Human potential is encapsulated in both the talent and energy people bring – that is, the capabilities people offer as well as the energy they are willing to invest in getting the job done.
Have you heard the phrase, “use what you’ve got to get what you want”? When it comes to ensuring that your team (at their different levels and departments) are performing to their utmost, there are tried and tested techniques to achieving this. Unlike what most people have been made to believe about successful organisation with productive employees, there are no perfect employees anywhere, but these organisations are perfecting the art of bringing out the best in their people.
Whether or not an individual or team lives up to their full potential largely depends on how they choose to behave and it’s up to the organisation to create an environment that encourages high performance and adherence to your company values.
The “How To”
Build your team’s spirit without compromising your organisational values
Encourage those things that energise people and work to avoid the influence of those that drain your team. Ensure every member of your team has the drive and fuel to succeed by leveraging the five common influencers of a person’s spirit at work:
1. Sense of personal value: How we feel about ourselves as well as how we believe others feel about us energises or drains our spirit.
2. Relationships: When we trust and respect the people we work with we are more likely to be energised and engaged.
3. Purpose and meaning: How people feel about what they and their organisation contribute to the world typically matters to the strength of their spirit.
4. Belief: The strength of our belief is reflected in how we feel about the future and our ability to influence that future.
5. Enjoyment: Having fun at work isn’t only OK, it’s necessary for people to thrive at work. When people enjoy what they do they are more likely to invest energy and strive to succeed.
Unleash Your Energy
Tapping into the potential of your team requires you to inspire their passion and desire to achieve success – it’s what drives how much energy they choose to invest in getting there.
Seven Critical priorities to focus on are:
1. Lead by example
2. Earn trust and respect
3. Give people something to buy into
4. Establish clear expectations of the role you need each person on your team to play and empower them to do it.
5. Focus people on shared objectives: that is, the things they collectively ‘own’ and need to link arms with their colleagues in order to achieve.
6. Put milestone checks along the way
7. Celebrate wins
Rightly deploy Strengths
1. Incorporate strengths into performance conversations and reviews
2. Help employees align their strengths with the expectations and responsibilities of their roles
3. Open career-growth opportunities or training for your team
4. Training opportunities for employees who show strength in particular areas
Focus on personal potential
1. Potential is finite; It requires concentrated work and choices to fulfil it.
2. Know your horizon.
3. Know your patch of the planet.
4. Know your native strengths that will be torqued.
Actions
1. Keep momentum and focus
2. Utilize the energy a crisis brings
3. Your action today will pave the way to a long-term resilience
Understand what you need to achieve
It isn’t enough to have a broad notion of the outcomes you and your team are striving for, it’s critical that you understand the specific capabilities and investment in energy it will take to get there.
“The foundation of every great team is a direction that energises, orients, and engages its members,” write Martine Haas and Mark Mortensen in HBR article The Secret of Great Teamwork.
“Teams cannot be inspired if they don’t know what they’re working toward.”
A vision that makes clear the team’s purpose and direction, and individuals’ roles and responsibilities within it, is a prerequisite of any high-performance team, says Stacey Ashley FCPA, author of The New Leader. A shared vision helps create a group whose members have “the same overarching agenda” and provides a path forward when navigating competing priorities.
