
Empower Your Team: 4 Helpful Steps to Boost Team Morale During Tough Times
Times are challenging, obstacles are tough, and uncertainties loom on the horizon. The economic landscape is evolving in real time and will keep changing in the weeks and months to come.
Many teams are finding that their strategies are flailing, customer preferences are changing rapidly and contracts are decreasing.
Amongst all of the turbulence, leaders who can stay calm and optimistic about the future give their team the certainty they crave.
Let's take a look at some ideas to boost team morale.
1. Focus on the solution
In the workplace, we think we need to focus on what's wrong, in order to be able to fix things. While there are times when focusing on what's not working can be helpful (e.g. broken down machinery), it's not always helpful for intangible issues.
In fact, if anything, it can make people angry, upset, defensive and less likely to want to work together to solve the issue.
Think about the last team meeting you had with a bunch of people and you talked about what was wrong. You probably went over time and had trouble focusing on another topic.
What we want to do instead is shift our line of questioning to what we actually want. Instead of churning out all the bad stuff (and feeling bad in the process), focus on all the good stuff you want (and feel better in the process).
Interestingly, when you focus on what you actually want in the future and what that would look like people start to feel relieved, excited and more collaborative.
Good questions to ask your team include:
What do you want to have happen here?
How do we want this to work?
What would it look like if we did this?
What would success look like?
As Mark McKergow from the book Solutions Focus says “If you focus on the solution, then you can actually come to the solution.”
Concentrating on our desired direction establishes a clear target to strive for. In contrast, focusing on current problems only highlights what we want to escape from. We focus on creating solutions that are more about avoiding pain which leads to a lack of clarity and purpose, causing confusion and frustration among team members.
2. GIVE Gratitude
When leaders thank team members for their contribution it lights up the reward network in the brain. The result is that not only do people feel more connected to the organisation, but they feel more fulfilled and willing to try new things.
Barbara Frederickson, in the book Positivity, found that high-performance teams gave five positive comments to every one negative (5:1), while average teams had a ratio of 3:1.
Introduce a gratitude ritual into weekly meetings or even handing out gratitude cards to colleagues is a good starting point. It also helps people focus on what matters and that people are achieving things, even when it doesn't feel like it.
3. Focus on the Small Things, not the Big Things
We often believe that grand gestures are what truly matter, but it's the small, everyday interactions that make the real difference.
When it comes to change, talking about the tiny signs of progress and small steps are key. We often think that when we have a big issue, we need to work on a big plan and take big steps. We believe we need to think big.
The reality is that the bigger the issue, the smaller the steps we need to unblock it and to move things in the right direction.
As Mark McKergow says in the afore-mentioned book, the temptation is to think in big steps, when what you really want to do is think big at the beginning.
It's about figuring out what's working (the present), what we want to have happen (the future), followed by all the little steps we need to work on (the gap).
Start by doing a brainstorm of the first tiny signs that you would see that indicate things are improving. These can be things such as "John in accounts is smiling next time I see him" or "The customer thanks me after my next delivery."
It's about asking your team the question: "What is the first small indication we might notice, perhaps tomorrow morning or this afternoon, that would show things are beginning to move in the right direction?"
Interestingly, when people start talking about these small signs that haven't happened yet, they begin to see them as achievable. This boosts their confidence and excitement, making them not only more positive but also more willing to try new things and anticipate the outcomes.
The good news is that since it requires only a small investment of time, we can swiftly experiment with other approaches.
Everything is interconnected. Even a minor change can have a significant impact. However, if we are constantly searching for the next major breakthrough, we can quickly become disheartened when it doesn't pan out.
4. Make Time FOR LAUGHTER
Hiroki Asai, the former head of Apple’s Creative Design Studio, once said “fear is the greatest killer of creativity and humour is the most effective tool I’ve found for insulating cultures from fear.”
When people laugh together, tension is reduced, enabling people to perform at higher levels.
According to Hiroki, it’s important for teams to figure out how they will lighten the mood to unlock their creativity. Asking questions such as: How are we going to diffuse tension in order to unlock new ideas? How will we avoid getting fixed in our mindset, so we can see the discrete, divergent connections that lead to creativity?
Companies often believe that incorporating fun at work requires big gestures like social events and activities, but it's the little things such as daily mindfulness of what we enjoy in our work that yields more lasting benefits.
Cultivating a Positive TEAM MORALE