Leadership Curveballs, Blind Spots and Black Holes, Episode 9

In this Episode:

01:23 – Definition of Motivation

01:35 – Learn What Motivates/De-Motivates Team Members

05:00 – The Practice of Strengths-Spotting

06:35 – Providing Certainty in Uncertain Times

Podcast Transcript

Hi everyone, Bobbie LaPorte here, your host of the Executive Aide Station Podcast Series called Leadership Curve Balls, Blind Spots and Black Holes. In this episode, we’ll feature an expanded version of one of our weekly coronavirus curveball tips on how to motivate your team.

Recently, I conducted a brief survey of a 30 person leadership team at one of my clients. I asked them to identify their number one challenge working with remote teams during the ongoing pandemic. The overwhelming response was, “how do I continue to keep my team motivated and productive without micromanaging them?”

I’m guessing that probably sounds familiar to many of you. The challenge of motivating and engaging employees has been a significant ongoing one for all leaders, long before the pandemic began.

Motivating people is a leadership challenge. Now more than ever, when people are feeling anxious, uncertain, and often feeling stuck, in this extended period of working from home. So let’s start with a definition. What is motivation? Anyway, the classic definition of motivation is a reason to act a certain way.

So for us, it’s important to consider that you cannot motivate people. Let me repeat that you, as a leader, cannot motivate people. They have to motivate themselves. Now that might sound counterintuitive. After all, haven’t we always been told how important it is to motivate our teams? But the reality is that your job as a leader is to learn what motivates and engages your team members versus what is de-motivating to them.

Everyone has different motivators and stressors. If there’s anything we’ve learned about the people who work for us during this pandemic, it’s that everyone is different. Some people are motivated by extrinsic things like time off or additional compensation; others, more by things like autonomy or a new challenge.

It’s your charge to get to know your team members well enough to understand their individual needs. So it’s important during these times to connect with them on a more personal level and understand how working from home is impacting their ability to do their job. Then, armed with that knowledge and understanding, you can create an environment based on their needs and preferences so that they can do their best work.

Here’s an example: you might have a team member who was always driven by new challenges by taking on troubled projects or high-visibility initiatives that require close collaboration with cross-functional peers. And another team member may not seek the limelight so much. They are motivated by having a specific defined project that allows them to work autonomously, setting their own schedule and work plan.

Now, these two people have very different needs and preferences in terms of what motivates them day-to-day. Your challenge is to understand these sources of motivation and then, together with your team members, define the environment, support, structure, and recognition that will keep their motivation motor running; any way to get to know your team members’ motivations better.

If you’re not sure what motivates the individuals on your team, simply ask them. So here’s a suggestion. The next time you’re having a one-on-one conversation with someone on your team, offer to share something like that. You can say, during the last few months, I’ve had a chance to reflect and think about what’s really important to keep me going, and what I’ve learned is… then fill in the blank and tell them that and then ask them, so what’s important to you.

This is a simple, conversational way to find out what motivates your team members, but it also demonstrates empathy and vulnerability. That is so important for leaders to show, right now, when we’re all learning to navigate through uncertainty. Another way to help understand what motivates people is to help them define and connect to their talents, strengths, and special gifts.

We know from positive psychology that people are inspired to do more to increase their engagement and overall wellbeing when they approach their work from a stress versus liabilities perspective. This is the practice of what we call strength spotting. It’s a foundational part of building capacity in you and your team.

And it’s more than just inventorying and connecting your team members with their strengths. It goes beyond this basic step to help them leverage what is good and useful to think about how their strengths can be used in a broader way to expand what they are capable of—moving beyond what they’ve done in the past to what they can do now, deploying these strengths in new ways.

So let me say that again. What we’re looking for here is how their strengths can be used in a broader way to expand what they’re capable of to show what they can do now, deploy these strengths in new ways. And again, often, it’s as easy as asking them a simple question. What is an example of something you do?

A skill that you have that you would like to use more. That simple question can uncover strengths. Your team member has that are not fully being put to use to advance your team’s goals as well as to help build satisfaction for your team members, work together with understanding what motivates them.

You’re connecting your team member with their strengths. Helping them expand on what they already do well, and that helps them become more confident. And self-sufficient in the future. The final advice I have for helping keep your team members engaged and motivated during these times of unrelenting uncertainty is to provide certainty wherever you can.

So don’t assume that your team members always know what you need them to do. Be clear about your expectations. Make the implicit explicit and then continue to reinforce the purpose goals and objectives you share as a team. Even if your message hasn’t changed, you need to repeat it often because the world has changed, and your team members need to know that the existing direction still holds motivating.

Your team will always be a challenge, particularly in times of uncertainty. But for a leader, it can also present an opportunity to learn the individual needs of your team members, demonstrate empathy, strong interest, and commitment to helping them succeed in any environment. So that’s it for the special edition of Executive Aide Station Podcast, series Leadership Curve Balls, Blind Spots, and Black Holes.

We hope you’ll check out future episodes of the series, which are designated to help you navigate through uncertainty.