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Do You Have Superpowers? Part 2

  • Friday, May 4th, 2012
  • POSTED BY Tiffany Hiscock

When superheroes initially discover their superpowers, it’s quite a process. Think of Spiderman repeatedly thrusting his arm out, saying “Up, up and away web! Shazam! Go web go!” as he tries to figure out how to use his spider web superpower. We discovered your superpowers in part one of this blog. Motivating and encouraging the people around you can take them places they may never have gone alone. But which part of this new superpower might you struggle to master?

In my conversations with leaders, they often find it difficult to deal with how economic conditions have impacted the traditional organizational structure of a live team. It has led to an increase in flexible work space and remote virtual teams. While there certainly are benefits to this change, leaders find that there are new challenges that need to be addressed – the quality of relationships with employees, morale and team building.

To motivate your virtual team, we’d suggest trying a few of these ideas:

  • Recognize that each person is motivated differently. Make it a priority to build a personal relationship with all of your direct reports in this virtual space. Schedule time with individuals, initiate rapport and ask questions that demonstrate your genuine care for their well-being and interests.
    • Have a face to face team kick-off meeting and regularly scheduled subsequent live meetings, with interim web/video sessions.
    • Utilize virtual technology beyond email for more real-time conversations, such as web conferencing, online meetings, web cameras, online chat, and other virtual systems
    • Distribute a team map showing where everyone is located, including a picture of each person at their point on the map.
    • Be sure to schedule “social time” or an event in concert with any business meetings that bring people together.
  • Take the time to celebrate individual and team successes. While it may not be feasible to coordinate face-to-face celebrations, there are several innovative ways to generate excitement and acknowledgement of accomplishments.
    • According to what you know about each person, send awards, gift cards, packages, gift baskets, flowers, treats, cards, email cards, etc.
    • Create a periodic team newsletter, including accomplishments and get-to-know-you pieces on individuals.
    • Build an interactive team website where individuals can post their biographies, ideas, share best practices, recognize each other’s efforts, blog, converse, and more
    • Hold a virtual “happy hour” where everyone is at their computer with refreshments and can socialize online
    • Host yearly awards banquets over the web by virtually presenting different awards to each team member
    • Create team building virtual games, such as having everyone send in little-known facts, then displaying it for the group to guess who it describes (another example – online poker championships).

Recognize that it is often the things that are unsaid or the smaller things that matter the most to people. As you set off on the journey of discovering your motivating superpowers, one question to keep at the forefront of your mind is, “How are you going to elicit people’s passions throughout the year?” What else can you be doing to motivate your team?

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