This article discusses important points, strategies and frameworks on how to build a high performance and motivated team.  >**Good leaders are those who become leaders of leading leaders** ##### _Who are the leading leaders?_ These are the leaders who raise leaders under them. Enabling is important, if you want to come out from operations and move towards strategy. And 7 ways to enable and motivate your team and ready them as a high-performance team. Let us discuss these 7 ways in detail. # **#1 Understand the characters, motivations, and expectations of your team** - Understand the character of each team member, their individuality, expectations, and aspirations. - Identify the 'Navratnas' of your team. These 'Navratnas' have more potential, performance, skill and will than rest of the team members. - Ask a lot of questions from your 'Navratnas’ like what motivates them as a team member. - Take out some exclusive time with your 'Navratnas' like sit with them in the evening after office hours or plan a dinner with them. - Take out 3 days in a week for your 'Navratnas' for 3 weeks and meet them individually over dinner. In this way, you can meet 9 'Navratnas' in just 3 weeks. - Give quality time to your team members to let them talk about their aspirations and expectations. This will help you in the strategy of driving them. **A good leader is not the one who can do all the work perfectly himself but a good leader is the one who can get the good work done from the good leaders.** # **#2 Treat your team members as if they are volunteers** Taking the example of Sadguru aka Jaggi Vasudeva of Isha Foundation who shares in an interview about the challenges of working with a volunteer. - A volunteer can leave the organisation whenever he wants to as he is not paid. - Imagine that if you are working with volunteers and not an employee, then your treatment with them would be different. when business person lived a life of bachelor with a religious organisation where many volunteers used to work. - You can't hire and fire them as they are volunteers who work as per their wish. - Imagine that if your employees are working for free as volunteers without taking a salary, you will feel grateful as somebody is offering free services. Our behavior changes when we deal with volunteers. - Develop and build a conversation with this feeling. People get connected with this very easily. # **#3 Listen in order to understand** >**Listening leaders are the most powerful leaders of the world.** **For example:** - The Former Prime Minister of India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi became infamous for cutting down all listening opportunities.  - She worked only with her close-knit team. As a result, she could not bring about much strategic change in the country at that time. Let us understand what you can do in your organisation. - All the top corporate leaders are the listening leaders; they listen so that they can understand. - For building listening skills, you should ask open-ended questions. **Difference between Open-Ended and Close-Ended Questions** Let us understand open-ended and close-ended questions with the help of some examples. **For example:** 1. What time will you leave - morning or evening? He will reply only in one word, i.e. either evening or morning. 2. Do you like or dislike this topic? He will reply in one word, i.e. either like or dislike. Both of these are examples of close-ended questions. On the other hand, the following is an example of an open-ended question:  _What do you think about this topic?_ In an open-ended question, a person gets a lot of opportunities to speak so that you can understand him/her well. ### **Difference between listening for understanding and listening for answering** Listening for understanding is more powerful than Listening for answering. - When you listen to answer, you wait for your turn to respond. - When you listen to understand, you acknowledge deeply the pain of a person in front of you. - Ask open-ended questions. - Invest more in listening rather than in telling especially in the early stages of your relationship with anyone whether they are your employees, customers or any personal relationship. - Once you understand the person, the quality of your conversation will be much deeper and good and the person will trust you. The listening leader is always able to generate trust. # **#4 Know who your allies are** - Remember your partners in the organization. - Some will be partners and some will be hidden parasites. Every organisation has both partners and parasites. - Always remember negative message spreads on its own and positive message takes efforts to spread. - Build positive change agents. - Identify and find out your positive change partners, who will help in communicating your message across the organisation. # **#5 Be clear on the direction** As CEO, he is clear and consistent in his directions; how he has absolute clarity; and how he consistently keeps on sharing it with the team. He explains: - Be clear on the outcomes to be delivered and the tone to be set. - Be willing to spend time on defining the outcome. - Set the directions with your leaders and decide the outcome which is to be achieved in the next 3 months. - Ensure that outcomes are documented. - Ensure that everyone