Your business lifespan, just like regular life is a rollercoaster, with ups and downs, highs and lows, so there will be times that you and your team feel that motivation and momentum are lacking.
A lack in motivation can be counterproductive and damaging for your success and your status quo, so you don’t want to find yourself, or your team stuck in that rut! As an owner, leader, manager or entrepreneur, it’s your duty to ensure that this doesn’t happen or that if it does, you find a successful way to turn it around!
Always Have A Goal
A team and a workforce need something to work towards, and if the day to day has come to overshadow this, you need to refocus and realign the aims of the team as a whole. We have spoken before of the team strengthening benefits of the team sharing a goal, so that’s one plus, but having the clear and desirable goal present in the first place is your starting point.
When the workforce loses momentum, perhaps they begin to question their day to day tasks and routines. You need to reintroduce the primary goal, for example, to increase online transaction, but also offer short-term goals for your team too, this keeps their focus varied and keeps the new aims clear in everyone’s minds! It also leads us nicely on to point 2.
Create Opportunities For Small Wins
Everyone loves a win, it motivates, increases confidence, bonds the team and can even increase creativity. The Harvard Business Review stated from their research that ‘the more frequently people experience that sense of progress, the more likely they are to be creatively productive in the long run’, so, create opportunities for success regularly in the workplace; the habit of setting short-term goals for the team, should allow you to do this quite easily.
Take The Lead
You are the leader of your company, of your team, so you should, of course, be taking the lead in respect of regaining momentum too. Show your enthusiasm to your team, show your proactive and positive attitude to work to your workforce; tune your emotional intelligence so that you can acknowledge and understand the impact your approach to work has on those you’re leading – because, it’s significant.
You can manage this ability to impact by handing out compliments or praise regularly to those who deserve it (look back at the previous point – who can you give that small win too?) and simply approaching meetings and discussions with a ‘can do’ attitude,
Allow Staff A Voice
Point 3 tells you to ‘Take the Lead’, and do, but part of leadership is the ability to delegate, don’t micromanage and do ask for an opinion and thoughts on all areas of business that are appropriate. Staff will feel much more engaged and invested if their ideas are not only listened to but actioned, not to mention the motivation to produce the next valuable idea spreading throughout the team.
Allowing employees the freedom to speak up and instilling confidence that their opinions will be listened to and valued is going to give you an insight into how they feel and how they feel the business is and should be running.
Introduce Change
Change is the answer to many business dilemmas, and the truth is that most of us are guilty of getting stuck in a routine that works for us ‘perfectly’ until it doesn’t – now, it’s a rut, and it’s not where we want to be. Change shakes everyone up, it brings our minds out of autopilot and forces us to manage the change that we have encountered, manage and adapt to the new set of circumstances or the new challenge that is being asked of us. It brings new ideas and a unique way of thinking, so whether the change is small or large, a desk reshuffle, a new rewards system or new department leader – the change could be just what the doctor ordered to cure that bout of momentum lapse!
Every firm and business will encounter some level of loss of momentum at one point or another, what matters is that as a leader, you’re aware aware when this occurs and that you are ready and willing to get that momentum going again!
