Creating Confident Leaders - Team Talks

Its very familiar in sports – the team talk!  We hear about pre match talks, half time talks, post match talks – all of these are a big part of the way sports teams are coached and managed.   The ability to give great team talks is seen as a vital skill for leaders in the sporting world.

In corporate life however, it seems to be less common.   I don’t know very many leaders who make “team talks” an intentional and regular part of their leadership practice, however, those who do, (and do them well), are among the most successful leaders I know and I strongly encourage you to think about this and to start to incorporate great team talks into your regular leadership round.

So why is talking regularly to your team with the intention to motivate, inspire and stimulate into action so important?   Well, the clue is in the sentence – a great team talk WILL motivate, inspire and stimulate a team into action.  It can also pick people up after a setback or failure, celebrate success and make a team feel really valued, increase sense of purpose, improve resilience and foster the environment where teams can be at their best consistently.

What is the reason then that many leaders fail to realise the importance and influence of regular “team talks”?   I believe that there are a number of reasons……….often its simply a time factor, leaders get “caught up” in busyness and time consuming activity and forget how important it is to make this kind of regular connection.  Often there is a fear doing it really badly (remember the David Brent brand of motivational speaking from The Office???), so being seen as being inauthentic or embarrassing!   I often hear people say things like “well they know I think they are doing great, they don’t want telling all the time”, or “I do thank them regularly for good work”.   I think what people forget is that thanking people for good work, or just assuming that they “know” you value them is actually not nearly enough when we think about the benefits listed above – picking people up after a setback, improving resilience, truly celebrating success, reinforcing how much you value your team and increasing their sense of purpose.

So how do you do this well and avoid coming across like Ricky Gervais?

Some of the most important things to remember are:-

First of all you have to be real – whatever you say you have to mean and you have to speak in your “language”, not “management speak”. 

One of the best team talks I have heard recently started off by a leader who had just been appointed over a new team saying “I know that there is a perception going around that I don’t rate this team and I think that you are not capable of success.  I am sitting here right now to tell you that is absolutely not true.   I DO think there is work to do, there have been mistakes made and that has had an impact on your performance.   I am going to be truthful with you and acknowledge that.  However, I completely and totally believe in your ability to succeed.  I am going to help and support you to do that but I need you to be honest with me and with each other and be prepared to give more, get over the past difficulties and commit to being better.  We tackle problems in this team, we do NOT give into them.”

This worked because the leader in question was real.  She did not attempt to say everything was great but secondly and most importantly, she started to build self efficacy in the team by stressing that she genuinely believed that they could succeed.   This is the second thing to remember - self efficacy, self belief is vital to high performance.   We cannot motivate people and generate high performance by reducing their self belief.  If we feed an individual or teams’ guilt or fear, we will reduce their capacity to perform well.   This does not mean that a team talk, ducks accountability, however it does mean that accountability is couched within a real desire to encourage teams to believe in themselves.

The third thing to remember is judge the mood in the team and deliver the right message at the right time.  Referring to the example above again, this leader had rightly judged that this team were feeling anxious and quite resistant because they had heard she had a poor opinion of them.   She understood that until and unless she could dissipate that mood, nothing else she said was going to “go in”.   You have to be able to sense the mood and mindset in the team and deliver the message which will either reinforce a positive mood and mindset or lift a negative one.

Fourthly and finally, be consistent.   Don’t just do a team talk when something major happens, make this a habit, regularly make the time to do team talks and use them as a regular and consistent part of your leadership practice.  It will pay dividends.

So, three important tips to help you to deliver great team talks:-

• Be real
• Build self belief and confidence
• Judge the mood and mindset and deliver the right message for the situation
• Be consistent and do this regularly

Team talks are important, please start using them well😃

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Have a great week

Lois