How To Motivate Your Team After a Bad Week

The simplistic and most effective way of motivating a team is to provide it with a purpose that is greater than itself with a belief that it can fulfil that purpose. The team is influenced by the Leader’s behaviour, how the leader conducts him or herself sets the mark for how the team should behave.

Last weekend the Crusaders beat the Blues in the Super Rugby Pacific final. It was a crushing blow to the Blues franchise who had, up-to the final, had a remarkable season, finishing top of the standings which meant hopes were high within the packed Eden Park stadium, yet it wasn’t meant to be as they lost comprehensively to a highly professional Crusaders outfit.

You may be thinking what this has to do with my team. Well ! the challenge facing the Leadership team at the Blues is how to bounce back after such a disappointment and this is a challenge that many Leaders face.

It’s relatively simple to motivate a team when things are going well but when things don’t go to plan such as targets are missed, mistakes are made, people leave or are off sick, it’s a lot more difficult and requires a specific approach.

In this week’s article I want to explore how to motivate your team after a bad week.

Losing is meant to hurt.

‘He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat’ - Napoleon Bonaparte

When things go wrong people feel a range of emotions. They feel disappointed, hurt, upset and yes even angry.

The first thing a Leader needs to understand is that these emotions are natural and can be actually positive rather than negative because it shows that people care. Losing is meant to hurt.

Just imagine if something went wrong and the team is happy about it or even ecstatic, that would be much worse.

The quality that is most difficult for a Leader to instill in a team is making people care. If people already care then everything else can be sorted out. It’s fine for a team to feel emotional as long as it doesn’t stay emotional.

Losing is a step towards success

‘Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat’ - F Scott Fitzgerald

If you make a mistake then congratulations you are human.

We all make mistakes yet if you continue to make the same mistake then unfortunately you are incompetent.

When the team makes a mistake the Leader needs to guide the team through a quick review process, a discussion about what went wrong and why as well as what needs to happen to ensure that the mistake never occurs again. It’s important that this discussion is quick and clinical.

It need not last too long otherwise there is a danger that the bad work overshadows all the good work the team does and it needs to be a very professional conversation without any sense of blame.

Losing provides valuable lessons.

‘The greatest accomplishment is not in never failing, but in rising again after you fall” - Vince Lombardi

In order to turn defeat into victory a Leader needs to turn the negatives into positives, embracing the lessons that failure offers and using them to make the team stronger and it all starts with the Leader.

The team is influenced by the Leader’s behaviour, how the leader conducts him or herself sets the mark for how the team should behave.

If the Leader is blaming people then the team will do likewise so it’s vital that the Leader remains positive and confident even if not feeling so.

The Leader needs to highlight the teams strengths, the lessons learnt and a full belief in the team’s ability. Every team loses but it’s the great teams that rise again.

Losing provides clarity

‘Victory is sweetest once you’ve known defeat’ - Malcolm Forbes

The simplistic and most effective way of motivating a team is to provide it with a purpose that is greater than itself with a belief that it can fulfil that purpose. For a minute have a think about the All Blacks, the world’s most successful sports team.

Do you think they need motivating especially after a loss? The answer is no because they know what the jersey they wear stands for, the famous black jersey represents something greater than the individual.

When the players put on their jersey they know they are representing their country, their family and community all of which are far more motivating than any personal ambition and the same principle can apply to any team.

Even though it’s just a black jersey, it represents something far greater and the players have clarity about what this means.

As a Leader you need to do the same with your teams roles, you need to make the work more than a job you need to discover your team’s purpose. They need to understand what the team represents, why it exists and who does it impact?

Leadership is all about clarity and in order to motivate a team after a bad week you need to put the mistakes and the emotions around those mistakes into context and find the important lessons without making it so overwhelming that it drags the teams down.

Once these lessons have been identified and embraced then the focus has to be completely about the future, what needs to happen next and most importantly why. Provide clarity about what the team stands for and why being successful is important.

If a Leader can achieve this then any bad week is just a step towards more successful and better weeks ahead.