Want to Be Loved by Your Team? Try These Productivity Habits.

This article comes from Entrepreneur.

Want to Be Loved by Your Team? Try These Productivity Habits.

To be productive and liked are not paradoxical intentions. The good news is that it is not impossible to have your team love you — and still get everything done. You don’t have to be the task-master, the ogre — and well — the noxious festering splinter in your teams backside.

Try following these 12 productivity habits. When you do — you can be certain that your team won’t just love you — you’ll also get everything out of your employees on a daily basis.

1. Set crystal clear priorities, goals and expectations.

Each and every one of your team members should know exactly what tasks they should be working on. Additionally — they should be aware of the priority of each task, as well as what’s expected of them.

You don’t want them to work on a less important task that could have been completed later. That means that the more important task has been pushed aside. You can’t blame your team member if they didn’t know this information.

When it comes to goal setting you only want to focus on just a few specific goals that aren’t too difficult or simple to achieve.

2. Give your team ownership.

While there numerous ways for you to motivate your employees — nothing beats encouraging ownership. In fact, studies have found that when employees have more autonomy at work, they’re more satisfied. This in turn creates less turnover and higher engagement.

If you want encouraging ownership within your organization, here are a couple tips on getting started:

• Start with the why: This simply means letting your team know why the work they’re doing is important.
• Allow your team to speak-up: Ask for feedback and input from your team on the projects that they’re working on.
• Let them choose how: Let your team figure out how to solve problems on their own and work however they prefer.
• Build trust: This means listening to your team and not commanding them, but guiding them.
• Hold them accountable: Remind your team when important deadlines are approaching and check-in to see how they’re progressing.
• Delegate effectively: Assign the right people for the right tasks and give them the proper tools and resources to succeed.

3. Involve your team in the decision making process.

If you want to get the most out of your team — ditch the: “It’s my way or the highway” mentality. As perfectly explained in an Outside In Management article: “Your team is at the heart of your business. They’re usually the ones that are dealing with your customers on a daily basis as well as knowing how internal processes work like the back of their hand.

Your team may actually know more about your customers than you do.

“They know what customers really think of your products and services and they will undoubtedly have their own opinions on many areas of the business and its processes.”

It makes sense that your team should be making decisions that can improve your business. Just make sure that they’re also involved in the execution and implementation of these decisions.

4. Be aware of your team’s strengths and weaknesses.

We all have hidden talents. When you get to know which talents your team members possess, you can then find opportunities for them to put their skills and expertise to good use.

Who likes to do what on your team? What task is detested?

If you have a team member who enjoys writing, — then ask if they would be interested in writing blog posts for your website. Not only does this let them use their talent and passion — having this additional responsibility makes them feel more empowered.

Just don’t ask them to take on this extra work if they’re already swamped.

At the same time, you also want to be aware of each team members weaknesses. If someone isn’t strong at math, then it wouldn’t make sense to assign them any accounting tasks. Besides not being skilled enough to properly do this job, if they struggle at it, they’ll be less motivated to give it their all.

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