EM 163| 5 Big Ideas on How to Get Your Team Energized for the Future
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Welcome to Executive Minds! This week, David Farmer sits down with Shane Benson to have a riveting discussion about the 5 Big Ideas on How To Get Your Team Energized for the Future. Learn some great tips from the MNTR co-founders on how to be a better leader and invigorate your team moving forward!
Links + Resources
Five Takeaways:
Change the scenery
You’ve got to change the scenery to change the dynamics. If you want to cast vision or shake up the organization to get them thinking differently, then you have to get out of the routine frame of mind. It can be big for small. Whether it’s going on a cruise or simply renting a coworking space, the change in the location or typical scenery has an impact on the team. Getting out the office communicates that its not the same old business as usual. Small things like using different markers or whiteboards or even dressing down if you’re a business that tends to be more traditional business attire, all of which can spark the creativity and positively impact the team dynamics. It’s helpful to create a vibe where people can open up their minds to what the future might hold.
Create a compelling and shared vision.
By changing the scenery, you can help communicate the new compelling theme for the season your team is in through a shared experience. Often times, we think about the large-scale, macro vision for the company or organization. But it’s just as helpful to create a compelling shared vision on a smaller scale. What’s the vision of this next meeting or for the 2-day company retreat? How can I reinforce the goal by crafting a shared experience that bonds us to a fresh perspective? There’s power in crafting a compelling vision on a microlevel to help everyone begin to think differently and get motivated for the direction of what you’re looking to accomplish. Filter your activities through this shared vision and focus on that alone.
Be Transparent
Leverage the power of leadership transparency to open up communication within your team. By being candid about the business and your personal lives, the team responds to that freedom and warms up to your leadership. Consider coupling a keynote address which is very much one-way communication with a follow-up Q&A session that is a two-way communication model.
This will allow you to deal with the hard issues that are on people’s hearts and minds and it breeds trust while helping people get on the same page. Create a portion of the day while in a different environment that is set aside for people to ask any questions. It will reinvigorate your company culture.
Create a Culture That’s For One Another.
What is the gap between what you want your culture to be known for and what you’re actually known for? As leaders, we have the chance to recalibrate where we are as a team and then be intentional about improving it. You have an opportunity to infuse culture by setting aside time in your gatherings. We have to decide what our culture is going to be and then how are we going to work on it and leverage the time we’ve set aside to do it. Culture is something that you have to work at creating so think through how it’s going to show itself throughout the course of the day.
Have Fun!
If you’re trying to convey content, then providing words resonate at one level. Accompanying those words with visuals will help people understand, process and retain even more. However, an immersive experience is when it captures people on multiple levels and fun achieves this goal. This should be something I want to do versus something that I have to do out of obligation. That’s a good litmus test: would people want to do this if they weren’t getting paid? Truett Cathy says, “Take what you do seriously, but don’t take yourself too seriously.” Let your hair down. People respond to it and will want to come back for more. If you’re not having fun, then you’re not doing it right.