 Motivating teams through change is a challenge that every manager will face year in year out because businesses keep changing. In this video I take you through eight factors that if you get right will result in your team being a lot more motivated through periods of change which can make a massive difference to you the manager. My name is Jess Coles and I've led and managed teams over 25 years in corporates and household names through to SMEs and I've had to motivate teams through periods of high change in high-growth companies through to turning around failing businesses. I've also won best team prizes in national magazines and at company level. If you're new to this channel Enhance.training provides online business courses to help professionals, managers and business owners improve their performance. If you like this video please give it a thumbs up, subscribe and share it with friends. The business and competitive environment will keep changing and the business in which you work will have to change with it to survive and thrive. So as a manager from junior to senior we're going to be constantly faced with motivating our teams through change. Each person, ourselves and our team members reacts a little differently to the prospect of change. Some of you change is exciting you know filled with new possibilities and challenges and some view it scary and filled with the efforts of learning new skills or learning new ways of doing things. So how do we as managers and leaders keep our teams motivated during these periods of change? I'm sharing eight factors that I have found make a big difference on team motivation and in particular through periods of change. The first factor is our own feelings towards change. Depending on your management position you may be instigator of the change or more likely you'll be subject to change being imposed upon you and you have to implement these changes successfully with your team. You'll be going through the same emotions and have the same reactions that many of your team members are likely to experience. If you are expected to implement change then getting as comfortable and brought into the changes as possible is a great starting point. Your feelings and reactions will have an impact on the team that you manage. If you're brought into and championing the changes that you're expected to implement then the team will be much more willing to do the same. If you have doubts or are openly hostile to the change then your team will be much more likely to follow your example. So spend time with your manager to understand the changes why the changes are being made and what is the end goal. Take time to reflect on your emotions and reactions before speaking to your team. Manage your own emotions and reactions before starting to motivate your team through the change. We are all different therefore each team member is motivated by different things. Some motivating factors might include for instance you know the opportunity to do more interesting work or to get greater recognition or to see the end result of the work they do or it might be getting more responsibility or having more opportunities for development and there are so many others. The best way to find out is to ask each staff member. Discuss what they're looking for and what they enjoy and what motivates them. Once you understand each team member's motivations planning some changes of responsibilities within the wider changes being implemented can be a great way to meet some of each person's motivational requirements. Try to help each person and be seen to be helping each person. It is great to have a manager trying to look out for you and develop you. The fear of the unknown and the potential upheaval that comes with change is usually worse than the actual change itself. Once you know and understand what is happening then you can start working through what it'll mean for you and what you need to do to adapt. You can plan and take action. For this reason make sure that you tell team members openly and honestly of the changes that will need to be implemented. And when you do this think of different ways of communicating this to the team members. You know for example you could write a summary of changes and email it around a team but speak to them first. Or you could talk through the changes in one-to-one meetings with each of the team members and it's a great opportunity to ask for questions and then to answer any questions they have. Or you could talk through the changes in a formal team meeting for instance. Use different communication styles and this will help different team members. Talk through the ways in which the team members can help make the changes a success. Tell the team why the changes are happening and what it'll mean for the company, the team and the individuals. The more knowledge and understanding the team members have then the more comfortable they will be and the more motivated they will be. Which of your team members will be active supporters of any change that they believe in and which will be more cautious or even resistant towards change. Work out where each of the team members sit. And when you're doing your initial conversations with the team look at the body language and who is silent and who is asking questions. This gives you a pretty good indication. Put in extra effort early in the planning process to explain the changes to potential supporters and answer all their questions. Or even better get them involved in planning out how to implement the changes. Get them on board as quickly as possible. They will help you persuade the remaining team members and peer pressure is a powerful motivator. Once you have the supporters of the change on side you can put more attention into mitigating the detractors or working through their fears and objections to help them so they move towards becoming supporters. And then I found actually that some of the strongest supporters have been those who are initially quite skeptical. There is nothing worse than having to boring repetitive tasks with no apparent purpose. So it's a great idea to regularly ask team members these three questions. What tasks or activities should we keep? What should we change? And what should we stop? These three simple questions give a surprising list of potential tasks to change or stop. And take out as many annoying tasks from the team as practical. You know the easier make it for your team to carry out their day to day activities and reach the team goals the more motivated and effective your team will be. And when you have periods of change it's a great opportunity to look for these annoying tasks to take out. Wider changes within the company or the team can create opportunities for you to develop different members of your team. New opportunities to learn and new challenges are great motivators for many of the team. And it's so important to make the most of these opportunities. For instance which team members can be given additional responsibilities in helping plan and implement the wider changes. Can you set the goal to reach and then coach the team to develop how they're going to get to that goal? This is a great way to develop problem solving skills amongst the team as well as execution skills. Those needed to turn ideas and plans into reality. Are you able to move responsibilities and tasks around the team so that everyone has something new to get their teeth into while playing to their strengths as much as possible? Just as a word of warning obviously introducing too much change at one point can be a no-no from a capacity or a delivery point of view. So do use your judgment. Take opportunities to develop the team when you have them. Firstly you get a stronger more capable team and secondly you have a much more motivated team. There can be nothing worse than telling the teams to achieve X, Y and Z and then not helping them when they need help with how they're going to achieve those results. Book in weekly one-to-one meetings with each of your direct reports and ask your direct reports do likewise with theirs. Use these meetings to help mentor and coach your reports on how to achieve the goals that they've been set. And I've always felt two heads are better than one in solving problems. So even if you're not the expert there is a lot you can do to help your team members be as successful as possible. Take the opportunity. The other part of supporting the team is protecting them from less important tasks projects and requests to ensure that they're not swamped and have the capacity to deliver against the priority goals that you've just set. Manage the expectations of your managers and the other teams and stakeholders they're involved in any changes being implemented. The better stakeholders outside the team are managed the less challenges requests and other issues that come up that will interfere with your team's ability to deliver on the changes that they are responsible for. Protect your team and invest time in supporting each of your team members do the best they're able to do. These will both help them as a team keep them engaged and keep them motivated. Everyone likes to be told they have done a good job. Positive reinforcement works so much better than criticizing what has not gone well. In fact studies have shown that to keep a colleague or a team member happy you need to compliment them at least three times as much as being critical. Three times. How many managers achieve this? I imagine a quite small number. Look out for opportunities to praise team members for work well done or for demonstrating great behavior. There are loads of ways that you can celebrate success. A few ideas include maybe sending an email praising the work or when you're chatting by the water cooler give them a compliment or when you're in your one-to-one meetings discuss the work that's been done really well or in public in front of other team members you can praise them or again in formal team meetings you can maybe ask them how they achieved a certain result. Use a mix of different ways to celebrate success. The more you do this the more the team will feel appreciated and motivated to do more. Remember compliment at least three times as much as being critical and be specific in your compliments it will work wonders. So there you have eight important factors in motivating teams. This is not an exhaustive list but it will give you a very good start in helping you motivate your teams through change or just in your day to day work. You can achieve amazing things with a good and motivated team make the best of the opportunity by keeping their motivation and development up and this does take work and effort on your part but what you get back personally will pay for this effort many times over and do visit us at enhance.training and take a look at the courses and resources to help you manage your team more effectively and if you like this video please hit the thumbs up button below and subscribe and hit the bell to get notified of our weekly video releases. This really helps us produce more videos to help you. Thanks for watching and I look forward to seeing you again soon.