Leaving behind the extraordinary year that was 2020, there is a profound need for teams to galvanise coming into 2021.
To reconnect with each other supportively and find ways to work together to maintain energy and focus to deliver the challenging targets in the year that lies ahead.
Every business I am working with right now is going through significant change – rethinking strategy and business propositions, refocussing operations, reorganising structures and cost cutting. For some, the crisis has been a catalyst, accelerating the business trends and transformation they had long intended to make. For others, change is a grim necessity for business survival, with redundancies cutting into flesh and sometimes into the bone.
The overriding experience of leaders and teams presently seems to be one of fatigue, of grinding through a really testing time in terms of both motivation, and at a deeper level, human spirit. This feeling is the result of a long period of extraordinary working, uncertainty about the future, wave upon wave of reactive change, less separation than ever between work and home, concern that career progression is on hold, and in some cases fears for the job, business or sector’s survival.
The organisational contract has shifted in this context – there is a need for leaders to show their humanity, to show that they care, to focus on people beyond business performance. In these uncertain times, we may not have all the answers, but leaders must illuminate an unclear path and make sure everyone stays on it together, not getting lost alone in the darkness along the way.
Those businesses which have been able to take good care of their people during this time will reap the benefits in terms of a sense of belonging and loyalty once this pandemic is over. Those which haven’t will face a massive exodus of talent, as disengaged and dispirited people vote with their feet.
So, what practical actions can leaders take now to keep yourself and your team motivated and engaged?
1. Communicate on feelings, not just tasks
Many leaders have done a great job at staying connected with their teams as they work remotely. A recent engagement survey by one of my luxury clients showed a 46% uplift in the result for ‘feel well communicated with’. However, digging deeper, the communication is too often task-based and not often focussed on how people are doing, as individuals and as a team.
Action Suggestion: Organise a team check-in session focussed exclusively on how individuals are doing – what are people proud of in their own and their team’s achievements in the last 12 months? What are they worried about for themselves, their team or the organisation? What have they learnt that will help them to deal with the coming year’s challenges? Give everyone time to express themselves and be heard - and show them respect and empathy.
2. Clarify the vision for 2021
One of the learnings of the last year is that planning has gone from a 3-year horizon, to a year, to a month-by-month scenario. Whilst it may no longer be possible to lay concrete long-term plans, creating a positive vision for what the team hopes to achieve in the year can be a rallying cry for focus and action.
Action Suggestion: Host a team discussion on the vision and challenges for 2021. Take time to outline your vision and engage the team in discussing this, listen to their ideas. Ask them what they are most excited by and what will be the biggest challenge to them in delivering this year. Get them to look at their individual and team mindset as they face into the year – is the mindset they hold helping or hindering them? What could be a more enabling way of thinking about the challenges they face?
3. Galvanise the team to work even better together
Working remotely has proven benefits in terms of individual productivity, but the losses are often in team cohesion, collaboration and creativity. Many of my clients are beginning to see teams losing a sense of team spirit and becoming more fractious with each other. If teams are to continue to collaborate effectively remotely, they need to find ways to connect supportively as a team, not just as individuals.
Action Suggestion: Take time to discuss ways of working together. What have the team appreciated in the support they have given each other in the last period? What new ways of working have they implemented that have helped them to be effective together? What practical ideas do they have for collaborating and supporting each other to deal with the challenges they will face this year?
4. Focus on development opportunities
Long-term leadership development programmes have understandably gone by-the-by in the focus on operational delivery over the last period. However, people are desperate that their development is not put on hold in this period if they are to continue to grow and be engaged. Change in challenging times provides massive opportunities for learning and development from experience, given the right support for reflection.
Action Suggestion: Set up action learning sessions to provide a forum for people to bring their challenges and reflect in a generative way together, learning from their own and others’ experiences. Offer people coaching, from yourself or with a professional, to help them to stretch and up-level from their current situation.
5. Prioritise career development discussions
January is performance review time in many organisations, which is the ideal moment to have a deeper conversation about individuals’ career goals and aspirations. Many of my clients are deeply concerned, and frankly demotivated, by the way in which their own aspirations have been deprioritised during this time. They worry that it is ‘selfish’ to ask for a conversation about themselves when there is so much to be done to ensure organisational survival and success. But individuals cannot be expected to stay motivated to give selflesly ‘above and beyond’ to guarantee the future of their businesses without the same level of commitment being shown to their own future.
Action Suggestion: Take time to talk to each of your team members about what they have learnt from the last year, what their aspirations are now and how you can support these.
These are just 5 simple ideas for aligning the team to support, energise and get the best out of each other in the coming period.
Many leaders are fully capable of expressing their humanity and hosting these kinds of conversations - when they remember to prioritise them in the hurly-burly of day-to-day activities. Sometimes, however, you may feel the need for an outside facilitator who can shape up and hold the space for an authentic conversation.
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