EP38 | How Do I Motivate My Team

How do you motivate your team? How do you create a conducive work environment that really builds motivation in your team and gets them working for you? In this episode of The Create Purpose Podcast, Zach gives you four actionable steps you can take to your team today to make them feel more motivated and help you fulfill your business dreams and create your purpose.

 Episode resources:

• Create Purpose Website 

• Join Zach’s Mastermind

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:

• Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
• Follow and rate on Spotify

Connect with me on Instagram and Facebook!

Zach Arend: Ask them, help them see why, and then ask them if they'd be willing to, to play. Would you be willing to play in creating this change that I think will really serve the greater good of this business and, and that involves all of us. Are you in, are you willing to experiment with me?

Welcome back or welcome to the Create Purpose Podcast. How do I motivate my team? , that's a question that I got asked this week, and it's a question I can relate to because I remember when I had a team of 30 sales people across the us and the number of calls had dipped. We hadn't had a win in weeks. And I remember asking myself, how could I motivate them?

How could I inspire them? And I inevitably would get them on a conference call on a Monday morning. And I would have my notes and I would tell them how we just need to keep going, keep working hard. You guys can do it. I believe in you. Ya ya RA RA when on and on and on and ready break and nothing changed, nothing changed.

And so I'd show back up Monday. I've had a, had another speech. And then maybe at the end of that speech, I'm like, alright everybody, I also want you to read this book cuz I knew that book would motivate him. Right. And I would try everything under the sun to get my team energized because we were kind of going through some lulls and I'm like trying to pick 'em up.

Right. And here's what I learned. I was doing it all wrong for one. But for some reason, that's where we tend to go. That's that's the default. I, I don't know. Maybe we, we learn it from watching the sports movies like miracle and, you know, you know, the, the halftime speech where the team's down zero to, you know, 27 to nothing and they're losing and the coach comes in, gives some inspirational speech and then they go win the game.

And I think we, in some weird way, hope that's how it works. I don't think it works that way. If you are like the best in the world at speaking. And you know, like maybe for sure, I've listened to speeches that have gotten me fired up. So I don't wanna diminish that, but I don't think that is, I think that has a limited shelf life.

I do. I think it's meant for those game time moments. And if you're always doing that, if you're always using that tool in the toolbox called motivation, motivate your team. I think it, I think it grows. I think, you know that as well. And so what do you do instead? I think motivation one motivation often comes after commitment and discipline and getting into action.

So, I mean, think about you, like, do you ever do something when you're not motivated? You know, if you have any type of exercise routine, if you're like me, I don't always want to go to the gym. I'm not always motivated to go, but it's kind of funny how once I get through my, my stretching and my first set of some light work, all of a sudden I start picking up a little bit heavier weights, right?

When I set out to run a half mile, end up running a mile, you know, the motivation shows up later and so same for you, same for your team. And so don't, don't make motivation the goal, even because it's, it's hard, it's hard to. Create motivation. Motivation just kind of shows up when you're in flow and you're, you're in, in the work and you're feeling progress.

I, I think that's where motivation comes from more than anything. And so what do you do like, well, what do you do if your team's down, maybe they've been working extra hours. Maybe you're trying to get, 'em geared up for a really busy time of year, which is ahead of us for a lot of, a lot of product based businesses.

Right? You, you have a, a season where maybe you make your whole year in, in one quarter or maybe even. One month. So I get the desire to motivate. And so here's what I, I wanna set you up for success. I want you, here's how you create an environment. That's more conducive for motivation for, for higher energy notice.

An environment that's conducive. Like you're not going to get people to be motivated. Like don't, , don't take yourself so seriously, don't put that pressure on you. All we can do as leaders and managers is work on the environment that we're creating the climate, the emotional climate in, in the business, for sure as a leader.

The way you show up does kind of determine the energy your team brings, right? If you're Debbie downer, negative Nancy, and just, just kind of grumpy old, man, you know, and you're walking around all never happy. That's gonna have a draining effect on your team. And so yes, you can certainly demotivate your team by showing up.

But I do think that the opposite of the spectrum where we show up all rah and that fake energy, we, we like we're exhausted at the end of the day because we. Put for so much energy just to get, cuz we were trying to create energy for everyone else in the room. That's exhausting. Do you know the feeling where you're like trying to put out enough energy so that maybe somebody will catch it and, and use some of it?

