A Simple Way to Boost Team Morale
So, I got a slightly desperate-sounding call from Jim. And by the way, I’ve changed Jim’s name to protect his real identity. I’m often dealing with CEOs and people like that, and they usually don’t want their dirty laundry aired on a blog like this.
Jim was frustrated with his team. I mean, you always get a few duds, but most of them were pretty smart. And yet, they weren’t working together very well. They weren’t doing what Jim asked. He was also getting pushback from a couple of team members.
When a leader approaches me for help with their team, the story is usually the same. They can’t figure out what’s causing the gridlock, so they ask me to come in, wave around some magic psychological wand and make it right.
Sure, why not?
Anyway, I met up with Jim. He was short, with a round face and a receding hairline. He was the founder and CEO of a fast-growing mid-sized company and a pretty shrewd businessman. He was full of enthusiasm, but he couldn’t see what was wrong with his team.
He had that “fix it for me, Shane!” look in his eyes I’d seen many times before.
Instead, I did what I always do in these kind of situations. I ran. FAST.
OK, not really. I interviewed everyone involved, to get a true understanding of exactly how people saw Jim... warts and all.
“Likable and inspiring.”
“I admire him for creating a successful business.”
“I appreciate all the effort he’s put into developing our skills.”
“Tough but fair.”
Yeah, yeah. After I let them get all the here’s what I’d say about Jim if he were sitting right behind me stuff out of the way, we got down to the real issues.
It turns out: the team didn’t buy into Jim’s big vision for the company. One team member even described it as “pie in the sky.”
Jim had also been ignoring the unique needs of his team members. Actually, “ignoring” isn’t the right word. “Clueless to” would be better.
Team members Karen, Cynthia and Joe (not their real names, of course) were irritated Jim wasn’t in the office much anymore. How could they trust Jim’s decisions if he wasn’t around to discuss them?
Neil and Lindsay felt frustrated about the way Jim talked about employee ownership in the company, but this never seemed to translate into things like... to pick a purely random example, actually owning a part of the company. They thought Jim was all talk and it was killing their motivation.
Jim was genuinely shocked he hadn’t known about any of this.
But the reality is, leaders have a natural blind spot for what people really think about them… and they can’t see the unintended consequences this can have on the team.
As a result, leaders are often the last to know when motivation on the team is dwindling, or when they’re starting to lose credibility with the team.
On top of all this, everyone is motivated by different things. For example, some people want more guidance. Some want less. Trying to figure out what the team really needs is a constant guessing game.
I think a much better place to start is this quiz. It removes all the guesswork.
Also, get your team to take it as well. You’ll learn what matters to them, while avoiding awkward questions like, “So hey, what do you really think about your boss?”
