Motivating Your Team to Achieve Their Goals

“Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal – a commitment to excellence – that will enable you to attain the success you seek.” – Mario Andretti

Goals can be inspiring, but that inspiration can fade in the reality of everyday life. In order for your team to achieve their goals, it is important that you find ways to motivate the team. You cannot constantly rely on external motivation. Implementing different methods of motivation such as remembering peak moments, writing down goals and gamification will help keep your team focused and positive as they work towards their goals.

Remind The Team of Peak Moments

Positive memories are powerful motivators. Remembering peak moments create a sense of achievement and encourages the team to seek out that same feeling again. Peak moments are not relegated to work accomplishments. They are any strong memories that create positive feelings. Looking back over the team’s peak moments will show them how much they already have achieved, and how far they have already come. It will encourage and motivate them to keep moving forward and reach their goals.

Write Down the Team Goals

Knowing the goals is not enough to keep the team motivated; you have to write them down. Writing down goals creates a visual reminder of where the team is going. When you are writing down your team goals, remember to use the present tense or the present perfect tense. This will help the team visualize reaching the goals. Once the goals are written down, you should display them someplace where the team will see them regularly.

Find out more about TBAE’s Goal Setting Outcome Based Team Building Activities

Use Gamification

Gamification uses the process of game dynamics to blend intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Unlike online games that can become obstacles to productivity, gamification will actually help the team achieve their goals. This system allows the team to earn points towards rewards by accomplishing tasks. The points earned provide incentives to complete more tasks and earn more rewards.

Create Your Own Game:

Identify tasks: List the tasks/chores that needs to be accomplished.
Assign points: Assign a number of points to each task. Tasks that the team typically avoids should be given more points to provide greater incentive.
Assign rewards: Determine how many points are necessary to earn each reward. Higher point counts should be given to rewards that are more valuable. The rewards will depend on what motivates the team most.
Keep score: Find a method to keep track of the points that works for you. You could use a spreadsheet or list them in an app on your phone.

You will probably have to adjust your game to find the most motivating rewards system. Once you have made the necessary adjustments, you will have fun helping your team reach their goals.

Track Your Team’s Progress

Tracking your team’s progress will help you see their accomplishments and which areas require more effort. Additionally, showing them the improvements that they make will motivate them to continue their hard work. Over time, you should see your team consistently reaching more of their goals. There are different ways to track progress. You may choose to do it by hand, use a spreadsheet, or use an online tool. Do not expect your team to always reach all of their goals. The purpose of tracking progress is to show the areas that need more of your focus.