Working as an Executive Coach over the past 15 years with C-level executives in Fortune 500 companies, I have come to the conclusion that huge potential profits are lost through a lack of good communication skills at the executive level. You may say to me, “Well, our Communications Department takes care of that, or our Human Resources Department in the case of employees, or yet again, our trained Customer Service Department. But then I have to ask: Are they the ones who set the tone and make the decisions for the organization, or is this done by the executives and board members?

More often than not, executives make decisions based on information gathered from others around them and information that has been filtered up to them. Hence, this information has been positioned, massaged, and “translated” to what you hope to be reliable. That is the first area of miscommunication. Also, as an executive, you tend to be visionary and communicate in a future-forward fashion. This is a common and costly area of perceived miscommunication. I can tell you from personal experience working with organizations that are going through tough financial times coupled with lay-offs, that this kind of visionary communication is exactly what your employees DO NOT want to be hearing. While working with a global technology organization, I encouraged the CEO to go into his employees’ environment and literally sit and have coffee with a dozen people chosen at random in order to get a “feel” for how they were thinking and feeling. This took a little coaching of course. For employees to share their real feelings and thoughts, the CEO had to fully engage them. This also meant making good eye contact, posture, gestures and facial expressions. And of course, the questions themselves had to be open-ended and inviting, giving pause so that the employee could respond in a relaxed manner. The employees, as you might expect, were at first quite intimidated and scared to speak their minds, anticipating negative repercussions for their honesty. However, once word got out that the boss was sincere and that the discussions were non-judgmental, the employees really did share important insights.

In short order, the CEO realized that the visionary messages that were being communicated to the employees were not only falling on deaf ears, but were also panicking them. Their concerns were much more concrete. They wanted to know how secure their jobs were going to be today and tomorrow. And, by tomorrow, it became clear, that this meant the next 24-hour period. Another important insight that was uncovered was that the employees, in general, DID NOT want to hear how things were going to change for the better, but rather how things in their immediate environment were NOT going to change.

Remember that success in business is associated with motivation. Technical skills and knowledge may play a great role but without motivation, everything will fail to work. If you want to get the maximum from your team, you need to ignite or fuel it with the right kind of motivation. This will also provide them the zest to unleash their creativity and bring out their best.

There is a lot that takes to motivate your team. First, you need to want the best for your people. You need to find their need and ambitions in order to know about what motivates them. Once you start motivating them with the right force, you will see them performing their best.

Here are some of the best tips to keep motivating your team:

a) Motivate yourself

Let the team know that you are full of energy and enthusiasm to fulfill the task. Show your zest and faith in a project you want your team to accomplish. This will motivate your team to work better and feel good about the whole thing.

b) Goal

Your motivation should be purely based on the goal you have decided to attain. Let your team gets clear about the specific goals you want it to achieve. Be specific crystal clear and realistic about the goal you want your team to achieve.

c) Talk to your people

Remember, that people have different goals and the motivational factors vary from one person to other. You need to know who all are there in your team. Talk to them differently about their aspirations, dreams, expectations, fears etc. This will make it easy for you to know what they need from you to get motivated.

d) Make your team believe that their involvement in the project matters. Let them know how valuable their services are.

e) Appreciate the efforts made by your team. This will make wonders for your team’s motivation spirit. You can show your aspiration in the form of money, bonus, assigning designation etc.

f) Let your team have a sense of belonging. Once sense of belonging is formed, the team will get stronger in sense of loyalty effort and motivation.

g) Challenges
Some people are motivated by the challenges they face. Let your team know that accomplishing a project is not a cake walk but together, they can make it.

h) Don’t belittle your team’s performance. Let them know that they tried really hard. Once they get appreciated for their efforts, they will surely make more efforts to achieve success next time.

i) Let your team know the fruits of success. This will prove to be a great motivation force. Let them know about the celebration and rewards the team will get once the task is accomplished successfully.

1. Recognition: I have relied on intuition for making most of my major decisions but I still have difficulty sometimes distinguishing between it and just a passing thought, so here are some guidelines I use?

a. Feeling: What’s the feeling around it? If it’s gentle that’s usually a sign of intuition. Something that is fear-based and urgent is not intuition.

b. Persistent: You find that you keep having the same thought about something, check it out.

c. Messages: You find that the issue crops up again in all sorts of ways..it gets mentioned on the news, you hear it in passing conversation.

2. Trust. So after you have got these messages and confirmation, if you wish to use this, you actually need to do something about it. You must learn to trust this feeling. Follow promptings and see where they lead you.

3. Openness: Be open to where intuition can lead you. One thing I can promise you..is that you will be surprised and delighted by where it leads you.

4. Sometimes it doesn’t mean anything. This is one thing I have noticed about being guided by intuition. Sometimes hunches and gut instincts don’t actually seem to mean anything…but we don’t know that until after-wards…so accept that you may have the odd intuitive red herring!

So this week begin paying attention to your hunches. Call that friend, read that book, make that call…and who knows what delightful things could come to your door..

Our beliefs

The focus is on belief. What do we believe about our abilities? Do we believe that we can overcome any obstacle? Do we believe that we have the ability? Do we have strong faith in our persistence? Do we know how to think and find out ways? Do we know how to pray and seek answers? Do we think that we are the winners? These are the questions that we should ask ourselves.

What is belief and how does it help us succeed?

Belief, a very strong belief in our ability gives us the strength and the positive attitude that helps us find out answers to every problem. If we believe that we will be able to find the solution, we will be excited to work towards it. If we doubt our ability, then we have already lost the war. Belief is a very strong medicine and it works in wonderful ways. Believe that you will be able to find out all solutions. Believe that you will overcome all problems. Believe that you will emerge successful. Believe that you are a winner. Believe that you deserve success. Believe that you have the mental and physical strength to fight against all the odds. Believe. There can be no bigger magic than strong belief.