Coaching practices for How to Motivate a Team

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How to Motivate a Team, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • My team does the work but they’re just going through the motions, and I can feel they don’t see why any of it matters
  • Everyone on my team is quietly playing for their own scoreboard
  • I’m supposed to rally my team behind a directive I don’t actually understand or believe in myself, and they can feel the hollowness in how I deliver it
  • My team just executes whatever I hand them and never pushes back or brings me a better idea
  • When someone on my team drops the ball, everyone just waits for me to be the one to say something

Practices that may help

  1. Articulate a compelling vision of why the work matters
    Connect the team’s daily work to a meaningful purpose they can believe in.
    Transformational Leadership, Made Practical
  2. Align around collective results, not individual status
    Teams fail when members prioritize their own visibility or department’s success over the shared goal.
    The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Made Practical
  3. Believe — and make the why clear
    You cannot lead people toward a mission you do not understand or believe in yourself.
    Extreme Ownership, Made Practical
  4. Challenge assumptions and invite new thinking
    Actively encourage your team to question old ways and generate new approaches.
    Transformational Leadership, Made Practical
  5. Create a culture of peer-to-peer accountability
    Teams that only hold each other accountable through the manager haven’t built real accountability at all.
    The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Made Practical
  6. Map your team’s genius coverage
    Check whether all six activities are covered by someone who finds them energizing.
    The 6 Types of Working Genius (Patrick Lencioni)
  7. Regulate the level of distress in the system
    Keep productive pressure high enough to motivate change but low enough to prevent shutdown.
    Adaptive Leadership, Made Practical
  8. Lead from the influencing domain — take charge, speak up, make sure others are heard
    People strong in influencing sell the team’s ideas inside and outside the organization.
    Strengths-Based Leadership, Made Practical
  9. Be wary of "if-then" rewards on creative work
    Contingent rewards can narrow focus and dull performance on complex tasks.
    Drive: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose
  10. Run a regular team elimination review
    Periodically review what the team is doing that no longer serves any current goal.
    The Eisenhower Matrix for Teams

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