Motivation and Support Part 2 - Ways to be Motivational
How to provide Motivation and Support
The Build your own HPT Blog is based on the ‘High-Performance Management and Teams’ Management model for helping IT Management and Teams. It is based on many years of IT management consulting, improving the performance and productivity of IT Departments and Teams across the Insurance, Banking, Finance, Health, Transport, Retail, Superannuation and Technology sectors.
High-Performance Teams are successful because they love their work.
Any team can achieve High-Performance.
Here are some tips I have found to be really useful in motivating and supporting team members and staff which result in substantial increases in performance, productivity and creativity. Imagine giving a piece of work to a Direct Report and knowing that you can forget about it, that not only will it be done, but no follow up is necessary.
Motivation
A team is a group of individuals which must be managed as individuals. It is important to accept individual differences (e.g., some staff receive more encouragement, some more autonomy, others firmer standards, and still others more task structure). It follows that when delegating tasks, it should be done as a means of developing team members and staff.
High-Performance Teams are taught that the number one people management skill they need to become well versed in, is motivating and supporting their staff.
Managers who actively support and motivate feel closer to those whom they are helping. By showing a sincere interest in your staff, you are building trust and inspiring others to achieve higher levels of performance.
A High-Performance Team is not just a healthy team, but it is a team where people are supported, motivated and recognised for their achievements.
Ways to be motivational
Give effective recognition for a job well done by doing it in front of others. Be sparing in your praise, recognition must be deserved.
Look for opportunities to improve communication between team members, by highlighting someone’s strengths and by underpinning any shortcomings.
Every time you speak with one of your team members is an opportunity to provide feedback on their performance and to offer support and motivation. Everyone needs to receive positive feedback so that they understand that they are important, are a contributor, a team player and believe they are receiving an honest assessment of their performance.
Comment on a recent email or report you received.
Comment on customer feedback you received that concerns their area.
A comment that you think things are going well.
Equally, make ‘observations’ not criticisms about things you don’t like. (“I noticed that last email you sent me was very long.”)
Implement programs to recognise the performance and efforts of all staff. (E.g. Employee of the month).
When you give someone a difficult task or one outside of their skillset, remove the fear of failure by telling them that what you expect is that they ‘have a go,’ not what they achieve, and offer to help. (Refer to Having a Go).
Accept mistakes, but not when the same one is made three times.
Do not make criticisms but instead make unfavourable observations. As soon as someone feels they are being criticised they turn off and do not hear what you are saying, they don’t take it on board. High-Performance Teams are taught never to be critical.
One of your most important management functions is to support and motivate your team members. A negative or positive comment goes around and around in a person’s head all night.
How to quickly de-motivate people
Lack of recognition, support and motivation.
Lack of autonomy or overly micromanaging.
Making decisions about team members without consulting them.
Allowing team members to miss commitments without a negative consequence.
Not making allowance for personal factors and their effects on work.
Peoples names are important, when you have hundreds or thousands of staff, remembering names is difficult. You can forget a name up to three times and be forgiven, but you won’t be forgiven for incorrectly spelling someone’s name, that is tantamount to an insult I have found.
Support
It’s important that all staff know, that no matter what they do, their worst mistake, you will support them and back them up, protect them from the wolves. This is important for everyone’s morale.
Here is a real-life example I had once. A network team member did a network link upgrade but got it badly wrong and bought down several major links. This took out services to Hospitals, Operating Theatre’s and Pathology Laboratories. No matter what the circumstance, it’s an unforgivable mistake, the most basic of quality checks stops mistakes like this from happening. Following the Network link upgrade process would have picked up the error, but that didn’t happen, the process was not followed.
I was absolutely livid; I don’t tolerate mistakes of this kind given they are avoidable. My approach to this was as follows. I told the Network Manager to come and see me with the offending staff member after the services had been restored. I knew that both of them, whilst fixing the problem, would be thinking about their upcoming meeting with me. They will be thinking about how they are going justify making such an obvious, stupid and catastrophic mistake. They will know that they have let not just me down, but themselves and their whole team down.
So, when they finally come to see me and sheepishly come into my office, I look up and ask “is it fixed?”, “yes” comes the reply, I go on “the process includes a quality check, does it not?”, “yes” comes the reply, “and you didn’t follow the process did you?”, “no” comes the reply. I continue, “it’s my job now to take the heat from the impacted surgeons and Hospital and Pathology administrators, it’s your job to follow process, don’t do it again please, you’re better than that, that’s all, you can go”. The whole IT Department would hear what happened and I seriously doubted that anyone would make the mistake of not following process again, which is in fact what occurred.
We all make mistakes, some more serious than others, but as we know we learn from mistakes. I see no point, nor have I ever seen any point in crucifying someone when a serious misjudgement has been made. When someone makes mistakes often, then you have a performance issue and that clearly requires a different response. Team members and staff must know you have their back.
I have had the pleasure of working with Russell over many years, first in the Colonial Group and then in Mayne Group. Russell is one of the most inspiring and influential leaders I have had the opportunity to work with. He has an established history of building high performance teams and in turning around problematic IT organisations. His open and frank manner allows him to get to the heart of any problem whilst bringing key stakeholders along the journey.