is aware of the outcomes that they are working on. - Everybody should know – 'What is my role? and What are my top 3 goals? - Build stories of these outcomes as stories are remembered. - Over-communication is good; so, keep repeating the outcome consistently. - Even if the people are irritated by this constant repetition, it is fine at least they will be aware of the outcomes to be achieved. # **#6 Recognise the type of leadership they need from you** Leadership should be situational. It should be task-oriented and not person-oriented. For example: If you are teaching cooking to someone, then your style will be different. On the other hand, if you are giving training to someone, then your style of teaching will be completely different. The 4 styles of leadership are:  a) **Scolding**- Scolding style of leadership is important in case of extreme disciplinary issues or any kind of offense like in case of female harassment at work. b) **Sharing**- Sharing style of leadership (Telling) is required where you share how things need to be done. For example- If I don't know cooking, then you need to tell me (sharing) how to cook. You have to make me understand it without scolding. c) **Sensing**- It is a listening style of leadership.  For example- If a person knows how to work; but, he/she is upset regarding something, then you have to practice listening leadership. Let this person talk for 9 min, you only talk for 1 minute. d) **Seeking and asking** - Some people are so competent that they know everything. Ask solution-oriented questions from them like what they think about a matter. Seek responses from them and make them advisors. Every time, you use a different style of leadership. - At times you have to be authoritative, suggestive, supportive or corrective. - Identify what kind of leadership style you need to work on. - Don't deal with everyone in the same manner. - A person will be a performer at one task and a non-performer in another. Deal with him differently as per the situation. - Adjust and change your leadership style as per the time. # **#7 Ensure effective recognition** - Prepare timely for effective recognition. - Recognise the joint contribution to help develop team spirit in people.  >**An effort that is appreciated gets repeated.** - Keep repeating the words of recognition as motivation is like Food. The way you need to eat food every day; similarly, motivation is required by the leader every day. - Continue to recognise people and find out what good he has done. - Recognition increases emotional satisfaction and brings confidence in him/her and he tends to get associated with you for a longer time. **7 strategies to build a high performance and motivated team. There are total number of 14 strategies to motivate your team. 7 strategies were discussed in part 1 of the video. **Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough, so they don't want to. Prepare a team that stays and works with you.**                                                                                                      **- Richard Branson** Let us discuss the 7 strategies to build a high performance and motivated team in detail. # **#1 Recognise the significance of the emotional bond with your team** Here takes Richard Branson's example of how he creates an emotional bond with his employees. That business is logical and humans are emotional. Both can't go together. Your company runs on-  - Mathematics - Logic - Profit - Revenue - Profit However, people working with you are emotional.  Humans are not very logical; their emotions are very strong.  If you inspire an emotional human being, then he/she will be able to achieve all the logic for your business. You can create history if you can burn a fire in the hearts of your employees. >**Salary is never the highest motivation for retention.** If this would have been the case, then employees would not have left the highest paying companies. He explains this with the following examples: - **Google-** It was published in the newspaper that people have started speaking unruly about Google. - **TCS (Tata group)** – The company which generates so much revenue; still, its employees had started speaking against it. - **Maruti-** The company which has no. 1 market share in India in the auto sector and despite the system, process and stability in place, its employees complained about the company.  A good salary doesn't promise motivation amongst the team members.  Your employee is emotional; so, to keep him/her motivated, it is important to understand and satisfy his emotional needs. A high salary is not the factor to retain the employee in the company for a long time. Many times, despite the low salary, a person stays in the company for the rest of his life. A good leader can sense and understand it and he engages with the employees emotionally. >**You don't need only hands and legs, you need head and heart.** That people who perform with their heads and hearts are better than those employees who perform with their hands and legs. If you will try to engage with the heads and hearts of people, they will themselves engage with their hands & legs. # **#2- Give clear milestones to your team towards the desired outcomes**  Discussing about the milestones of the desired outcomes.  