5 Ways to Motivate Your Staff

A motivated staff can perform 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, even 70% better than one that is unmotivated. What could this mean to your bottom line?

Seventy percent is a worst case scenario but think of all the people on your staff. Are they all working at 100% efficiency? The answer is no, and, more surprisingly, it's not their fault. Few people can work in someone else's business and perform well without clarity and direction from their leader. People need to be trained, coached and motivated to perform their best.

Are you providing that?

Here are 5 easy things you should be doing to motivate your team:

• 1. Clearly Communicate Goals and Expectations
  In the post “Building Trust in Your Company”, we talked about Predictability equaling Trust.  Predictability comes from Clarity. Be clear with your team. Explain your goals and expectations, more than once (actually, as often as necessary so that each person can repeat them back) to get alignment.
• 2. Build Positive Relationships
  Your team will do more and work harder and smarter if they like and understand you. This requires you to act first. You need to be the one that respects each person, that listens to each person, that’s courteous, that leads by example, that recognizes their desires. If you’re the type of person that “loves” people, you will have a much easier time at this.
• 3. Ask for Your Employees Help and Listen
  Communication has to go both ways. Ask for your employees’ opinions and listen with sincerity. Even when you know an answer or have a solution to a problem, ask for your team’s thoughts on the matter. Your team may come up with a better solution and it will help them buy into the work that needs to be done.
• 4. Challenge Your Employees
  To challenge your team, keep score. Make sure you are measuring goals and key performance indicators.  Name your projects and have clear and reasonable due dates. Then post results on a public whiteboard or monitor where everyone can see.
• 5. Recognize Your Employees
  People will do more for recognition than for money. Recognize hard work and great efforts in team meetings. Do it publicly.  If something goes wrong, take the blame – it’s most likely your fault anyway for not training someone or not setting clear expectations (see #1).
  
  

“You can accomplish amazing things if you don’t care who gets the credit.”  - Ronald Reagan

Pro-Management: In the School of Entrepreneurship, the 9-part Series called Pro-M is Larry Janesky’ Pro-Management training program that has helped hundreds of contractors across the country develop top-level managers.  These managers have then gone on to coach and train the entire staff at their company.  At Larry’s own business, the Pro-M program has developed his management team so that they effectively run his $30+ million home repair company with little of his daily time or input.

Subscribe to the business coaching School for the complete Pro-M series and much more.

CHECK THIS OUT: In a previous Think Daily message, "A Leaders Motivation Contagion," motivating staff is the focus. Think Daily is a daily quick note of encouragement or a thought-provoking message from Larry Janesky. It's free to subscribe.