1 thing that will help you improve team engagement

If you ask me for one thing that can improve your team's effectiveness and engagement, I'd say - regular conversations. The reason so many relationships fail (including work relationships) is the inability to set expectations and provide feedback. Taking at least two hours a month to discuss how you want to work together can improve decision-making, meeting culture, task management and other processes that drive both performance and well-being.

If you want to do more - check out my video. And here are the five steps:

discuss strategic goals with your team each year.
each quarter, set priorities for the next 3 months
each month, discuss how you want to work together and how you can improve your team's internal processes
each week have a conversation with your teammates on something that's nothing to do with work
show empathy and gratitude to your colleagues every day.

And if you want to know even more, read this HBR article on how company culture shapes employee motivation. Research shows that the reasons we work determine how well we perform. And the top six reasons people work are: Play, Purpose, Potential, Emotional Pressure, Economic Pressure, and Inertia. The first three motives tend to increase performance, while the last three hurt it. The companies that are famous for their culture maximize the good motives and minimize the bad ones.

So what does high-performance culture look like?

There's no magic formula. Many processes influence how people are motivated at work. While we often think that leadership is most important for motivation, other processes can have an even greater impact.

So if you want to spend 2 hours a month increasing your team's motivation, discuss some of these processes, team roles for example.
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Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash