Imran Akram, former boss of Asons Solicitors in Bolton understands how hard it can be to maintain your motivation in challenging times. But there are things you can do to help boost your motivation and also to keep motivation levels up in your team.
Dr Imran Akram has some advice to share on how to help yourself and your team to stay positive and keep your productivity levels running on high. And let’s be honest, this past year has not been what we envisaged for ourselves or our business progress.
With so many of us having to work from home for so many months, it can often feel like we are not performing as well as when we are working in an office environment with our colleagues on hand to support us.
It looks like it will be some time before our home and working lives resemble what we know as normal, and many things we used to take for granted may never be the same again. But with the right motivation, we can improve our environment and our minds so we can continue to be both productive and creative.
Develop your intrinsic motivation
In layman terms, intrinsic motivation is the psychological reward that you get from doing meaningful work, doing something well at work and being recognised for it by your peers and supervisors.
The bonus of developing your intrinsic motivation is the higher likelihood that you will remain in a positive state of mind where you can be fully absorbed in doing your work tasks and keeping your focus on enjoying the flow of your productivity.
There is a big difference between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivators. For example, an extrinsic motivator can be a reward or a threat, as in a carrot or stick approach. A carrot is a reward and a stick is a threat that puts you under pressure to achieve.
At the end of the day, people will not thrive in an environment where they feel under pressure to achieve targets (stick/threat). Neither will they be truly happy and contented with their work if their focus in on the reward (carrot).
So taking a nurturing approach where you help yourself and your team to develop your intrinsic motivation to increase the internal desire to achieve results and feel good about ourselves for doing so well can actually boost the positivity and well-being of your team as well as your productivity.
How to encourage intrinsic motivation
To help people develop and build on their intrinsic motivation, your team need to feel that you and their co-workers are genuinely concerned about their well-being and happiness.
There is no simple way to give your team intrinsic motivation with a snap of your fingers, but what you can do to help nurture it in your team is to create the right environment for it to grow and thrive. Imran Akram offers the following suggestions and tips that you can use to help and encourage your team.
Understand and respect people’s perspectives
You and your team are made up of a lot of very different individuals, and therefore everyone’s life is going to differ in a lot of ways from their co-workers. So let’s say one of your teammates has a young family and therefore doesn’t have a lot of spare time or flexibility to be able to work late, start work early, or meet up after work for a business dinner.
This means that you should show them respect and understanding when they turn down impromptu work meeting invitations that are outside their designated working hours. It also means that you shouldn’t make important decisions for them in their absence.
Your individual team members need to know that their contribution matters. What they give to a joint project is important and has great value, so to cut anyone out of any team decision making will not help them to build a sense of self-worth or purpose or intrinsic motivation to keep going.
Don’t be afraid to stretch or challenge your team
When there are deadlines to meet and tasks to be done, it can often be tempting to just say, ‘it will be quicker to do this myself’ just to ensure the work gets done.
It is quite common for bosses or team leaders to do this thinking they are helping out their team members and taking some of the pressure off their shoulders. However, by doing this regularly you will not be challenging or stretching the capabilities of your team or allowing them to achieve new goals that they can be proud of.
By applying just the right amount of task delegation, and offering your support and guidance, you can challenge your team to achieve a little more and build intrinsic motivation and personal growth.
Make sure you give plenty of productive feedback, praise and recognition to your team’s contributions. Even a simple ‘thank you’ when you know a team member has put in a little extra effort will go a long way in building up their intrinsic motivation.
However, many studies have shown that people prefer positive and constructive corrective feedback when they need it rather than simple praise or recognition. So if you have a teammate that has done something well that they can be praised for, but they could have achieved it quicker or performed better by using a different technique, you should be prepared to share this with them as well as offer them praise.
Encourage engagement and a sense of belonging
Imran Akram is always mindful for you to remember that your team are made up of individuals and will not always share the same collective team thinking. By giving each team member the opportunity to contribute towards refining and improving your operation is the key to building intrinsic motivation and engagement with your company, as well as a healthy sense of belonging.
Just because you and your co-workers work as a team doesn’t mean that everyone should work in exactly the same way. Allowing your individual team members a level of freedom, within reason, to define the best way for them to work can help them to fulfil their personal objectives and goals, all the while working with a high level of intrinsic motivation.