{"id":3441,"date":"2009-12-07T13:04:15","date_gmt":"2009-12-07T20:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=3441"},"modified":"2024-11-28T09:31:36","modified_gmt":"2024-11-28T16:31:36","slug":"all-i-want-for-christmas-is-some-motivation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=3441","title":{"rendered":"All I want for Christmas is some motivation.."},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">It&#8217;s that time of year! About now, most companies\u00a0embark upon\u00a0a yearly performance appraisal process to provide feedback, deliver praise or criticism, and set the stage for the upcoming year(s). This is a somewhat rigid and heavily scrutinized HR activity. What can a leader do to motive their teams outside the confines of this process? Here are five principles I follow:<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">\n<p style=\"font-weight: bold;font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">Communicate your expectations clearly<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">Make sure people understand project goals, the success criteria, as well as their role and responsibilities clearly. Poor employee morale and performance is often a result of unclear direction or expectations. Employees head down one path while the direction was for them to go down another. If you have already conveyed expectations, but have to make a mid-course correction, make sure the new direction and the reasons for it are well understood.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: bold;font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">\n<p style=\"font-weight: bold;font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">Get to know your people<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">You cannot motivate everyone the same way. Different people have different aspirations, be it a promotion, more money, or that next challenge down the road. Understand their working styles and figure out how you can help make their goals a reality. Give\u00a0people the opportunities to experiment, within reason, even if these initiatives seem somewhat disruptive at first.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">\n<p style=\"font-weight: bold;font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">Take an interest in the success of your people<\/p>\n<ul style=\"direction: ltr\" type=\"disc\">\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">Connect often with each of your employees. I have seen some leaders do daily 15 minute informal scrums with each individual. Some other leaders will walk around and check in on people by way of casual conversation. Does that seem excessive? Perhaps. But in the increasingly popular matrix organization, it&#8217;s the only way to know that you haven&#8217;t thrown your people out to the wolves and\/or to fend for themselves. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">It is important for people to get immediate feedback on their tasks. People should be recognized for a well executed project or an innovative concept. Similarly, performance issues should be dealt with immediately so the problem is not compounded. Stand by your people when things go wrong, while taking steps to ensure mistakes are not repeated.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">Don&#8217;t wait for the formal yearly performance appraisal cycle. Have quarterly checkins with your people on progress towards goals, and adjust course or the goals themselves so\u00a0your employees\u00a0can be more productive.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">Spend some time on team-building activities, such as team lunches or\u00a0day-long team outings, to make sure the team has a chance to de-stress outside the pressure cooker environment they are usually caught up in.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">\n<p style=\"font-weight: bold;font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">Give people the basic respect they deserve<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">It doesn&#8217;t cost anything at all to treat people with dignity. Use &#8220;sorry&#8221;, &#8220;please&#8221;, and &#8220;thank you&#8221;. If you order your people around, you will soon be perceived as a tyrant who is sending their people on missions they have no interest in or motivation to complete.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">\n<p style=\"font-weight: bold;font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">Make people part of the vision and goal-setting process<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">Making people a part of the goal-setting process ensures they have a vested interest in the success of this collective vision. It prepares them in advance of upcoming events and encourages creativity. More importantly, it allows them to seek the learning opportunities they are looking for while contributing to the success of the organization.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">\n<p style=\"font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">How do you motivate your teams? I&#8217;d love to hear your thoughts.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 11pt;font-family: Calibri\">\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s that time of year! About now, most companies\u00a0embark upon\u00a0a yearly performance appraisal process to provide feedback, deliver praise or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1486,"featured_media":26063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/6-All-I-want-for-Christmas-is-some-motivation.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1486"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3441"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26065,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3441\/revisions\/26065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}