Right. I think that's exhausting. I don't think I know it's exhausting. I've been there and I think you have too. So here's a different approach. Here's a different approach. And I think, I think you're going to see yourself. You're gonna see motivation come as a byproduct of this much quicker than trying to create motivated people.

Okay. So here there's four things I wrote down. Number one, I want you to think about enrolling your team. So if you're faced with a, maybe it's it's, it's this holiday season coming up and you know, you're gonna have to put forth like five times five X, 10 X, the number of orders and a shorter window of time.

You know, it's gonna be a big month busy, late hours. Instead of just motivating them and getting them fired up for the, the time ahead, enroll them in the month ahead, enroll them, enlist them, ask more of them. And the key word is ask, and that feels vulnerable, cuz well, what if they say I don't, I'm not in I'm I don't wanna do that.

Well then. You would've never been able to motivate them. I'm just saying that they already have it in them or they don't. And so I believe asking more of them is your best option. Enrolling them into the, the big task at hand. So enrolling them kind of sounds and looks like this. Hey team. We are about to have one of the biggest months of our year.

It's gonna require a lot from all of us. I know I'll be working 50 hours a week and I'm gonna, that that's gonna be required of you too, if you choose to take it on. And so before we go into this busy time of year, I want to ask each of you, are you prepared? Are you, are you. Are you on board? Are you, do you want this?

Are you in, can we count on you ask more of them because I promise you they'll say, yeah, I get it. I see it. I'm in it's a month and we'll celebrate at the end. It it's different than you coming in and pushing them in, in the form of motivation. You're asking them in a very challenging way, like a caring, challenging way.

I love you. And that's why I'm, I'm giving you a heads up that the next month is gonna be extremely difficult. And I need to know that you're in and if you're not that's okay, but I, I need to know you're in, because this is gonna be a big month for all of us. It's gonna mean a lot and then share the why behind it.

That's gonna be more motivating, quote, unquote, motivating than just given a rah raw speech. So ask more of them. Number two, think about co-creating the path forward. Don't come up with a grand master plan all on your own, bring them into it. All right. We're about ready to head into our busiest month of the year.

Sit them down in front of the whiteboard with you. Okay. How do we want to move into this month? How can we be successful? What do we need to be thinking about? How do we wanna work together through this? What, what will be important? What might be some of the traps we fall into? How might we get in our own.

Right. This is a conversation that you're having with your entire team and you're, co-creating a solution that's powerful. That's powerful because people support what they create. So that's, co-creation number three, coach them, coach them. And this probably comes into play more when you're in it. Now you're, you're in that busy month.

You're in the struggle. You're in the fight, whatever you wanna, however you wanna refer to it. Coaching them. They're gonna come to you with a challenge and you're gonna feel the need to jump in and fix it and tell them what to do to rescue them. And I want you to find a new default and I want you to coach first ask them, what do you think if you were to solve this?

What ideas do you have? That's. The opposite of coaching is giving advice, giving the answer. Coaching is all about helping people arrive at their own solutions, through asking powerful questions, open ended questions that cause people to slow down think and find their answers because people are powerful.

And when you do that, you're gonna be amazed at how, how smart they are and how capable they are. And sometimes they are amazed as well, and they really develop. They love you because they're like, oh my. You helped me figure out who I am and what I'm capable of. I had no idea that I could do this and you showed me that I could.

And that's the rising tide that lifts all boats when you can show up that way and really coach them to be great, speak to their own greatness, keep them in power, keep them at choice. Don't take it away from them. And sometimes not sometimes, almost all the time when you give somebody advice or you tell them what to do, you're taking that ownership away from them and you're telling them you're communicating to them that there's some they're.

They are someone that needs your help. Now I'm not saying we don't ever help and support that. Don't hear me say that, but I think again, We are too quick to do that. And we don't first coach and allow people to remember that they're powerful and use that power. So that's number three, coach. The number four, the real simple one it's clarity.

Are you giving your team complete clarity of what success looks like? Let me tell you what would make for a great month. If we got all the orders out on time and we did it without working past. Eight o'clock at night, or I don't know, like whatever, like set something exciting, give them clarity. Now they, now they have, now we're going back to some of the other tools, like co-creation now they get to create a solution towards the success that you just shared with them.

The picture of success you just shared with them far too often as leaders and managers, we, we spend so much time in the minutiae telling people, okay, here's how I want you to do this. Here's how we're gonna do. We're gonna do this and then we're gonna do that. And then we're gonna go here and then we're gonna say this and that and da, da, and it's exhausting.

