10 Unexpected Actions That Energize Your Team Today
10 Unexpected Actions That Energize Your Team Today
Life is better for you when you fuel other people’s energy.
- Call an unplanned meeting and tell the team why you’re proud of them. (Don’t tell them why you’re calling the meeting.)
- Ask everyone to send thank you emails to three people they serve. Ask each person to read one email they sent in your next meeting.
- Provide food unexpectedly and for no reason.
- Name a person on the team, ask, “What is something you admire about ________?” Repeat this for everyone at the table and for people who aren’t at the table too.
- Walk about asking, “What do you plan to do this weekend for fun?”
- Brag about your team to the boss’s boss while your team listens.
- Clarify progress by asking, “What’s one thing you want to get done before lunch today?”
- Ask people to talk about something they learned that made a big difference for them.
- Dedicate time for an improvement sprint. Improve one specific skill or result for the morning. Track progress. Report results before lunch. Short timelines are more energizing than distant goals.
- Bring in someone to share a breakthrough story. The longer the person struggled before breakthrough the better.
What could you do today to energize others?
Still curious:
How to Honor the Law of Vitality
Quick Strategies to Energize One-On-Ones
6 Ways to Reenergize a Depleted Team (hbr.org)
My team works from home full time. While I can’t walk around asking them how they are or what are their plans, I do try to contact all of them daily through IM. I also send random cards through the mail, just to say hello.
Wonderful practices, Brandi. Thank you for sharing.
I hold virtual team huddles daily so that my teams at our three hospitals feel connected. Our organization encourages caregiver celebrations so that employees at all levels can easily recognize each other.
Thanks Rosemarie. You remind me that in order to feel connected we have to connect regularly.
1. Invite a customer to speak to your team about the importance of the products and services your team provides.
2. Discuss one of the team’s values and ask people what they have done to support that value.
3. Take the team on a field trip to see your product in action.
Thanks Paul. Wonderful insights. For #2, I can imagine asking:
1. List the values and ask, “How do our actions/behaviors reflect one of our values?
2. How could we give feet to (name a value) today?
Dan,
One of my students worked as a waitress at a local restaurant. She said that every night before her shift, the evening supervisor held a 5-minute standup meeting with the wait staff. He discussed one of the restaurant’s core values. For example, one night he discussed “respect.” The supervisor asked questions like the following:
• What does respect mean to you?
• Tonight, how will you demonstrate respect to our customers? To your co-workers?
• What does disrespect look like?
• How do you feel when you are disrespected?
These discussions made the restaurant’s values very relevant and real. Their discussions identified specific behaviors that exemplified the value. In addition, the shift supervisor was an excellent role model for each of the restaurant’s values.
That’s wonderful. Thanks for stopping back in to share that.