Inspire your team to greatness (Get  Going)

This training plan is all about inspiring your team to perform better and be more consistently motivated.

It lasts 12 weeks and through it you’ll be working on different focus areas in 2 week sprints. It’ll take you 30 minutes to get going now, and then 30-40 minutes to create your plan at the start of each 2 week sprint.

Oh, and some effort and commitment to follow your plan during that sprint.

Reading time: 5 minutes

What's happening right now?

The team you’re leading or are part of is underperforming. People don’t seem to be as motivated as they have been or as the team needs them to be. Sometimes there’s great energy and engagement, people are focused and the team is delivering. At other times, the motivation, focus and drive seem to be missing.

You do things to motivate and encourage the team but it’s not having enough impact. You’re frustrated because you know that people could be performing better and the team could be achieving more and despite your efforts, the team is in a bit of a rut.

Why it’s happening

Motivation in teams varies and leaders feel frustrated they can’t do more to motivate people. It happens because:

  • The fuel for motivation is missing. People’s sense of control, confidence and connectedness – the foundation of motivation – gets eroded because of the situation, the conditions or the actions of others. It’s rarely deliberate and often not noticed that it’s happening.
  • Team culture. The attitude, mindset and behaviours of one person will have a knock on affect on others. So if someone is demotivated and disengaged, it’ll impact on everyone else.
  • Who’s job is it anyway? Leaders think it’s their job to motivate people and team members expect others to help motivate them. This is fundamentally wrong. Team members are in charge of their own motivation. Leaders are in charge of creating the right conditions where motivation can flourish.

Your choices

You could choose to do nothing. That’ll take no time or effort and the problem might get better on its own.

However, that’s pretty unlikely. So the other option is to do something about it.

That’ll take some time and effort now and through the next 12 weeks, everyday. If you do choose this, you can expect to:

  • Fuel the motivation of others every day
  • Be seen as an inspirational and supportive leader or team member
  • Get great at fueling your own motivation – perform better in your own role
  • See your team improve their performance

Performance is a game of choices and now it’s up to you. Do nothing and hope or commit to getting better.

Alan's story

Alan was a team leader in a petrochemical company. The company and the team had been growing during a particularly busy last 12 months and although there was a sense of positivity and excitement that the business was doing so well, the team wasn’t performing as well as they had or could. People seemed a bit demotivated and disengaged. There was a general sense of dissatisfaction and lack of focus amongst the team.

Alan tried hard to encourage his team. He told them that things would get better – the workload would ease, that they were recruiting more people and the increase in operating profits would mean higher year end bonuses. It didn’t have much effect. He was frustrated and didn’t know what to do.

Through the kitbags in The Performance Room, he learned about motivation and how to fuel the motivation of others. He completed this training plan and put it into action. Over 12 weeks, he started to do things differently. He helped people get clear on their role and gave them more control of how they delivered on their goals. He gave more positive and frequent feedback to the team. He shared more information and explained how important they were for the business.

At the end of the 12 weeks, Alan’s team was performing better. There seemed to be greater focus and higher productivity. People were moaning less, feeling more positive and enjoying work more. They understood their role in the team and knew what value they were bringing. Alan felt like he was leading and supporting better and his confidence grew. Though he’s still struggling with that jigsaw.

Ready to get going?

If you’re ready to get better, you better get going.

Start off by setting some goals.

1. Get a starting point.

Rate yourself for where you are right now. You’re familiar with the idea of a scale of 1-10 where 1 is total rubbish and 10 is that it’s as good as it can get.

2.  Set a target.

Using the same high tech scale, set yourself a target for where you want to be on this. Choose a number that feels like a bit of a stretch and achievable with a bit of hard work in 12 weeks but is still realistic.

3. Think about the people who need to know that you’re using this tool

Tell them what you’re doing. That way they can support you and won’t think you’re just being weird.

Now get cracking!

You’re ready to crack on with your training plan!

You’ll be working in 2 week sprints over the next 12 weeks on stuff that will really make a difference – read How it works if you haven’t already. For this plan, you’ll spend weeks 1 to 10 working on these 5 most effective things to do:

Week 1 – 2: Know what makes people tick

Week 3 – 4: Let’s get role clarity!

Week 5 – 6: Communicate brilliantly

Week 7 – 8: Fuel confidence

Week 9 – 10: Nurture the desire to improve

It’s important to work through them in this order.

In each 2 week sprint, you learn what to do and how, through an example plan we’ve prepared. For this plan, the example is that of motivating a team who have recently been underperforming in comparison to what they’ve achieved in the past.

You then create your own plan. Just download, print out and complete the blank plan provided. You can use ideas from the example plan or not – but follow the same principles.

In weeks 11 and 12, you’ll be putting all the good stuff you’ve learned and done in these 5 areas together. You’ll be guided through this when the time comes, so don’t worry about that for now.