As we approach the summer months, many people will be distracted from
work or normal routines by increase outdoor activities, vacations, and
our kids out of school, business cycles and even the warmer weather. Your
challenge as a parent, manager or small business owner is how to keep
people motivated to perform their assignments. I think there are three
key factors that you need to recognize and prepare for behavior adaptation
and modification during this period. Recognize that you are the example
people are keying off of.
Key Factors for Successful Motivation.
Communication, always important, but this time of year it is critical.
Why, because everyone else is juggling their personal schedules as well
job assignments. You must encourage two way communiqué, this will
assure everyone is involved and keeps the work flowing smoothly with minimal
disruption. Start communicating the critical milestones or dates that
need to be supported and planned for now, then each of these items can
be planned around. The identified critical dates can be the customer orders,
product releases, holidays, planned vacations, depending on your situation
identify these through the summer months. Be aware, your normal routine
may not begin again until up to 3 months for now when the kids are back
in school. Maybe you should backwards plan from this date week by week
until you can arrive at today.
Flexibility, is your ability to adapt to change at any given time or when
presented with an abnormal situation. If you have are a company with built
in flex time (window of arrival and departure times for worker schedules)
around standard core hours, communicate this to everyone and as a manager
treat each situation differently if possible. You may be limited by Human
Resource procedures or State Workforce Regulations, check into these if you have questions. The key is to let the flex time work in your
favor, but everyone must be communicating so the work or task is still
ultimately covered.
Positive attitude, keep your smile it truly is contagious. Sure there
are going to be disappointed people during this period, but focus on the
bigger picture, not just the individual situation. Keep the goals informant
of everyone, why are we doing this, how we are doing against the goals.
Schedule an activity that can be viewed as a reword and positive gesture
about the midpoint and if possible prior to a holiday. This can be a catered
lunch for everyone, prize give-ways of some type, let everyone off for
the afternoon with pay. You get the idea, let the people know you appreciate
their efforts during this time of year.
Set forth a constructive model for everyone to follow, do not become the
negative case in point.
Kent Jacobson, a.k.a. "Mr. Success" is a trusted
authority in the success field and provides valuable success information
for free through his website at: http://www.Shortcut2Success.com
. You can also read Kent's Success Blog to find more success secrets at:
http://www.Shortcut2Success.com/blog
