How To Get Your Distracted Team Focused

Some of your team members are unaware of your team's goals. You likely told them. You likely told them more than once. But people are busy, and often distracted.  Regardless, your team members need to understand team goals and how each of them can influence results. 

Some years ago, I discovered, or devised, a simple, repeatable structure that enables leaders to deliver concise, powerful speeches that remind teammates of team goals, and inspire teammates to direct their energy towards these goals.

I like structure and models that I can use for speech development, decision making, and more. I suppose most of us like structure and helpful models. Here is my model for an instinctive speech that most leaders can deliver spontaneously.

 

An Instinctive Leadership Speech Model

1. These are our goals and why

2.  This is our progress

3. These are behaviors I’ve observed that will lead to team achievement

4. Next steps

Explained - These Are Our Goals and Why

Some teams have their goals assigned by higher levels of management. Some teams have some discretion setting team goals. Either way, it is important for team members to understand team goals and why they were assigned or selected.

Sometimes team members might want to debate why one goal is included, and other ambitions excluded. For example, perhaps a company might plan to soon open a branch office in another city, and some employees look forward to possibly staffing the office. If that ambition is delayed, team members deserve to understand the rationale, and perhaps voice their disappointment.

A leader should usually let disappointed team members voice any concerns during a team meeting, because if that doesn’t happen publicly, it will certainly happen privately thereby distracting the team from healthy behavior and progress.

For my friends in Toastmasters, every club leadership team is assigned the same ten goals, and asked to achieve five or more. As an organization, operated by volunteer leaders, that has prospered for 100 years, these ten goals are understood to direct the team behavior that enables long term success.

Early in the year with your team, you need to spend quite a lot of time on this section of explaining goals and why. As the year progresses, you don’t need to spend as much time on this section, but it is important to always remind the team of these targets.

 

Explained – This Is Our Progress

Most leaders are intensely focused on accomplishing team goals, and are very attuned to progress. Your organization likely has a dashboard available for each team, which any team member can access at his or her leisure.

It’s very easy, and very valuable, for a leader to display a dashboard, reiterate the series of goals, and acknowledge where progress has been achieved, and which team members contributed.

 

Explained – These Are Behaviors I’ve Observed

This section is by far the most valuable section in this speech structure. Before delivering, or as delivering, the leader should assess which team members are behaving in a manner that will lead to goal achievement, and recognize that member and the behavior.

For example, early in the year, the team may have achieved zero goals on their dashboard. It’s fine to acknowledge that but also identify helpful behaviors that will lead to achievement. Perhaps a team member completed a series of cold calls that added some prospects to the organization’s sales funnel.  Or an employee identified an inefficiency that has been corrected and will help the team meet an expense goal.

For my friends in Toastmaster clubs, perhaps a member invited a guest, who might join and become a member, or at least will speak positively of her experience with her friends. Or perhaps a member completed a speech that will soon result in an educational achievement.

This section is most important because, as a leader, you will call attention to helpful behaviors you wish to see other team members emulate.  Most team members desire recognition in some manner, and want to understand, at some level, how to be recognized.

Explained – Next Steps

This section is for you to briefly summarize and inspire.

 

How Teams Fail To Achieve

In his book The Winner Within, basketball coach and executive Pat Riley quotes his friend, Dr. Lew Richardson, a psychologist.  I love the quote and wish Dr. Lew had written further on this topic. Unfortunately, this is the only reference I have seen for the gentleman.

 

“Teams break when they don’t have a goal or the goals aren’t clearly defined by the leaders. Goals have to be firmly entrenched, otherwise people begin to operate as independent entrepreneurs in a system that really needs cooperative work.”

 

Conclusion

Goals need to be well defined, and well understood. As leaders, we need to do all we can to remind team members of what the team is expected to achieve. As a society, we’re more distracted than ever.  Your team members are distracted.

I hope you find this simple model for a repeatable leadership speech helpful.