Loving your team

Earlier in February we have been encouraged to ‘fall in LOVE with ourselves’, which is so valuable and important to do, Helen gave us some simple practical tips and reminders for us to do just that! Rob gave a funny account of ‘loving what you do’ – I could totally visualise that! So now, lets look at ‘Loving your team’.

As I’m writing this, I’m reminded of a Valentine’s Day years ago in my early teens, I received a valentine’s card and found out it was from my Mum and Dad – I remember being a teenage version of aghast at this, Mum’s response was “We sent it because we LOVE you” how precious is that? A treasured memory now as my Mum passed away recently. We all appreciate being told that we are loved and fondly thought of – our teams are no different.

It’s important for us all to love ourselves, what we do, and the teams we are in. If our teams do not feel valued and cared for, they are unlikely to value and care for your business or your customers.

So, what can you do to ‘LOVE’ your teams? Here are 6 ways you can show your love, care and appreciation to your team:

Know and truly understand your team members

• What is it that truly makes them tick?
• What is it that motivates them personally and professionally? Knowing this helps you to reward them appropriately and communicates how much you appreciate them.
• What is their deal breaker? That one thing that, when broken, you’ll start to see them behaving differently and potentially see them start to disengage.

Regular check-ins

• Meet up with each team member for 1:1’s regularly, asking; How are you? What’s working well? Are there any challenges at the moment? Is there anything that you’d like support with from me? We find that this is a great way of demonstrating how much we value them as a person and helps us to truly get to know who they are, understanding their strengths and areas to grow further.
• Show you value and care by having your 1:1 while you get out of the office for a walk or a coffee. This is something we practice on our People Fundamentals Workshops , attendees always comment how refreshing it is to walk and talk and how it eliminates the intimidation of looking at someone behind a desk and face to face.

Keep your connections strong

• Ensure the connection between you and your individual team members is healthy, handle all niggles swiftly and thoroughly. If you sense that something just doesn’t feel right or is going on, address it, don’t just ignore it and hope that it will go away, it rarely does.
• On our Honest Conversations Workshops attendees practice having challenging or crucial conversations using a tested model that makes them so much easier to have. Ensure your language is positive and kind.
• Be sure that you offer feedback rather than give it – this is a much kinder way to connect with your team.

Exercise an attitude of gratitude

• There are so many ways of saying thank you – however you do it, be specific so they know exactly what behaviour it is that you are grateful for!
• Celebrate every win no matter how big or small, every achievement or observation of their growth – from a challenging email to new customers coming on board. Let your team know their efforts are noticed and appreciated.
• Look for different ways of demonstrating your appreciation, it could be simply with words, it could be by doing something to help them with their workload, it could be by giving them quality time – simply a chat, it could be with a gift – maybe you baked flapjack or a cake the night before and thought they’d like that or maybe a hug… depending on your working relationship with them and whether they’d like it of course, it works for us but that’s not for everyone!

Keep your team up to date on, and included in, what’s going on in your business

• No one likes to be left out of things, so let’s not do this to our team members, it doesn’t feel great when it happens and can precipitate them becoming disengaged if they never know what’s going on.
• Communication is still one of the biggest triggers of dissatisfaction, arguments and disconnection. Be sure to communicate regularly about the little and big things, make sure those that need to know, know!
• None of us like receiving emails that have nothing to do with us, yet not being kept informed isn’t great either. A lot of us are using WhatsApp groups now to communicate with teams, these are a great form of communication (most of the time) but we need to make sure no one is left out of a group albeit inadvertently – let’s remember to be inclusive.

Show individuals and your team that you care by developing them

• This is one of our passions, so we love to talk about it! It is so easy to demonstrate your value in your team by developing them individually whether that be on the job in-house training, webinars, 1:1 coaching, a one-day workshop (we have a great selection of these), a qualification, a leadership programme or investing in them as a team. Demonstrate that their growth is important to you.

Love is not just for Valentines but for every day – go on, let your team know you value and appreciate them.  And we want you to know we love to support you, your people and teams to be the best they can be.

So this February, have a think about how you can love and develop your teams, we are always happy to chat ideas through with you and explore your options, give us a call on 01904 628838 or email info@1245881.eu11.myftpupload.com we’d love to support you. We may be able to access funding that can save you 40% of the investment for our team building activities, coaching and one day workshops, so get in touch now to discuss you and your team’s needs.

And for more information on the workshops mentioned click here