That there is a huge difference between the desired outcomes and the milestones of the desired outcomes.  **For example-**  Suppose your desired outcome of the year is 100 crores, then: - First, decide what is the monthly revenue milestone you have to achieve— let's say it’s 10 crores.  - After deciding the monthly milestone, focus on how much revenue do you want to achieve weekly; for example, it’s 2.5 crores milestone in a week. Urges you to make a rule today.  This rule means-  - Ensure that Monday is designated as a review day every week. - Decide that [on Monday from 9 am to 9 pm](x-apple-data-detectors://5)you are just going to do the reviews.  - Improve the quality of reviews. - Prepare its MIS.  - Make its reports. - Hire an MIS employee who will prepare all the reports for you. His salary should be between Rs. 25,000 -30,000/month.  >**Be explicit about defining the milestones, but consult carefully with key people before settling those milestones.** - Decide milestones together with your team members.  - Decide weekly, fortnightly or monthly milestones with them.  - If the milestones are achieved, then recognise and celebrate with your team. - Achieving the goal should not be your only objective. You should also consider what milestones are coming your way in that process.  - Ensure that you give numbers to all the efforts of your team members. - Decide on 'Maa Kasam Monday' after watching this video. For its execution, decide Review day with your team.  **For example:**  If there are 5 people in your team, then decide 'Maa Kasam Monday' in 2 hours. If there are 20-50 people in your team, then make different departments and allocate timings for each department accordingly.  # **#3 You have to catch people doing the right things** - It's a very powerful way of motivating members of your team.  - Find a person who is doing a good job in your organisation and praise him. - Don't point out the mistakes of people who are doing the wrong things instead praise the people who are doing the right things. As a result, you will see that the people who are making mistakes will stop doing so.  **For example:**  If you scold a child, again and again, he will lose his self-esteem.  Your employee is also like a child.  - Set an example for your employees. - If you will praise the right things in your organisation, then it will be inculcated in the behaviour.  - Your employees will understand that on which behaviour their colleagues are getting recognition. - He will also start repeating that behaviour and gradually, it will become the culture of your organisation. Ensure that you do the following things every day in your office: - You have to find 5 people every day doing the right things in the office. - Every day you have to praise 5 people who are doing a good job. - You have to prepare yourself every morning to find 5 such people before going to the office.  If your team will feel motivated, then  - You will also feel motivated. They will feel happy and share it with other team members that how they got recognised by the boss. - You will see that such kind of conversation will help him stay in the company for a lifetime. - It will help them feel inspired to work with your organisation for a longer time. # **#4 Build your succession and ensure that you are dispensable in your organisation** - Ensure that your succession is always ready.  - This point from the perspective of Ritesh Agarwal, the Founder of OYO rooms: **Every time I am looking for someone who will do my job so that I can do the next big thing.** - Similarly, you also have to prepare your succession and find someone within your team who can be your successor and take charge of your work. - You have to make it one of your objectives to work yourself out of the job. To come out of busyness, you need to do the following things:  - You have to invest time in developing people who can succeed you.  - You have to find people who can take responsibility for your work. - If someone can handle 70% of your work, then delegate it to him.  - You have to recognise and understand the range of competencies that your successor would need. - Even if your successor is not prepared and he/she is a non-performer, he/she might have the potential to perform in the future. Help your team members in building those competencies in the next 1-2 years.  - Identify what skills your team member needs and train him on these skills so that he/she can handle your work. - It will help you to concentrate on handling the next big thing.  It is very important to identify your successor. It will help you in building a growth path for your team and they will be able to move ahead. **#5 Give reference stories to your team as they are the best practices** To build trust in somebody it is important to understand- >**If he can do, you can too. If he can do, I can too!** The reference point is important to make the belief of your employee stronger. For this, you need to: - Give good references to your team members. - Give references of possibility to your team members. - Give references to success to your team members.  **For example:** You can tell him that if one organisation can do, so can you; or if this leader can do, so can you. He will get inspired by these reference stories. There is only a slight difference between comparison and inspiration so ensure that you inspire him instead of comparing him.  **For example:**  - Don't compare your team member with others. Instead, you should inspire him by saying if he can do, then you can do much better than him.  - Use such kind of language to inspire your team members and give reference stories of best practices to him so that he can think. - Ask his opinion and involve him in how to do things in a better manner. # **#6 Always watch your tone of voice and body language while talking to your team members** - It is very important to understand the tone of your body language, voice, and gesture to motivate your team. - Know how you smile when you talk to your team members. Example from mentor:  - Recalls that whenever he used to meet his Guru how he used to scold his disciples in a very polite manner. His polite mannerisms helped his disciples in realising their mistakes.  - The person will lose trust, if things are said harshly. Even if you have to say harsh things to anybody, say it sweetly and humbly as it will get easily accepted.  It is not the words that pinch to people but it’s the tone.  When he received the award of the Best Trainer in Asia, he shared his achievement with his Guru Maharaj. His Guru said to him: - Always be humble because this recognition came to you through Krishna's blessings.  - All the accolades received by you could be taken away by Krishna in one second. His mentor said this because he found that mentee was becoming arrogant. So, he said this in a very loving manner and it got registered in mentee's mind.  Learnings from this example:  - It is important to notice your tone and be mindful of the kind of tone that has been used to say things to your team members. - It is also important to understand that even if the words are bitter; but, they should be said sweetly so that the message gets registered. A global formula for this: - Word contributes 7% in the communication. - Tone contributes 38% in the communication. - Body language contributes 55% to communication. It means that you communicate more with your body language, then with your tone and very less through your words.  If you combine tone (38%) and body language (55%), then 93% of the communication you do with your tone and body language.  Words only communicate 7%.  Always keep your tone and body language sweet so that team always remains motivated. # **#7 Always end the meeting on a high note** In a meeting, if you have to be very tough, then before you end the meeting, make sure that you: - Find the points to appreciate your team members. Also has to behave strictly with his team members during the meeting; but whenever he ends the meeting, he ends it on a high note.  Always remember that as per Recency bias, things that are said during the end of the meeting are what people could recall after a long time also. Let us see the things that you need to do before ending the meeting.  - Always end the meeting on a high note - Make the conversation informal in the end. - Always come to your appreciation tone at the end of the meeting. - Always bring thankfulness in your tone when you end the meeting.  - Try to find out on what good note you can end the meeting. - Plan it before on how you are going to end the meeting. - Think about what kind of feelings should be there in the hearts of your team members after the meeting. - Anticipate how your employees are likely to leave the room before ending the meeting.  - Think in advance that how the faces, gestures and thoughts of your team members should be after the meeting. - Always recognise the scope you have to influence the mood of your team. You have to keep in mind the end objective first so that your goals of being strict and motivating both are achieved. It will only happen when you will take the end of communication in a super positive manner. Keep in mind the 40-20-40 Sandwich Rule, which is as follows: - If you have to scold any of your team members, then first praise him 40%. - Be only 20% strict with your team members. - After that, again 40% praise him in the end.  This is similar to a sandwich that has multiple layers of ingredients like a vegetable on top, butter in-between, then again, a layer of vegetables at the bottom. This makes a sandwich 40-20-40. Apply the Sandwich Rule on your team members. You need to do the following things: - Say 40% good and inspirational things about your team members so that he feels encouraged. - Then 20% be strict. It means that you should behave like gulab jamun first, then in-between be like green chili and at the end, behave like a ras malai. Your team member will be able to have green chili in between the ras malai and gulab jamun.  But, if you will keep red chili on top, green in between and then capsicum at the end, then nobody is going to consume it.  So, the rule is - always end your meeting on a high note so that: - Before leaving the meeting room, your team member gets motivated  - Will forget whatever harsh things you have said to him during the meeting  - Must go back with the impression that his/her boss likes and trusts him - Will be inspired to improve his mistake and would move ahead Remember all the 14 points of both the videos.  Always remember that your team is only going to help you.  Your manpower can make you a superpower.