Highly zealous team member are:
—Highly productive team members.
They focus on achieving brilliant outcomes, faster. Their personal commitment positively impacts the way they approach problems.
—The hub of high performing teams.
They support and encourage one-another. They share their talents with their peers, for the greater good of the team. The team is known as a motivated, fun team with a real sense of purpose.
So how do you create more of these zealous team members?…
The Expected Verses The Unexpected
It was the following Seth Godin observation that got me thinking about how you can create more zealous team members…
When an apology or a thank you is expected, it seldom satisfies or makes things better.
But when an apology, thank you or any other positive acknowledgement is unexpected, it can change everything for the better.
Let’s uncover how you can use Seth’s thinking to lift the zeal in your team…
The Leader’s Formula For Increasing Each Team Member’s Zeal
Here’s my formula for you to create more zealous team members…
Every week in every month, find unexpected ways to authentically acknowledge and thank, and appropriately apologise to, each of your team members.
And watch their motivation and enthusiasm for their work, and the work of their team members, soar.
Your team members, just like every other human being on the planet, wants to feel valued and respected. And unexpected positive remarks from their boss will certainly have them feeling valued and respected.
I can’t tell you how often leaders I coach, no matter how senior they are in their organisation, feel thrilled as they describe positive acknowledgements they’ve received from their boss (or the Board).
No one is immune to the motivation and good feelings that positive acknowledgements generate—especially when the acknowledgement is unexpected.
What Could You Do To Have Your Team Members Be More Zealous?
Buy a coffee or flowers or lunch or chocolates? Set aside time in your team meeting to genuinely acknowledge them in a heartfelt way? Send their sick significant other a sincere get-well note? Take someone aside, shake their hand, look them in the eye, and tell them how you value them being in the team?
We’re not talking about an expected Christmas gift here. We’re talking about an unexpected, candid act of gratitude, by you.
By the way, I think you’ll learn to look forward to finding opportunities to truthfully and positively acknowledge your team members. You could even wind-up valuing that opportunity as much as you do the extra zeal that it creates 
.
I’m certain that I don’t need to remind you that you can apply this formula to people other than team members—like your boss, peers, people out of work such as significant others, service providers or children. (A leader I work with bought his 6-year old daughter her very first bunch of flowers as a reward for an achievement. She didn’t wipe the smile off her face for hours.)
Your Call To Action
With whom will you start?
What will the unexpected be? An apology, a thank you, an acknowledgement for something they’ve done, or didn’t do?
How will you deliver your message? In a team meeting? An email? A gift? A quiet corridor conversation?
I’m off now to send an acknowledging email to a business associate, which they won’t expect .
P.S. Will you let me know how you go finding unexpected ways to create zeal?
“You have shown tremendous insight, have offered wise counsel and guidance, and I feel a strong sense of trust in you as a person and as a coach. Thanks Carolyn!!”
– Director, medical company
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Carolyn Stevens has worked with leaders for more than 25-years—hundreds of them.
She’s supported leader after leader (including those who previously struggled to confront the difficult, let alone persuasively deal with the it) flourish—and become confident, courageous and impressively influential.
Carolyn is authentic and results-oriented. She draws on an eclectic array of approaches, tools and techniques to suit the situation.
