How to Inspire Purpose in Your Team

April 25, 2017

TODAY’S TIP: How to Inspire Purpose in Your Team  

In our last post, we discussed that there are five key ingredients to creating a great team.

Inspiring purpose is the first ingredient that distinguishes great teams from good ones.

Ingredient #1: Inspiring Purpose

Whenever I ask a group of leaders, “What makes a great team?” I hear the same, accurate answer: a common goal.

It’s like saying the secret to great tomato sauce is tomatoes.

To delve into this a little more, let’s return to my grandmother’s kitchen.

On Sundays, we’d hover by the white stove stop, waiting for Nana to turn her back. When she wasn’t looking, we’d dip a torn corner of fresh Italian bread into the pot of tomatoes, basil and olive oil simmering into a boom of red sauce and sneak a quick taste.

The purpose of food is nourishment. More than that, Nana added love. She stirred frequently, added ingredients slowly, and probably smiled as she turned away from the pot and we swooped in. Her food brought us together and kept our Italian heritage alive. That’s what inspired us and made her food great.

In my experience, great teams feel great commitment to something beyond a common goal – they feel inspired by the greater purpose of their work. As a leader, you have an opportunity every day to connect people’s goals with greater purpose to their work. This is important for everyone, especially Millennials. If you want to accomplish great things together, regularly remind people of the inspiring purpose for their work.

Tips You Can Use: Here are a few secrets from my toolkit to help you inspire your team to greatness.

  • Working One-on-One: When you delegate a project or task, be sure to explain the “Why” behind the person’s goals and how their work relates to the purpose or goals of the team or the organization. “When you do this task well, you’re contributing to the company’s vision to cure cancer for patients,” or, “By doing this project well, you’re helping the team innovate new ways of working,” or, “Even though this may seem routine, it matters because other team members are relying on your quality work product to achieve our team’s goals.”    
  • With your team: One of my favorite team development experiences that I designed is called “I am Here.” At your next team meeting, take five minutes out of your agenda. Ask people to take out a paper and write the reasons why they chose to work in your company or team. Then ask them to share their answers with the team. I’m always amazed by the common threads people offer. This experience works well in large groups as well.

In our next post, we’ll leave Nana’s kitchen and turn our attention to Palo Alto, California, where Google’s data-geeks uncovered the next key ingredient of great teams. I’ll offer more details on the other four key ingredients and actionable steps you can take as a leader to put them to work in your teams.

KEY TAKEAWAY: great teams feel commitment to something beyond a common goal – they feel inspired by the greater purpose of their work.

 

Stay tuned for our next post to learn about the next key ingredient to great teams.

3 Ways to Create Optimal Performance at Work

February 27, 2017

As a manager, you need to create optimal performance from everyone in your organization.

In our last post, we learned that quality relationships between managers and people leads to higher employee engagement and increased performance. We also learned that career development is the key to building these quality relationships between managers and their people.

Coaching and mentoring builds quality relationships and allows employees to meet the challenges of their work today while charting their future path.  Millennials, in particular, need to know they are growing in their role, to be satisfied and engaged with their work. Career development activities do just that.

The goal of all this is to move people into the Nexus: the place where company business goals and people’s passion meet for optimal performance.

Here are three tips for moving people to the Nexus:

  1. As an employee, be specific when communicating your vision.
  2. As a manager, strengthen your coaching muscle.
  3. People don’t learn from challenging assignments, they learn by reflecting on their experience.

KEY TAKEAWAY: When employees and managers work together on career development, everyone at the organization benefits.

In our next post, we will take a deeper dive into these three tips so you can learn how to easily apply them at work.

New Year’s Goal? A Win/Win Year

February 7, 2017

At this time of new year renewal and resolutions, I am very excited to launch the Prior Consulting blog. My goal is to bring practical tips and the latest trends on leadership and culture so you can increase your personal performance, efficiency and effectiveness.

TODAY’S TIP: Focus on the win/win at work to achieve more together

If you are like most of us, your list of resolutions is long and daunting. Here’s a tip to ensure success this year: whether you work for yourself or for someone else, focus on the win/win – this is the intersection, or the Nexus, between your personal goals and the goals of your organization.

The Nexus is the place where your performance and passion meet. It is the zone where your best-self aligns with your organization’s goals, to achieve big goals in 2017.  Developing a role at your company that targets your talents and passion creates the most satisfaction – and happiness -as you and your company work together to achieve audacious results.

Here’s an example:

Jeffrey had a problem. As head of Human Resources of a successful, Cambridge-based biotech firm, he found that people with more than three years of experience with the company were losing passion for their work, popping into his office voicing their dissatisfaction. Managers didn’t know how to develop people. People were unsure how to take charge of their careers. Managers complained that people seemed disengaged; work quality could be higher. What was the source of the problem?

Jeffrey and company managers were searching for the Nexus, where company business goals and people’s passion meet for optimal performance. Visualize a Venn diagram with two overlapping circles, with company mission and goals on one side, and people’s career vision and capabilities on the other. The bigger the overlap between these circles, the greater the outcomes for both the company and its people.

What moves a company and its people into the Nexus?

KEY TAKEAWAY: optimal performance is achieved when company business goals and people’s passion meet.  

Stay tuned for our next post to learn more about Jeffrey and how he helped his managers and company achieve more together.

 

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