5 Ways to Inspire Your Team
1-Actively seek inspiration
Actively pursue opportunities to feed your mind, your body, and especially your soul. Just like successful athletes who master their craft, they don’t get there by accident. They wake up every single day with a thirst and hunger to become their very best. They not only eat the right foods to get proper nutrition, but they also feed their mind.
Successful leaders do the same.
Podcasts, books, audiobooks, Ted Talks, conferences, community groups, faith-based organizations, and even small groups with friends, coworkers, or like-minded people, pursuing self-mastery are all ways to grow yourself so you can grow your team and others.
It’s amazing how when you actively seek inspiration, you become an inspiration to other people.
2-Share inspiration
When people receive an email, link, or text message from their leader to check out something another brand or leader is doing, it communicates, “Hey, I’m thinking about you. Hope this inspires you as much as it inspired me! Let’s connect about it soon. I’d love to hear your thoughts.”
This is a great opportunity to inspire them with a story, and another way to make them feel important. All because you shared the story with them, personally.
Sharing inspirational stories is also an inspiring, meaningful way to recognize and celebrate great performance. For example, when someone does their job the right way and knocks it out of the park with their execution or, maybe they surprise and delight a guest, customer, or client, tell everyone about it. This is especially true in our world of email, social media, internal online platforms for employees, and podcasts.
There’s no shortage of ways to share inspiring stories. Share stories about specific situations, how the superstar handled it, and especially the impact or outcome.
3-Create inspiration by delivering memorable experiences
Stories inspire, especially when they’re shared in meaningful ways. The only thing better than an inspiring story is an inspiring experience. There’s a reason the travel and tourism industry is one of the world’s largest, with a global economic contribution north of 7.6 trillion U.S. dollars.
According to the National Restaurant Association, overall 2019 annual revenues in the restaurant industry in America were projected to be $863 Billion. According to Statista.com, revenue generated from amusement parks and theme parks in 2016 was around $20.49 Billion.
So, whether it’s travel, going out for a meal, or spending the day at a theme park, it’s safe to say people love experiences!
Leaders who lead with hospitality understand this and actively seek ways to provide their teams with experiences that will inspire them. When we experience something firsthand, whether it’s a theme park, great service, art of any kind, or even time spent outside our normal routine, we’re pleasantly disrupted. After this disruption, new thoughts, new learning, new perspectives, new people, and sometimes even new feelings about life become top of mind. This transcendent nature of inspiration propels us to think, believe, and most importantly DO what we may not have thought was possible before.
It doesn’t have to be elaborate, however, it must be experiential. For example, simply taking someone out of their day-to-day environment and allowing them to spend time with another team, or in a different location, can be an experience that inspires the thoughts and actions you want to inspire.
4-Be an inspiration with their own words and actions
If you set clear expectations and help with setting lofty, yet attainable goals, lead by example. You go first.
When leaders do the things, they’ve asked their teams to do, it’s a B12 shot right to the hearts and minds of their team. When leaders take action, their teams take action.
5-Create meaningful work
Make it meaningful for them, utilizing one, a few, or all the lead with hospitality tactics. If it seems daunting to put all of these into action – acceptance, empathy, service, kindness, encouragement, significance, gracefulness, effective coaching, inspiration; choose only one at a time to focus on each day, week, or month.
If you could choose to activate just one idea today or tomorrow, I suggest you start by simply caring about people. When you genuinely care about people around you and show it, even the most menial tasks transform into meaningful work.
That bodes well for leading your team to success and delivering outstanding results.
