How to motivate colleagues - Top Tips
How do you motivate colleagues?
This page presents a reflective Top Tip checklist about how you can motivate people. It could be a useful reflective activity to use at the beginning or end of a school year, or as you approach a major leadership project.
How do you evaluate yourself against these tips?
In their book ‘Shaping School Culture’ (2002) Deal and Peterson note that “Culture is key to a school’s success in promoting teacher and student learning. Without addressing the culture, no reform, no new curriculum, no amount of staff development will create a high-performing school. It affects attitudes toward spending time to improve instruction, motivation to attend workshops, and the [activities] people choose to participate in.”
They distinguish between toxic and healthy cultures. A toxic culture is very deflective, takes little personal responsibility. A healthy culture is prescriptive; accepts the problem and says what do we do about it?
Teachers and their relationship to school
- Explore one of the following 3 classifications of teachers and their relationships in schools
- Discuss 'what are their implications for leadership?'
- Identify opportunities and challenges for you as a pedagogical leader.
Anthony Muhammad distinguishes between:
Believers | those who are committed to the learning of each student and who operate under the assumption that their efforts can make an enormous difference in that learning.
Tweeners | members of a staff who are typically new to a school and are attempting to learn its prevailing culture.
Survivors | those who have been so overwhelmed by the stress and demands of the profession that their primary goal becomes making it through the day, the week, and the year
Fundamentalists | preservers of the status quo.
Tim Brighouse and David Woods distinguish between:
Energy creators who |are enthusiastic and always positive; use critical thinking, creativity, and imagination; stimulate and spark others; practice leadership at all levels; are able and willing to scrutinize their practice and willing to make their practice accessible to others; wish to improve on their previous best.
Energy neutrals who are | ccompetent, sound practitioners; willing to (address) the task; see ‘good’ as ‘maintenance’; ssometimes uncomfortable accepting examination of their practice by others; capable of improving on their previous best.
Energy consumers | have a negative view of the world; resent change and practice blocking strategies; use other people’s time excessively; are unable and unwilling to critically examine their teaching practice; appear not to want to improve on their personal best.
Roland Barth categorizes the various forms of relationships among adults within the school in four ways:
Parallel play | the abiding signature of parallel play in education is the self-contained classroom, with the door shut and a piece of artwork covering that little pane of glass. The cost of concealing what we do is isolation from colleagues who might cause us to examine and improve our practices.
Adversarial relationships | the guiding principles of competition are, “The better you look, the worse I look,” and “The worse you look, the better I look.” No wonder so many educators root for the failure of their peers rather than assist with their success.
Congenial relationships | are personal and friendly.
Collegial relationships | educators sharing with each other - talking with one another about practice, sharing their craft knowledge, observing one another while they are engaged in practice, and rooting for one another's success.
How do you motivate? You could use the following reflection sheet by yourself or as a way of discussing how you motivate people with teams you belong to. I am grateful to Lesley Strachan for this helpful infographic.
Advice from others
The following quotes are taken from leaders and provide advice on how they motivate their staff. They could be used a form of reflection using a Quotes that speak to me protocol. You could also collect your own as a school. The quotes are taken from an article on 14 highly effective ways to motivate employees.
When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too." (Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist)
"Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it." (Dwight D. Eisenhower)
"If you let them know you trust and depend on them, they will fill those shoes sooner than you think. A vote of confidence can go a long way. Let them know you trust them to do the best job possible and they will rarely disappoint you. Try it." (Ayelet Noff, Blonde 2.0)
"I am very open with employees about what's happening at the highest level so there are no surprises and everyone has a chance to ask questions and give feedback. I want employees to feel included in big decisions and committed to the direction our company takes. This has helped to sustain motivation and increased company loyalty and pride." (Martina Welke, Zealyst)
"Ask what they do and don't like working on, share the big picture company goals, and respond to their questions. Discern their goals and then invest in their professional growth. During one-on-one check-ins, listen to their ideas, because they're the best at what they do. Respect their personal schedules and non-work time, and don't ever pit their goals/timelines against each other." (Heather McGough, Lean Startup Company)
"It's amazing how a simple "please" and "thank you" fares with employees. We simply speak to staff the way we would want to be spoken to. We also have an open-door policy when it comes to suggestions and ideas. When employees feel that their voice matters, they in turn feel confident about their positions in the company and that they have more at stake than just a paycheck." (Justin Beegal, Infographic World Inc.)
"Motivating employees is not just about giving them vacation time-it's about showing them they make a difference and are valued. Every time we have a meeting, whether large or small, we let a different team member lead the conversation and the topics discussed. Not only can they share their opinions and be heard this way, but they are motivated to make their words and ideas happen afterwards." (Miles Jennings, Recruiter.com)
"It's important that employees understand the bigger picture and can see how what they are doing in the moment will eventually contribute to an end goal. Give them tasks and projects to work on and make sure they understand how this fits into the big picture. Talented employees will go above and beyond what you expect of them." (Brian David Crane, Caller S,art Inc.)
Murphy, J, 22 freakishly effective ways to motivate employees (updated for 2020)
How to motivate people in your team: The book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear is a great resource for motivation, in and out of school. The book is a framework for improving a little each day. Clear uses the 1% rule - don’t try to change it all or focus on long term goals, but rather take each goal 1% at a time. Ultimately you are creating lots of little action plans to accomplish your long-term goals. I think this book can be motivational to a team and its members because if each member focuses on their 1% we reach our outcomes that much faster, together.
15 Effective Ways to Motivate Your Team
1. Share the Organizational Vision With Each Member
2. Communicate With Your Staff
3. Make People Feel Appreciated
4. Support New Ideas
5. Give Challenging Tasks
6. Encourage Creativity
7. Give Each One Opportunities to Grow
8. Empower Each Individual
9. Give as Much Support as You Can
10. Manage Each One Individually
11. Don’t Let Your People Become Bored
12. Create Healthy Competition
13. Celebrate Each Success
14. Make Sure There is a Good Working Environment
15. Create and Maintain a Team Spirit
1in 5 Employees Is Highly Engaged and at Risk of Burnout, Emma Seppälä and Julia Moeller, Harvard Business Review, May 2018. This Harvard Business Review article defines employee engagement as “motivated and hard-working”, and shares that “…while there are many positive outcomes of engagement, such as greater productivity and quality of work, increase safety, and employee retention”, the engaged employees have mixed feelings about their jobs because their engagement did not match the resources available to them for support, rewards and recognition. Therefore, the challenge is to nurture this employee optimal engagement, large or small scale, by providing necessary resources both tangible and intangible to effectively perform tasks at their job that they can feel good about, and as a result find rewarding and recovery experiences through this work. Increase the resources available to employees; this includes not only material resources such as time and money, but intangible resources such as empathy and friendship in the workplace, and letting employees disengage from work when they’re not working. Setting boundaries, encouraging balance and respecting employees both as professionals and people, and shift to “smart engagement – the kind that leads to enthusiasm, motivation and productivity.”
In the following video Simon Sinek gives 8 pieces of advice on how to keep motivated yourself
- Grow your strength
- Be vulnerable
- Don't give up
- Be the idiot
- Inspire people
- Have worthy rivals
- Love what you do
- Allow positive disruption
"I like these resources, because it seems to have one thing in common: be authentic, humble and serve others in order to motivate. If you care about others and bring it to the relational, then the team will go forward. This motivates me to not give up - because the dream of what IB can be in our school community gives me hope. When I work with others and take time to form relationships, then all our dreams can come true." (Tanya Vandserven, IB coordinator, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)
Tags: motivation, culture, school culture, toxic culture, healthy culture