5 Steps to Thrill – part 2

One of the primary responsibilities of leaders is to maintain the organizational characteristics that reward and encourage collective effort. Here are the supportive actions that managers must take to empower a team to create a thrilling performance.

1. Novelty

Put people on a new and challenging project. Introduce novelty in terms of both the task itself and the unique combination of people assigned to it. Creating fresh teams to drive a project is an easy way to create novelty.

2. Anxiety

Empower the group to modulate their arousal and anxiety by asking them to visibly monitor their own progress and make the adjustments necessary to meet both internal demands and competitive conditions.

3. Risk

Senior management must provide some time to offer guidance and resources. Develop a risk map to manage expectations. Growth doesn’t happen without risk, and those risks have to be managed with transparency to alleviate the personal stress for team members.

4. Exhilaration

The time has come to test the performance. The pent-up energy from the team will burst forward as the project milestones and defined goals are reached. Wow!

5. Reflection

This is the phase where workforce confidence is built. Team recognition and the celebration of results are important management activities to drive the recalibration of what the team members recognize they are capable of in the future. An effective evaluation procedure should be in place to pull out lessons and act upon those lessons on a consistent basis.

Thrill (part 2) is excerpted from Eyeballs Out by Donna Sturgess. Copyright 2010. All Rights Reserved. image credit: climbkili

Click here if you missed Part 1

Don’t miss an article (3,600+) – Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Innovation Excellence group!

Donna Sturgess is the President and Co-founder of Buyology Inc and former Global Head of Innovation for GlaxoSmithKline. Her latest book is Eyeballs Out: How To Step Into Another World, Discover New Ideas, and Make Your Business Thrive