There is one question I sometimes get from business owners and team leaders that makes me so sad to hear: “Is it too late for my team?”
Some people end up bogged down by this feeling that they’ve tried everything—that they have really tried to boost motivation, to set clear expectations, etcetera—but work just isn’t humming along the way it used to be.
When managers feel trapped in this perspective, that’s when I love to introduce the concept of reframing, which is the central theme of my book, Unstuck.
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What is Reframing?
Reframing is simply looking at a place where we are feeling stuck and asking ourselves, “What else is possible? What other perspectives can I try? What can I do differently here?
Instead of operating from a place of hopelessness and telling ourselves we’ve tried everything, let’s look at it through a different lens. What haven’t we tried? What options did we dismiss previously that we can test out now?
If you’re struggling to come up with options, that’s all right—I’ve got a few simple changes you can implement right now to see if something will finally boost motivation and nudge your team into action.
Three Shifts to Make
If you feel as if you’ve hit a plateau in your business, can’t boost motivation in your team members, and that you have no options, then it’s time for a reframe. Let’s go over three areas that will be instrumental in getting you out of this stuck place:
Setting Expectations
Firstly, make sure you set expectations with your team members. Whenever you are not seeing work being done the way it needs to be getting done, when you’re not seeing people stepping up into leadership roles, and when you’re not seeing folks taking on their responsibility to grow the business, that is a moment to reset our own expectations.
This usually looks like having a conversation with folks individually or as a team and saying, “It’s Q1. We’re hitting the ground running. Here’s what the expectations are. Here’s what bonuses will be based on. Here are the metrics. Here’s what success looks like.”
This will boost motivation immediately and help get people rallied around your goals, because oftentimes when you need to boost motivation, that stall is actually caused by people not having a clear idea of what’s expected of them. When you set clear and concise expectations, they have something concrete to aspire to.
Create Accountability
Next, you want to make sure you’re creating accountability mechanisms.
This is a great way to boost motivation, because your team members will know what success looks like when they feel accountable to their own areas and/or roles.
When your team members feel accountable, they’ll take on more of an ownership mindset, which results in far more proactivity. So if you’re feeling like your team is just showing up to do the bare minimum, and you want to boost motivation and inspire them to go above and beyond, accountability is the key!
To set up accountability mechanisms, the biggest thing you need to do is set up checkpoints. Here’s an example:
Let’s say we tell our teams, “Hey, work isn’t getting done at the pace we need. Here are our targets—this is what we got to get done this week. Here’s how we’ve load-balanced across the team. What do you need? Does this feel like the right size plan?” Eteceera, etcetera.
Once you’ve set those targets, the next step is to set up checkpoints…and actually check in on each team member’s progress regularly. (Not so often that you start to micromanage, of course!)
This is the area where accountability often falls short. We often have a great system going into it, but then we don’t check back in. And if you have aggressive timelines and deadlines that absolutely have to be met, it’s important to check in with your team members before it’s too late to ensure that they have all the resources they need and that they’re on track to get things done.
You also need to make sure that if those targets are not hit, your team is well aware that they’re going to have to have an answer for that. It’s very important that our teams don’t feel like it’s optional to get work done.
Giving Feedback
Last but not least, the third way to boost motivation is to give feedback to your team members.
Once you’ve laid the foundation of expectations, you now have something there that you can give some concrete feedback on. You now have something to point to when giving your feedback, and your team members have something concrete by which they can measure their own performance, so you both can see where they might be falling short in some areas—or where they might be going above and beyond!
Feedback is a really tough one for a lot of us, but it really is key when we want to boost motivation…which is why I talk about giving feedback a lot.
The question “Can I give you some feedback?” is the worst, most uncomfortable question we can hear in the workplace…and, frankly, in life.
Why is this? Because we have a lot of fear around what they’re going to say. We have a lot of fear around not being prepared for the blow that’s about to hit us, because we don’t know how hard it’s going to hit.
It could be a small piece of feedback…but most of the time, we start spiraling into thoughts like, “Does this mean I screwed everything up? Do they not like me? Am I worthless?” and so on.
Now, feedback poorly or harshly given is actually the fastest way to tank motivation, not boost motivation. But when we don’t get feedback, it’s not good for us either, because we don’t know where we stand. We don’t know if we’re doing a good job, we don’t know what success looks like, we don’t know how our last project went…and when we don’t know any of that, our motivation falls off a cliff.
In order to boost motivation back up, people need to know where they stand. Our team members need to know they’re doing a good job, and they also need to know where they can improve. So when we avoid feedback because we don’t really know how to give it, or because we feel like no news is good news, or because we don’t want to have a hard conversation, we’re actually making the situation worse.
The hard truth is…if you don’t start to give feedback, it will be too late to fix your team, because you’re not telling them anything they have to do to fix it.
However, this doesn’t mean you can only give negative feedback by any means. In fact, the best way to boost motivation is to give positive feedback, recognition, and appreciation where you can, and to give course-correcting feedback constructively.
Reframing Can Be Simple!
So those are my strategies to boost motivation and get you and your team out of this plateau, even when you feel like it’s too late to course-correct. However, those three things are not the only things you can do—if you’ve tried them all and aren’t seeing any progress, please don’t give up!
It is not too late for your team. So if you’re feeling well and truly stumped, reach out and schedule an SOS call with me. An SOS call is an hour-long session where you bring an issue to the table, and over the hour, we’ll talk about some concrete strategies that you can try right away on your team.
Folks are really enjoying these calls, because they give you an action plan right away, and you can implement it as soon as you have it. It’s a great way to get unstuck…especially because you don’t have to figure it out alone!
This stuff is hard. So if you’re stewing on it, if it’s keeping you up at night, schedule that SOS call. I want you to be able to sleep tonight. I want to help you get unstuck. Let’s start reframing together!
WORK WITH LIA:
Ready to get UNSTUCK? Book an SOS call with me: https://www.liagarvin.com/sos
Want a checklist of things you can do THIS week to become a better manager (and make your job easier)? Check out my Thriving Team Checklist for a list of quick actions you can take right away with your team: https://www.liagarvin.com/checklist
Book a FREE Scale-up strategy call to for strategies to scale your team and get time back for yourself: calendly.com/liagarvin/scaleup-strategy?back=1&month=2023-08
CONNECT WITH LIA:
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