![] teammotivation.jpg alt=”Illustration of someone in a Zoom meeting with the split screen beside them”](https://www.treasurers.org/ACTmedia/Knowledge%20Hub/teammotivation.jpg)
Last month, business and management author Jo Owen explained to The Treasurer what leaders can do to safeguard effectiveness in remote teams during the pandemic.
Now, the writer behind Global Teams: How the Best Teams Achieve High Performance tells us how leaders can galvanise motivation and morale – at a time when team members will be wrestling with a host of work-life balance issues and may be feeling detached from their normal, working routine…
Why are motivation and morale so important?
As a leader, you could be striving for effectiveness and yet have a team that’s under the cosh and completely demotivated, and they’re just going to burn out and drop out.
Or, at the other extreme, you could have a team that’s just twiddling its thumbs at home, trying to avoid eating more cookies out of the larder and therefore also getting pretty demotivated.
Neither of those options are good ideas.
What are the main challenges that leaders face when trying to motivate teams remotely?
You can’t look over their shoulder to see how they’re doing, and you can’t take them out for a quick cup of coffee in the canteen. You can’t do any of those things you normally do in a face-to-face context.
And the stark reality is, you can’t motivate people remotely. All you can do is create the conditions in which they can rediscover or reinforce their own, intrinsic motivation.
So, forget about jumping on your desk in a white suit saying, “I have a dream”, as inspirational as that may be, because it’s just not going to work.
That’s going to look a bit weird on video.
Well, it will. So, how do you create those conditions?
In my experience, there are four things that will help people to feel intrinsically motivated, whether they’re working in person or remotely. My acronym for those elements is RAMP: Relationships, Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.
This is about positive relationships. People need to feel supported, not commanded. In the office setting, there are lots of positive relationships. There are some negative ones, too – but generally, people value that social structure. But that’s been removed, and as a leader, my relationship is going to be more directly with you, now.
So, how do I make that a positive relationship? Well, there are several things you can do, and you can do them with all of your team members, whether they’re up, down or sideways in the organisation.
Professionals hate being micromanaged. In fact, they hate being managed. They would probably think that management is a waste of time, and that they could do your job better than you can, anyway. That’s the standard shtick.
In an era of widespread remote working, then, that’s actually the time when you can double down on autonomy. This should be your chance to enhance motivation, because you now have no alternative but to really trust your team, and really delegate. If you can’t micromanage, so much the better.
All things considered, this is a wonderful opportunity. But, here’s the catch: although we all arguably have freedom to do whatever we want at the moment – within reason – we don’t have freedom to do nothing. If we do nothing, we’re going to get really depressed, really fast. And when you talk to people who are working remotely at the moment, some are really thriving, and others are suffering. And the biggest differentiator is their workload.
Before we spoke, I was on a call with someone else, and I asked, “How’s it going?” And they said, “Actually, I’m really enjoying this.” I asked, “Are you working hard?” And they said, “I’m swamped.” And that’s the classic, positive reaction: I’m swamped – and I love it. Whereas the people who are twiddling their thumbs have just had enough.
That goes back to what I said about rhythms and routines in the previous article: leaders can establish some for you – but as team members, you must also set some up for yourselves. Don’t just drift.
With the third and fourth elements of RAMP, I’m going to switch the acronym’s order around so that the ‘P’ comes first, and then the ‘M’…
You’ve got to have this. Clearly, some of it can be derived from the long-term notion that you are part of something larger than yourself. At the moment, more than ever, NHS staff will have that feeling. But that’s not going to be so strong in every organisation. However, amid the pandemic, what you must do is at least create a sense of purpose around: “What am I going to do this month/this week/today?”
At least give yourself a sense of purpose for today. That goes back to autonomy: don’t drift. Set yourself a task where you can say, “I’m on this.”
If it’s not work, at least do something in the home. Perhaps it’s time to repaint the house – or in my case, the first thing I did in lockdown was sort out my ‘man cave’. And blimey, that took me a day and a half. But I’m still feeling the accomplishment.
It doesn’t have to be some grand, world-changing scheme – it can be as simple as, “I’ll sort out my man cave.” And that provides a sense of purpose and progression.
Which leads us on to our final element…
Autonomy is great if you have – or are growing towards – mastery. If you have autonomy, but you’re not capable of doing the work, that’s a complete nightmare. Therefore, autonomy and mastery must go together.
And actually, autonomy and accountability must go together, too. If you have autonomy, you are now accountable for your work. But you don’t want to be accountable if you haven’t got mastery. So all these things are interrelated.
Mastery is important, then – but it’s not like you need to be perfect at something. It’s important to at least feel like you are making progress with it. And that can be really exciting. So that’s another source of purpose: “I’m going to use this period to become more proficient at something.”
Now, that may be more proficient at work – or it may be something outside work. For example, at the very start of lockdown, I went and bought a keyboard because I thought teaching myself a few tunes would keep me occupied during the boring bits. So, I have now played Jingle Bells 213 times – badly. But I will perfect it at some point.
Very sensible – you’ve set me a goal, there.
Relationships, autonomy, mastery and purpose all tie together. As a leader, you can create the conditions in which people feel enmeshed with those factors. But you can also enable people to discover that connection for themselves.
Now, if people think they’ve got positive relationships, autonomy and accountability, and that they’re fuelled with purpose and growing towards mastery, they are probably going to feel a tangible sense of motivation.
Equally, turning this on its head, if your people have negative relationships, absolutely no autonomy, no sense of mastery, and don’t know why they’re doing what you’ve asked them to do, I pretty much guarantee that they’re not going to feel any intrinsic motivation at all.
As a leader, you’re not going to be able to motivate your people remotely by putting on a white suit, standing on your desk and saying, “I have a dream.” But you can create the conditions in which your team can feel motivation.
Matt Packer is a freelance business, finance and leadership journalist