Hi everyone and welcome to Stronger Thyngs?
This content is here to give you an insight? into how we are building our business stronger every day and hopefully enable you to do the same.
Last week we were talking about stress, how it can impact our business and how it can impact our teams.
This week we're going to flip that? We're going to be focusing on.
Motivation and Goals.
So if you're wondering how to get the most from your teams and push productivity to unimaginable heights, read on... Or, if you prefer video content, hop on over to our YouTube channel to watch this content here.
Motivation is something that's very personal to each individual
My personal motivations are around my family, my children, and making my parents proud? My work motivation is knowing that the business I'm within is making a difference to other people?
Here at Thyngs, we are able to give businesses a second shot at overcoming all of the obstacles that are put in the way by people walking around with their phones in their hand?
This means that there are huge businesses who have been around forever who are now completely irrelevant because they haven't caught up with the times - and we get to impact that.
For me, that is a huge motivation in my job. Being able to take something and make it really awesome is what I enjoy doing?
Now, this is different from person to person.
- Some people are motivated by money
- Some people are motivated by the flexibility in their role
- Some people are motivated by personal growth
"Until we as businesses truly understand exactly what it is that our people are motivated by, we're never going to be able to get them to reach their full potential."
So how do you motivate your staff at the moment?
- Do you set goals?
- Do you dangle a carrot of something desirable that they'll get if they do X amount of sales or calls in a day?
Every role has to have KPIs?
Now, these don't need to be strict. They don't need to be “everyone in this role has these KPIs”.
We need to make sure that, as employers in these companies, we are;
- embracing people's skill sets
- finding out their true motivation
- building their progression around that motivation
Not everyone is going to grow on exactly the same path.
We have people that joined our company as illustrators and now run all of our marketing...and they love it!
Members of our support team who were fantastic at building out the knowledge articles so that our customers understood how to use our stuff are now taking that passion for content and creating even more.
Getting to know your Staff best
So, we've talked about KPIs and we talked about setting goals, but how is it that businesses really get to know their staff in order to make sure that they are motivated!
One-to-one
Every business will have some kind of one-to-one in place. It might be an annual review, it might be monthly, it might be a weekly catch-up, but what you also find is that these one-to-ones are super structured.
Structure
Now, structure is important.
Structure means that we can effectively track progress, but what structure doesn't give us is the space to care and to understand.
Having a box on your one-to-one sheet that says, “how are you feeling?” is not going to be enough.
Make the effort
Taking that team member out for lunch and having a chat with them about their goals, making sure that we cover what we’re working on and how close our staff are to those targets, and really finding out how they are doing, opens the doors you need?
"Oh, okay I can see that we're really struggling with something that we've mentioned before, something that we're working on. Why is that? Is this a completely wrong goal for you to have anyway? Are you not enjoying this part of the role?"
These are the kinds of discussions you could be having, rather than more rigid reviews.
Love what you do, do what you love
I'm sure that as a company, you could look across your business and find someone who will love to do the thing that someone else doesn't.
That's where wrong profiles, one to one's and KPIs have to be fluid. They have to be about the person.
I understand wholly that this is harder and harder the bigger you grow because you have 12 people doing the same role, but that's where you have to make sure that whoever you've got leading those 12 people has an overall goal for the team and allows each team member to work flexibly within it, focusing on what they're good at and what they enjoy.
Work around dislikes to keep motivation
There are always going to be parts of jobs that no one likes.
I still have to do the dishwasher. I don't like doing it. I have to do it at home and then I have to come to work and do it. It's not in my job role? But I do it because it's for the good of the team and I don't want to have a kitchen that is disgusting every day when I’m at work. It's a me thing?
There are other things that people aren't comfortable with.
It might be picking up the phone and talking to a client?
Rather than fret about this, consider the individual;
“Okay, you don't want to be on the phone, no problem, actually we've got plenty of people who are great at that but do you know what, your emails are fantastic; why not try live chat? Why not speak to our customers in a different way?”?
Take time to find out why. Root cause analysis.
Find out what it is that your team member is struggling with.
- Is it the service element as a whole?
- Do they just not like dealing with people?
- Is it a genuine phobia, if you like, of being on the phone?
- Where are they confident?
- Are there barriers around them?
- Can we help them to grow in those areas?
Work on staff confidence building
Buddy them up with someone who is confident. Give them steps to take so that they're doing a little bit every day trying to become who they need to be to succeed in that role.
When people are doing things that they love and when people are working for a cause that they believe in, they're motivated.
And when a team is motivated, its efficiency levels are off the chart!?
"If we as leaders are unable to motivate our staff, then our business is doomed."
So, in order to get our boat to move faster?️, we need to ensure that we are doing all of the things possible to motivate our people and everything keeps coming back to that one thought. Value.
How do we value our staff?
How well do you know your staff?
And I know that I keep making that point, but that is what it's all about, it's the human element of our businesses that** drive it forward** and if we can understand our staff then we really can move things along.
This is a topic that we talk a lot about, and you will find it covered in more detail in our previous Stronger Thyngs content.
Productivity has so many elements to it
We know how important it is, we understand the science behind it, we look at the metrics that measure it, we hone new ways to make our team's life easier, we use new technologies to ensure that processes are cleaner, sharper... to the point.
But the key behind this all is motivating those people - and if you don't know your team, if you don't know those individuals; what is driving them and what their values are - then you're never ever going to be able to get the best out of them and they are not going to be able to or want to grow within and with your business.
"It's recognising where our needs and our business's needs intersect and go forward together, that's what creates success."
As businesses, we have whole teams who are in place to manage and track productivity, but it's crucial that we also remember to take a step back and allow our teams to just be people; whether that's a group lunch, a break to play pool, whatever fits in with your business needs?
There are so many learnings around screen time activity and about sitting still and being at our desk and that's not always how people work.
Next week
We're going to be looking at flexible working and how giving people the opportunity to be in an environment or situation conducive to engaging their creativity is fantastic for a business.
This is another element of ensuring the productivity of your team and we'll go into that in more detail next week.
If you found this at all helpful, please do hit like, share your thoughts in the comments, or check out our other content on the Thyngs blog or YouTube channel?
I'm Laura Fox-Newby, and we’re Thyngs.