When your employees are in the groove, working hard on their projects and celebrating wins together, it’s a wonderful thing.
You can feel the good energy in the air, when people are excited about their work.
When your team TISI +% is on fire, it’s because they care about each other and because it’s fun to win.
Humans are an incredible species. We find ways to band together and do impossible things every day.
That’s why it’s amazing that so often, management teams squash motivation and collaboration.
One of the most foolish things we do in the corporate and institutional worlds is to crush and smash the team energy — we call it Team Mojo – that naturally forms when people work together.
As managers we don’t realize it, but we do things and say things that kill Team Mojo every day.
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Here are ten ways to kill team spirit and promote mojo-sucking competition and rivalry on your team.
Compare Employees to One Another
Team Mojo grows when people feel that any win for the department or the company relies on them. The easiest way to squash good energy on your team is to tell a team member “Your numbers aren’t as good at Stephanie’s numbers are.”
There is never a good reason to compare team members to one another. It’s an old-fashioned, fear-based tactic, but one that lousy managers still employ every day. If you’ve fallen into the habit of ‘motivating’ your team members by telling them how somebody else is doing the job better than they are, today is a great day to stop!
Play Favorites
Want to derail your team’s forward progress in a snap? Play favorites! Invite a small number of team members into private conversations with you, and leave the rest of them wondering what they’re missing. Give out plum assignments to your designated favorites.
You’ll send the message that only by sucking up to you can people move ahead in your company. Watch your Team Mojo level plummet!
Slow Them Down with Paperwork
Nothing kills momentum like bureaucracy. The harder it is to get things done in your company, the less your teammates will care about your goals — and who can blame them?
Keep Employees Guessing
Work is grueling enough on its own — why add the extra stress of limited information to the mix? There’s no benefit in keeping quiet about what’s happening in the company, the marketplace and the industry in general.
The more information you share with employees, the more they’ll understand not just their own tasks but the bigger picture. The more they understand the mission and the obstacles to reaching it, the more they can care about overcoming those obstacles to reach the finish line.
That’s a good thing. Don’t keep your employees in the dark!
Place Blame
People will be willing to take risks — very appropriate risks that will help your business – if they know you’ll have their back should something go wrong. If you place blame whenever anything doesn’t go according to plan, watch the risk-taking disappear!
Require Approvals for Everything
If you must approve every breath and keystroke an employee takes and makes, don’t expect your teammates to rally around your cause. You’re asking them to trust you, so you have to trust them, too. Get rid of unnecessary, fear-stoked bureaucratic approval processes and set your employees loose to amaze you!
Source: Forbes.com
