Display your own enthusiasm and inspiration. You cannot expect to build enthusiasm and inspiration within the team you manage if you do not display these characteristics yourself. People hate obeying hypocrites. There’s just nothing more enfuriating than being told to do something you’d really rather not, to see your manager deciding not to do it either! So you won’t make any allies by telling you team behave in one way, but acting in another. By acting in line with your own orders, suggestions and goals, you create social pressure that encourages subordinates to act in the same way. When you blatantly flout your own rules – you’re creating justification for your employees to do the same. So if you could sum up this tip in one phrase, it would be, ‘obey yourself as if you were your own subordinate‘.

Lets be honest; if you’re woefully uninspired by your current job, then how can you expect your employees to be driven towards the targets you have set them? Team Management aims to improve your leadership skills and techniques as much as possible, but applying those skills in practise must be a well thought out and genuine process. If you’re in the situation where you have to pretend to be enthused; you really need to think about changing your career because quite frankly, no amount of leadership advice will make you happy.

How do I display my Enthusiasm?

1. Show your enthuasiam in manner and tone of voice.
2. Visibly dedicate time and energy to the project.
3. Following up and compliment subordinates everytime they’ve done a good job.
4. Encourage operational excellence by constantly striving to improve your work
5. Be punctual and well organised.

So there you have it. Display your enthusiasm to your employees and let the infectious power of inspiration and energy unleash itself upon your workforce! This technique along with other team management tips on this website will hopefully allow you to focus on strategic and high-level work, and stop worrying about the day-to-day of your subordinates. If they’re motivated and focused- you know they’ll do a good job.  (In theory!)

2. How to deal with competitive collegues. Competitiveness is often seen as a negative characteristic; often associated with spite, aggression and dirty handed tactics. However it is also a powerful internal motivator.  Down to our core,  we are very competitive creatures. In life we naturally we have to compete for everything, including jobs, partners and even restaurant tables! We all have a competitive spirit to some extent, although it is more prevalant in certain people than others. Before I divulge the details of this technique, it is important for you to understand that from a managers point of view, there are two types of competitiveness: Positive and Destructive.

‘Positive’ Competitiveness.

This is the element the Team Management technique encourages. This is the competitiveness with remotely distance others or the self. So this includes other companies, ’society’ as a whole,  and the indivdiual employee. In striving to beat them, employees will positively affect their company. This is because the benefits of succeeding spread to those around you, creating an atosphere of success. This is in contrast with:

‘Destructive’ Competitiveness.

Destructive competitiveness occurs between peers, collegues or friends and family. Where the benefit of beating the opposition is balanced or even outweighed by the serious negative consequences. For instance, heavy competition within a family will alienate those not involved, and generate hatred between those competing. Likewise, a company that promotes heavy internal competitiveness between collegues will see a great increase in inefficiences as collegue begin to withhold infomation from one another or even begin to sabotage each others efforts. In this kind of environment, success is only a selfish gain, and the overall effect is negative. Enron encouraged this level of competitiveness by routinely sacking those who underperformed the benchmark set by their own collegues.

The Technique.

This technique is best learn from an example of its use. And the most effective use of it in my memory was back in sixth form college. After achieving great results in my first business exam, my teach called me over to his room and had a very quick, but memorable chat with me. This is what he had to say:

“These results are outstanding, great work! It reminds me of Lucy. About 3 years ago she was a girl in my class who also did brilliantly in her exams. She wasn’t that nice though – a bit arrogant and up herself y’know, but she ended up getting full marks in her whole qualification. Lucy is the only person to have ever to have done that here, but I really think that you could do it too, while not annoying everyone at the same time! It’d be great to see a well-rounded person like you manage to do it.”

What a perfect thing to say! My teacher had set me a challenge to try and complete. I definately wasn’t going to become complacement and start underacheiving in class now! I was going to try and beat that girl. I badly wanted to get full marks without being ‘arrogant’ about it.

As a direct result of that conversation, I proactively put my effort into my studies for business throughout the rest of my stay at college. What he had said had perfectly done the job my teacher wanted. Simply telling me ‘don’t get complacent’ probably would’ve gone over my head, as I would’ve believed I wasn’t being complacent. Instead of simply directly warning me, he set a touch personal challenge. A challenge that I couldn’t resist accepting due to my inherent competitiveness! It was a perfect combination of challenges that had one great result = dedication on my part.

So if you want to unleash the competitiveness in a positive way within your friends or collegues:

* Give your employees a solid reputation to uphold
* Compare your employees to their external rivals and challenge them to beat them.
* Set your worker a tough goal to meet, and support with praise.

Remembering my warning before about destructive competitiveness;   a ‘rival’ to beat must exist outside of your organisation, or so remote from the individual that there will be no negativity between them. If you successfully set your own friends or team mates challenges such as these, you will fill them with a sense of motivation and enthuasiasm that would only come them taking on a competitive challenge and personally striving to win!

Speak in terms of their Dreams. Its a shame that in today society, most employees don’t have a burning desire to achieve the tasks they are set in day to day work. They perhaps wish to retire early, or take a round the world trip. Lets face it, they don’t honestly want to do what you have planned for them. They’re probably going to have a grand plan as to how they are going to acheive their ‘alternate’  long term goals as well, and these won’t be helping your organisation. These alternative goals are wrongly viewed as ‘distractions’ by many team leaders across countless companies and institutions. But in fact they can be used to actually do the opposite. Read on to find out how.

To put this team management technique into practise, you need to be talking to each member of your team indivdiually, and either directly or indirectly, show your team mates that their current task will take them one small yet significant step closer towards their dreams.

Easier said than done? Well allow me give you 2 examples.

If a team mate’s dream is to break away from the company to take a high position in another business, then you should mention the transferable skills they’ll gain from this task and be able to put on their CV for their forthhcoming move. Explain that this will give them a fighting chance at being noted by management as a potential leader. You see how you’d actually be doing the opposite of what most managers would do, namely isolate and discourage the employee’s move? You are taking the opposite action, and that’s why you’re getting the opposite result – motivation.

If an employee’s dream is to own their own business; don’t let their motivation and focus fall as they come to terms with the gap between what they desire, and what their current task is. Instead you should emphasise on how working on your project will eventually help them in the long term. Describe to them how they will pick up countless new ideas skills from the current task, which will prepare them for the entrepeneurial life. Elaborate in detail on how when they do become an independant businessperson, they will have an crucial edge over their competitors. The more you speak in terms of the other persons dreams, the more attention you will capture, and the more effectively you can manage your team.

To conclude. All work gives employees experience of some form, and will therefore help them acheive their long term goals. This means in whatever task you are assigned to, you will be able to relate the benefits to your teammates in terms of their desires. (This will get easier over time) Once your effective team management shows them that their current task actually slots neatly into their grand plan, they’ll gladly work hard and take care of the rest!