Get your team to go that ‘Extra Mile’

We often feel that we’ve done as much as we possibly can, but do you ever consider that you could have done better? If you’d been offered £1million to sort out a problem that no-one else could solve, would we have found the energy and drive to come up with an innovative yet workable solution that all would benefit from? Quite probably! So how can you get your team to unlock their ‘discretionary effort’?

Currently many businesses are not able to offer large cash incentives for performance, but are still applying even more pressure on targets being achieved. All this does is cause stress, which reduces quality and output, and increases the chances of your people leaving. What you need to do is motivate, so that your team members want to do better and tap into their hidden reserves. The following tips are to help you inspire your employees to consistently give their best:

• Always give constructive feedback. Don’t just give feedback when something goes wrong – recognise, acknowledge and celebrate success.
• Team members should be encouraged to give each other positive feedback – this will also help build team spirit.
• Individuals have personal as well as work objectives so find out what your employees want to achieve and be flexible about adapting roles if possible so both can be achieved.
• Everyone tends to live up to what’s expected of them. So if people are expected to do a really good job they will do all they can to overcome obstacles and make a success of the task. Encourage employees to feel capable, confident and strong.
• Even though someone has good knowledge and skill they will not be able to contribute as much to your business if they have the wrong attitude. Encourage a ‘can do’ attitude, enthusiasm and a positive outlook at the same time as equipping them with the skills they need to do the job. Lead by example.
• When changing anything make sure you communicate well so you get ‘buy in’ from the team which will lead to greater acceptance of and adaptation to the change to make it a success.
• Do you inspire and energise, or criticise and make individuals feel isolated and not valued?
  Spend a little time thinking about the impact of your words and actions on your team’s self-confidence and self-belief.
• If your people believe in themselves and each other, enjoy their work and have strong working relationships they will want to do better for themselves, each other, you and the business, and will look forward to coming to work. But you need to remember to include some fun activities to continue getting the most out of everyone.