When, what if you saw people as powerful and capable and what that looks like is you give them the what and you give them the why and you let them figure out the, how that's the fourth tool I wanna give you is. And that's clarity. Let them figure out the how, when people have clarity and they know what success looks like, and they know how success is measure.

They know what winning is and what losing is now they know what game they're playing and when you have the right people and the right seats in your business, they figure out the how every time sometimes even better than, than you or I could. And that's really cool when you get to experience that. So that's the fourth tool.

Why are you giving 'em clarity? So I hope these four things, these four approaches to creating an environment that's conducive to having driven people and, and your teams as you go into maybe busier time of year, or maybe, maybe the recession or quote unquote recession, maybe, maybe you're feeling a slowdown and some changes need to be made in the business.

Maybe you need to change things, change the hours or change the way the business is fundamentally operating. Instead of trying to get them on board with the new way of doing things. Take a different approach, enroll them in the new way of doing things, ask them, ask them, help them, see why, and then ask them if they'd be willing to, to play.

Would you be willing to play in creating this change that I think will really serve the greater good of this business. And, and that involves all of us. Are you in, are you willing to experiment with me? That's enrolling your team. Co-creating all right team. We're we, I'm gonna be honest with you. We, we didn't have a great month.

Our expenses are quickly outweighing our income. And so we need to think about how we can reduce expenses. Now let's talk about hot ways in which we can do that. Let's do that together. Let's have a conversation and co-create. The solution for how we're gonna reduce expenses. And that turns into this beautiful conversation where ideas are shared and weighed for you to do that though.

You can't come into the conversation attached to one outcome. Cause if you're attached to one outcome and you already know what the right way forward is, well, you can't co-create, you can't enroll. All you're left with is getting buy-in at that point and, and motivating them on doing what you need them to.

And then coaching them, really coaching them to think through how they can find their own solutions for their own departments and their own team. And then give them clarity, give them clarity. Maybe that's being a little more transparent than you normally would. So they actually know where the business is at and then they have a better picture of what needs to happen.

Or maybe you're just painting a clearer picture of what success looks like. Here's how we'll know when we've, when we're. We will see this number go from X to Y. We will see I, whatever, like here's, here's what would indicate success and then let them figure out the, how I promise if you do those things, those four things more in your business, you're gonna be able to get a lot accomplished.

You're actually gonna start really tapping into the power of a team. And you know, what that means for you is you wake up and you start to realize, wow, they don't need me as much as I thought. I get to go build that thing. I've been dreaming of building, or I get to go build that new product line or, or that new offering, or get back out in the, into the, the market and, and, and collaborate with other influencers and, and create and build the stuff that I love to do.

I actually get to do that. So these four also use them as steps to be in the leader you desire to be so that you can create more of what you want in your business. And you know, what is amazing about that? As I know you love your. I know you're a compassionate leader. If you followed me at all, you, you know, like I know that about you.

And so what a better gift than you than you give your team than, than teaching them that they're powerful and creating an environment for them to go play full out. And in turn, you get to go playful out too. So I hope you found this episode. Helpful. Thanks for listening. If you have a question for me or would like me to cover a topic on an upcoming episode, go find me on Instagram at Zach dot Arend drop me a DM.

I'd love to hear from you, and until next time, thanks for listening. And we'll see you in the next episode. Hopefully you really enjoyed this podcast episode. And my hope is you found it really inspirational. And also most importantly, I hope you took away some practical things that you can start to do and apply in your own life.

So finally, I have one small favor to ask of you before you go, wherever you get your podcast, whether that's apple music or Spotify. If you enjoyed this episode, leave us a review. Love to hear your thoughts. Come find us on social media, share it on social media. It just really helps us get the word out, helps us grow our audience.

So please do that. Thanks to my team, Ashley Bolden, who handles all the admin and Chris skipper who handles all the music and editing of this podcast for more information on the. Purpose podcast, you can go to www.createpurpose.net, and you can also follow me on Instagram @zach.arend. Please drop me a comment, reach out, drop me a DM.

I'd love to hear from you and love to hear what you're taking away from these conversations. What would you like to hear more of? Do you have any guests that you would love to see? Come on the shell. And I'm always looking for great people to talk to and people with great stories that can inspire you.

And so if you know of anybody send, 'em my way, love to hear from ya. I'm your host, Zach Arend and I'll see you in the next episode of the Create Purpose Podcast. Bye for now.