Here's how you can motivate and inspire your problem-solving team as a team manager.

Motivar e inspirar a tu equipo de resolución de problemas como gestor comienza por establecer metas claras y alcanzables. Estas metas deben ser desafiantes pero realistas, y alineadas con los objetivos organizacionales y las aspiraciones individuales del equipo. Definir metas SMART (específicas, medibles, alcanzables, relevantes y con límite de tiempo) proporciona una dirección clara y ayuda a mantener el enfoque en los resultados. Involucrar al equipo en la definición de metas promueve la participación y el compromiso, aumentando la motivación intrínseca. Además, reconocer y celebrar los logros alcanzados en el camino hacia las metas refuerza la confianza y el sentido de logro del equipo.

Goals can seem so vague and big. Tie goals back to the bigger picture of your organization. Identify an objective within your company’s plan that ties back to your department, then talk with your team on their ideas of how to tackle the objective. Not only will that provide it’ll the best insight, and develop a level of ownership, it will also build trust from your team with you and with the organization. That ultimately increases engagement.

Establecer metas es una estrategia efectiva para motivar e inspirar a tu equipo de resolución de problemas. Las metas proporcionan un sentido claro de dirección y propósito. Ayudan a los miembros del equipo a entender qué se espera de ellos y cómo su trabajo contribuye al éxito general del equipo. Las metas también pueden ser una fuente de motivación, ya que proporcionan un objetivo claro para esforzarse. Además, alcanzar metas puede generar una sensación de logro y satisfacción, lo que puede aumentar la motivación y el compromiso del equipo.

Trust is everything. Allow your team to come up with ideas. Hold back your thoughts. Facilitate them to think through how those ideas will be implemented. Then, try it out. Let your team define what success will look like in relation to those goals you just set. Then, let them talk through the accountability of how the implementation of their idea panned out. Your job as their manager or director is NOT to know all of the answers. It’s to ask the right questions. That’s what Jim Collins’ and Peter Drucker said.

Trust is everything. Allow your team to come up with ideas. Hold back your thoughts. Facilitate them to think through how those ideas will be implemented. Then, try it out. Let your team define what success will look like in relation to those goals you just set. Then, let them talk through the accountability of how the implementation of their idea panned out. Your job as their manager or director is NOT to know all of the answers. It’s to ask the right questions. That’s what Jim Collins’ and Peter Drucker said.

Try out your team’s ideas. They’re the ones closest to the work. If they’re struggling with coming up with something to try, it might be cause they don’t trust or are afraid to fail. Pose the question - if you had a magic wand and could make anything happen, how would you solve this? Then keep your mouth shut! Let them come up with ANYTHING. Then, let them think through the results. Reserve your judgement at all costs! Once they’ve tried something, find ANY part of that solution that is successful and celebrate it. The worst that can happen is to celebrate - well, we learned that NOTHING in this solution helped us get to that goal… let’s celebrate that we tried these three things (list them out and then cross them out) didn’t work. NEXT!

To encourage risk-taking give them ownership of tasks, let them collaborate, discuss unconventional ideas, and make significant decisions. Be open to their ideas and leads. When a member feel that their inputs made a difference , they become more engaged and motivated. Foster an environment of psychological safety where they can execute their ideas without fear of criticism or punishment. Constructive feedbacks and motivation at any setback developes security and enhances critical thinking in the team.

Listen. The most important way to support is listen. Then, ask questions. Why did you choose to do this? How did you see this working out? Where do you need to go next? Who else can you ask? What did or didn’t work specifically? When do you think you’ll know something else about the outcome? Only after you’ve asked all of the questions…. THEN ask… May I share my perspective? If they say no, we want to try again, THAT IS A WIN! If they say yes - offer your guidance from YOUR EXPERIENCE. Then, ask them - so having my experience added into the mix, now, what else would you try? Then go back through that who, what, where, when, why, how line of questioning.