• Agile Coach

Three steps to increase motivation in your team

Step 1: Convince that work can be fun

For some people, work is just work. And you get paid for that work, so you mainly have to fulfill your tasks, meet targets and deal with difficult issues. But did you know that work can also be fun? As an Agile Coach, tell your team how important it is that work is fun. More motivation, better results … it really starts with the belief that work can be fun. And I don’t mean that you’re partying, facebooking or playing table tennis at work. No, then you’re making the breaks fun. What I mean here is that you are making the real work, the productivity, fun. And that’s allowed. Even if you get paid for it. Because if you make it fun, you get into the flow faster.

Step 2: Looking for the gas pedals

When your team is convinced that work is allowed to be fun, you start looking together for what makes performance fun. Perhaps not immediately so easy, because every person is different. Everyone has a different gas pedal, so to speak. How to find those? Most people can best figure out what they enjoy when they think about their hobbies. Because those are activities you do for fun. They are so much fun that you generally don’t even have to get money for them. Tip: So consider what makes you able to enjoy your accomplishments when doing your favorite hobby. And ask your team members the same thing. What makes your hobby so enjoyable? Is it appreciation? Pride? Exceeding yourself? Discovering new things? The competition element? Pushing boundaries? It’s all possible.

Step 3: follow through with 1 concrete action

And then? Then you should have quite a few post-its with elements that can make work a lot more fun. The next step: choose 1 post-it with the team and come up with 1 concrete action with which you bring those characteristics of a hobby back into the work. Maybe you hang a big scoreboard on the wall, like in soccer. Or maybe you do competitive games more often. Maybe more often you just try something crazy and see how it turns out. Or you agree to express much more appreciation to each other. It’s all possible. As long as you can enjoy your accomplishments more. You can!

More tips? Read my book “Steering for Results.

With these three steps, as an Agile Coach, you ensure that the team enjoys working more. That the motivation in the team improves. And thus: that you and the team can steer for results again. Want many more tips to improve motivation and get even better results? You’ll find a comprehensive approach in my new book Steering for Resultswhich I wrote together with Denise Visser. That book is now on sale at Bol.com and Managementboek.nl.