How to motivate your team

Indoctrinate them with the big picture. Everybody wants to be part of something big. They want to know why their work matters. Make it important to your people by telling them why it’s important to customers.

Hold yourself accountable. Goal-setting in most companies is ineffective – executives make big bucks no matter what, or there’s little or no follow-up. When management holds itself accountable, it’s a lot easier to do the same with employees.

Provide genuine, real-time feedback, good and bad. This is one of the hardest things for any manager to do, especially the negative stuff, but it’s also one of the most critical and effective management tools.

Promote their accomplishments and take the heat for their failures. Period.

Give them what they need to do the job. Provide the tools, training and support they need to be effective; keep management off their backs; then get out of the way.

Challenge them with as much responsibility as they can reasonably handle. It’s human nature to want to achieve things. Show you have confidence in them by setting a reasonably high bar and allowing them to succeed or fail on their own.

Communicate. Tell them what’s going on as openly as you can within reason and without unduly burdening them with confidential information they shouldn’t or don’t need to know.

Be as flexible as possible without impeding team effectiveness. If the priority is to get the job done as a team, that doesn’t mean everyone has to operate exactly the same way. People are individuals. They need some freedom to do their best.

Be human. Show some empathy, humility and a sense of humor. It’ll go a long way.