The ability to motivate employees is one of the most beneficial attributes that a company or individual can possess. It can mean the difference between a business that merely treads water or one that is truly progressive and full of dynamism. A motivated team is a key step in achieving this culture in your workplace, but how do you successfully energise and focus the professionals around you? Below are some tips as to how you can inspire and drive your colleagues forward.

Create a vision
In order to motivate your colleagues towards a particular vision, it is essential to fully realise that vision yourself. The more clearly you can define your vision, the more easily it will be for your colleagues to absorb, comprehend and get behind it on a day to day basis. A distinct vision will ensure consistency on your part, an essential tool within motivating people.

Describe your vision
Whether you are trying to motivate a team or individual team members, the clarity of your communication is all-important. No matter how clever your ideas or strategies may be, they are worth little if not presented to stakeholders in an inspiring and coherent manner. By organising your thoughts and communicating them well, you are allowing teams and individuals the ability to fully grasp and be motivated by your ideas.

Push the right buttons
Successful motivation of a team requires an overarching vision as earlier described, although it is also important to consider the individual requirements of each person that you are trying to motivate. We all have different desires, professional aspirations and working practices and therefore have individual emotional buttons that need to be pushed in order for us to become fully motivated. These buttons might be related to enhanced financial or professional status, but if you take the time to understand what makes your colleagues tick, you may well find ways of motivating them that are both intuitive and effective.

Involve to evolve
Except in very rare circumstances, a dictatorial approach is never successful when trying to motivate your colleagues. A good tactic to inspire people by your vision is to involve them in part of the decision making process, even if the process is at quite an advanced stage. In this way, your colleagues will feel more responsible for the success of the project and will consequently be more dynamic in their contribution.

Go public
Keeping people motivated is dependant on you keeping a publicly consistent approach to all your colleagues. Whether it is compliments for a work in progress, or reprimands for working standards not lived up to, it can be detrimental to people’s motivation if they have the sensation that not all the information is being shared with them. Private negotiations, particularly within team decisions, can be very demotivating and can also lead to a certain amount of Chinese whispers, so keep public and uniform to all members of the team.

Delegate
By developing a shrewd ability to delegate, you will obtain the dual advantage of taking items away from your own workload, whilst at the same time showing your colleagues that you have faith in their abilities to get the job done. If you manage this process well, you can be responsible for actively developing the skillset of your colleagues, by delegating challenging work to them, which can also be very motivating.

Appreciate
Even if your vision is brilliant, your communications clear and your ability to push people’s buttons in order to create a motivated individual or team is excellent, you may still have forgotten one final tip to great motivation of others. Whenever anyone produces work that is of the standard you expect or higher, be sure to show your appreciation. It is easy to underestimate the power of a thank you or piece of praise in motivating people to work even harder next time and you may well find that a little goes a long way.