Waking Up Your Team in 4 Steps

This is especially true if you are working in a long established organization with many senior members: you realize that there is a lack of spark in your company.  People do their work well, but there is no passion, enthusiasm and excitement.  Time passes very fast and people get along well, but they are not good friends. Laughter is not often heard, so are quarrels. 

In time to come such an organization will become more of passing time than making a difference. If left unchecked, it will also decline because younger people wouldn't want to join or stay in such an life-less place.  

We know that when you enjoy work, work will be easier.  Being in a good company also makes us more productive, for we are happier and less stressed.  We seem to be able to do the impossible with our infectious enthusiasm and motivation.

In short, people look forward to work.  Time passes even faster.  The happy work environment gets contagious and your customers and suppliers would also feel it.  This will lead to more business and higher income for all.

If you too want to rejuvenate your team so that you able to do more with less, follow these 5 steps:

Step 1: Hold regular formal meetings where you promote freedom of expressions.  This is a first step where you hear from people to find out how they are doing now.  If there are some problems that need to be solved now (e.g. people are overloaded), you need to tackle them before moving to step 2.

Step 2: Hold off-site formal meetings, like you organize a half or one-day training session where people are free to express their feelings.  Such an environment will get people to open up and from here you can identify the deeper problems.  If you can resolve them, move to step 3. 

Step 3: Hold informal gatherings, be it lunch, dinner, tea or even karaoke sessions, where you allow the team to express even more without restrictions.  From here you can uncover the push behind what people do, like they want to earn more bonus. From here you can embark on ways to realize the team's goals and aspirations.  

Step 4: Inject life into the team with competitions, laughter sessions and games. Now you can be less formal for you have gone through the above 3 steps and are already doing things that address the problems the staff are facing.  If you inject fun and laugher into the team when they are facing problems, you will not wake up the team but instead make them more stressed

From here you have a team that is awake, full of life and enthusiasm.  And you can ramp this up further by putting up further challenges that stretch them.  Remember, if you team is not awake, un-motivated and show no enthusiasm, just merely push for more results will simply alienate them.  The above 4 steps has proven to work and give life to work.

After all, if our work has no life, we are no different from a slave.  If we find work meaningful and have life at work, we are motivated and happy.  Isn't this what everyone is looking for in life?  

By Andy Ng, Chief Trainer Coach at Asia Trainers.  Related articles:

• How to win friends and influence people with these 7 rules
• What The Straits Times say about bosses will shock you
• How to discipline the boss

THE MANAGER AS CHALLENGER (new)
Your Key to be a High Performing Manager
Date   :  7 May 2015,  2 to 5.30 pm (Friday)
Venue : The Plaza 02-346 7500A Beach Rd
Fee: $298 each, $199 each for 2 & above, $149 each for 4 & above, $199 each for 8 & above
Forget about the manager being a leader or change leader. A manager must be a challenger for him to be effective. Yet we see many managers afraid of challenges. The buck stops here. A manager is hired to tackle challenges, if not, why have him in the first place. Firstly the manager must challenge himself, his team and his organization to do better. To challenge people, the manager does 3 Ts well: Teach, Take Control and Touch Hearts.  Whether you are a new or experienced manager, come for this newest course taken from Damien Dixon best selling book "The Challenger" Note: PIC 60% grant is available for this course. You can also use the Quarterly Training Credit (QTC) to offset 25% of the course fees. Call 6225-1784 for details
Power-packed Contents Include:
Reason why most managers are not effective and what to do about it The Manager as Challenger: an old but forgotten concept The 3 Tools of a Challenger: Teach, Take Control and Touch Hearts How to Teach for Insights What to do when you counsel your team Five ways to Take Control of all Situations: Bigger Role, Delegate, Audit, Outcome Driven and Dominate all situations What to do when you are being challenged by your team? How to Set Targets that Challenges People Beyond The 10 Proven ways to Touch Hearts without Tears Using the Power of 5 Love Languages to communicate better The Samsung Way to Uplift 150,000 people overnight How Steve Jobs pushed people with Limitless concept The Ultimate of a Challenger: Realize our dreams