Inspire your team to greatness (Week 7-8)
Your focus area for weeks 7 and 8 is to help team members feel more confident in their role.
Spend 30-40 minutes creating your plan now, then follow it for the next 2 weeks.
Simple.
Fuel confidence
What to do
Fuel team member confidence through your words and actions. Let them know what they’re doing well, how they’re leading with strengths and the contribution they’re making to the team. Help them feel valued and help them explore different ways they can keep bringing their unique value to the team.
Why do it
If members of your team are going to perform well and be motivated, belief in their ability, skills and assets – and using them in the right way so that the team and business is benefitting is pretty important. And there’s a lot you can do to help fuel this. Doing it well will:
- Boost the motivation of people on your team
- Help people be clearer on their strengths and how to use them
- Help people be clear about their value on the team
- Lead to better performance and results
How to do it
There are 3 steps to take with this. Read through these, look at the example and then create your own plan.
1) Know your messages
Know what messages you want to give each person about their ability, qualities, strengths and how they’re using them in the team. For each person, decide on 3 messages you’ll be sharing and boost their confidence by choosing 2 examples of where they’ve recently used their strengths to achieve things that matter.
2) Choose your tactics
Different people get confidence boosts from different things – what works with one person may not work with another! Knowing what works and when is important if you’re going to fuel confidence with impact.
3) Your confidence fuelling plan
Know what you’ll say and do to fuel confidence of people on your team – and how and when to do it. It’s time to put that into a plan that you’re ready to deliver over the next two weeks.
Example plan
You’re nearly ready to start fuelling the confidence of people on your team. But to help you along the way, we’ve completed an example of motivating a team that’s been recently underperforming. Read through it, get some ideas from it and then create and complete your own plan.
1. Know your messages
| Team member | 3 key strengths and contributions | 2 examples to share with them |
|---|---|---|
| John |
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| Jane |
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| Ahmed |
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2. Choose your tactics
| Confidence boosting tactic | Whose confidence will be boosted most? |
|---|---|
| Providing positive feedback little and often | Jane. Really likes regular little prompts |
| Feedback and praise at the end of the project | John. He gets annoyed by too much praise! |
| Likes clear and specific feedback about what they’ve done well and why | Ahmed |
| Likes thanks and appreciation about their effort over specific feedback about ability | Jane |
| Really likes public praise and feedback | John (although he wouldn’t admit it!) |
| Prefers private feedback/praise | Ahmed. Doesn’t like a fuss and much prefers a private conversation |
3. Your confidence fuelling plan
Over the next 2 weeks, my plan is:
| Team member | What to do | When I’ll do it |
|---|---|---|
| John | Highlight his leadership in the pitch last week. Share this with the team and be very specific about what he did that was of unique value to the team and resulted in us winning the work. | Team meeting on Thursday. I’ll also follow it up with a quiet word over coffee asking him to keep playing that role for the team. |
| Jane | Regularly let her know how valuable her attitude has been in setting the tone for the team over the restructure. Also highlight her ability to know what info to share with who as a key asset for the team – and to keep doing this. | Cover both in 1-2-1 meeting on Tuesday. Praise her attitude in the team meeting on Thursday. Reiterate the message on sharing info when there’s opportunity early next week |
| Ahmed | Tell him how much I personally value his work ethic and willingness to pick up whatever needs doing whenever it needs it – that I see him as my go to person on the team. Share the 2 examples of when he’s done that recently and the difference it’s made | 1-2-1 meeting on Friday. |
Coaching tips
Fuelling confidence isn’t about constantly giving praise. It’s giving feedback to someone about their strengths and their unique contribution to the team. And it’s tactical – delivered in the right way at the right time. Get it right and it’ll be very powerful.