how to push your team harder.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Jess Coles.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you're new to this podcast, Enhance.training provides resources, courses, and coaching for you to build management expertise and confidence to lead any team to their best performance.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: To significantly improve the performance of your team or your manager's ability to improve their team performance, go to Enhance.training, select Coaching and book in a meeting with me to discuss how our coaching programs will help you increase team performance.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: The second approach to persuade your team to work harder is to show the team what you are asking for.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not prepared to work hard, there is no way your team will work hard either.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Teams follow your actions much more than what you ask for.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Just as important is what you work hard on.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you just focus on work that doesn't affect or help the team, they are not going to be motivated to work harder for you.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you focus on work that directly and visibly helps your team members have less problems, have less stress, get more done, be more effective, experience less conflict, or reduce any other problems or issues that take up their time and energy, they are going to work very hard for you.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: You help them, they help you.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Spend as much time as you can making sure the team has clear priorities, that standards and expectations are clear and regularly reinforced.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Work to make your team members more effective personally and as a team.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Help them work together as a team.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Create a lot of visibility of progress and performance and work to create accountability across the team.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Most important is that you show your team members what you expect of them.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Show your team what teamwork actually is in terms of how you work.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Beat the expectations and standards you ask of the team.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Hold yourself accountable to the team so you can hold them accountable.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Demonstrate how they can be more effective.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: As much as practical, the work you do should be about helping your team create higher value output and making their work lives better.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Show your team as well as tell them what you want.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Third, to get your team to want to work harder, work intelligently to benefit the team.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: The more you work hard to directly and visibly help the team, the harder they will want to work for you in return.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: That is fairness in action.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: You are also making good use of the social law of reciprocity.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Help someone and they will feel obliged to help you in return.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: I've already mentioned a ton of ways to help team members be more effective.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Additional actions include, firstly, find problems that slow down team members, cause them issues, or stop them completing their work and tasks quickly.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Fixing the small problems is just as important as fixing the big problems.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I personally am always amazed at all the things that teams put up with.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Humans fall into patterns very easily.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: It is how our brains are wired.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And they haven't been told to stop producing it.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Find problems and solve them to push your team to work harder.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, another great way to visibly help team members is to protect them.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Defend them against criticism.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Shout about the great work they did when someone else tries to steal their credit.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Keep silly or distracting requests away from them.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Insulate them from the politics and resource grabs.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Keep them moving in a consistent direction.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Shout about team wins and successes across the business.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Protect your team.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Third, work to automate as much as possible.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: This might be teaching the team useful time-saving tips when using Excel or PowerPoint, for instance.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Or it might be improving processes so they are done quicker, with less steps, or produce a better result.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Or it might be swapping man hours for software for the repetitive tasks undertaken within the team.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Look for opportunities to reduce the time and effort staff have to put in to achieve a desired result.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Working intelligently and visibly to directly benefit the team.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is a great way to build a hardworking team in the process.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, for how to push your team harder, offer more than you ask for.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing stops a person working harder than when they feel unfairly treated.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: When you give a lot to your team members and you ask for a lot in return, they feel obliged to balance the scales.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: The sense of fairness and reciprocity encourages them to work harder.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Work to offer a lot to your team, so you can ask the team to work harder in return.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: A classic example: banks pay some of the higher salaries and bonuses to attract and keep talent.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: They also have a very competitive culture which removes those not meeting expectations, i.e., lots of financial rewards in return for hard work.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Even when you don't have a massive salary budget to play with, you can still offer a lot to your staff.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: This does take a bit more effort on the manager's part, but is very very effective nonetheless.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Here are six ways you can offer valuable upsides for your staff.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, providing clarity on what is expected from staff and work to implement this consistently across the team.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: This reduces confusion, fear, uncertainty, and wasted effort.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, you can offer safety and job security.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: You can make it clear that those staff meeting and beating expectations will always have a job and follow this consistently with reinforcing actions.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Third, create predictability which is valuable to team members.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: To create predictability, work on keeping your actions, decisions and behaviours consistent.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: I try to tie mine to my values because values rarely change quickly.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, build a trusting and team-oriented working culture.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Most find it enjoyable and satisfying to work in a supportive and successful team environment.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Fifth, provide a clear meritocracy where increasing the value created and helping team members is clearly rewarded.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Think praise, development, more interesting work, responsibility and promotion.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Sixth, offer development and your mentoring time to those working hard and beating expectations.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Think about what your team members really want.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Even better, ask them directly.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Work to provide upsides to your staff as a result of working in your specific team.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Things that they want that move their career forward faster, that make them happy, that create a positive atmosphere.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Then ask them to work harder in return for you.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, in summary, you will be much more successful in increasing team performance when you focus on creating an environment where team members want to work hard rather than trying to push them or force them to work hard.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: To build high-performing teams, this is essential.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: How to push your team harder without demotivating them requires balance.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: You have to offer a lot to provide that balance.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Remember to significantly improve the performance of your team or your manager's ability to improve team performance, go to enhance.training, select coaching, and book in a meeting with me to discuss how coaching programs will help you increase team performance.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have any questions on how to push your team members harder without demotivating or causing burnout, please leave a comment below and I'll get back to you.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks very much for listening, and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.