7 ways to inspire people

As a business coach, trainer and consultant, I am often asked by bosses if there are really time-tested ways to manage people.

We all know that what works for one company may not work for another. Similarly, what works for one person will not work for another. 

For example, monetary incentives often fail to motivate people who are sick and tired of work.

I would say that there is no one method that can work for all companies. Within a company, there is not one method that will work for all employees. This is because human beings are complex creatures and the complexity will intensify under different situations because of different context. 

For example, people may not be taken aback if you tell them their weakness when they are in good mood. But when they are stuck, your criticism will demoralize them.

At the end of the day, Effective People Management is about making the best use of what you’ve got. That is, getting the most out of your team. 

It is about Inspiring People to be Better than Themselves.

From years of real-life coaching and consulting cases, we came up with the following 7 Ways to Inspire People.

They are:

1. Coach people, not tell people. Because coaching makes people do more than telling.

2. Make the high flyers know that they can do much more. Most importantly, let them exceed themselves.

3. Make low flyers know that their below-par performance is temporary and they too can make quantum leap in their performance if they do the necessary 5 steps.

4. Align people from different backgrounds, cultures and seniority; make them work as a team.

5. Move people up the ladder of performance from mediocre to unbelievable

6. Help people achieve their own goals and see the linkage that achieving their own goals will also help your organization achieve its goals.

7. Build a culture that lasts beyond you. At the end of the day, that culture is a way of living and this will codify all the above efforts.

1. Coach people, not tell people.
We know that when you tell people a solution, they don’t own the solution but when you coach them, they own it. This is because instead of giving out answers, which will have resistance, coaching draws answers from people and thus the resistance is lower.

The easiest way to coach people is to ask questions. So instead of telling the person don’t be late, simply ask him if he prefers to be late or on time. He will of course say that he wants to be on time, and his lateness is due to some reason like traffic jam. 

Then ask him questions on how he can resolve the traffic jam situation, and offer suggestions like waking up earlier. 

Finally, get his commitment to resolve the problem by asking a killer question like “So you will wake up earlier tomorrow morning so that you will be on time, right?”

In short, Coaching people is about following this formulae:

• Ask Question that Assume People Want to Be Good;
• Ask Question on Reason for the Shortfall in Behavior;
• Ask Question on How they can Resolve the shortfall in behavior;
• Ask Question to get their Commitment to the resolution.

2. Make the high flyers know that they can do much more.
The challenge with dealing with high flyers is that they often think that they are the best and become arrogant. Worse still, some may think that the organization cannot do without them and display disrespect for authority and have poor teamwork.

For example, bosses often told me that top salespeople often ask for higher incentives without considering the profit impact on the company. They even suggest to the boss to cut cost elsewhere so as to pay for their higher incentives. Ridiculous but true!

Actually high flyers want to achieve much more but they often need people to tell them so. So you can tell them in this way:

• Praise them for their high performance;
• Ask them if they are 100% happy with this or they want more;
• If they said that they are 100% happy, ask them ‘what if you achieve more?” This will provoke them to think beyond the box and being high flyers, they will naturally want to achieve more.
• If they want more, ask them how they are to achieve this base on current behavior. Most of them will say that they need to change their current behavior if they want to achieve more.
• Ask them to share with you what specific behaviors they will be taking so that you can get the team to coordinate better and achieve success sooner than later.

There you have, the simple way to inspire high flyers.

3. Make low flyers know that they too can fly
In dealing with below-par performers, let them know that they too can fly and thus you would label them as Low Flyers as they too can become High Flyers if they do your 5 steps:

• Identify the biggest reason for their low performance. If they put the blame on others, let them know that others’ behavior can easily be turnaround if they take ownership of the issue. 

For example, if he said that he is late because of the bus schedule, tell him to see this as his own problem and adjust his behavior. Then he need not be at the mercy of the late bus schedule.  

• Help them resolve the issue like what I have outlined above;
• Identify one common trait or behavior that they see in high flyers and themselves. He may say that his inter-personal skills is as good as or even better than the high flyer.
• For the low flyer to become a high flyer, one easy way is to emulate the high flyer’s behavior. Like the high flyer has better knowledge, plan more and demand high quality standards.
• Finally, give all the encouragement you can for the low flyer needs this more than anybody.

4. Align people from different backgrounds
Aligning people from different background, experience and attitudes is beyond setting goals and seeing the common vision in all the goals. To us aligning people is about letting them see that as a team they can achieve more than on their own.

The following are the 6 steps to Align People: 

• You must Assert Leadership as their Leader
• You let them see the Common Goals, Vision and Mission
• You let them know the Rules of the Game
• The team collectively come up with an Action Plan with your guidance
• The team Executes the Plan with 100% and no holding back
• You support the team when there are problems.

5. Move people up the ladder of performance from mediocre to unbelievable

• Everyone start somewhere, and most will start at mediocre, which is average or below average
• You move them up to expected, where they perform to changing expectations
• The next Level will be outstanding, which is above expectations
• After that, you move them up to unbelievable, which is beyond everyone’s imagination, like doing the impossible. What are considered impossible in your organization now?

6. Help people to achieve their own goals

Statistics show that 57% of the population have goals but they are not written down. Common goals include to bring back good income for their family, promotion, bonus and increment.

The key is to link achieving their own goals to achieving the organization’s goals. Like if they want to earn higher salary, they need to contribute more to the organization.

The most important thing to do is to help them achieve their own goals with all your help and encouragement. Just merely throw them your organization’s goals will NOT work.

7. Build a culture that lasts beyond you
This is the ultimate for High Performing organizations: build a culture that lasts beyond you. For a culture is a way of living. The culture of your organization based on the above will be so strong that it forms a basis for all your people management issues. 

Strong cultures that bring high performance can be seen in companies that weather through the storms, like Apple Inc, AIA and Capitaland.

The above 7 ways of Inspiring People will form the basis of your people management. After all, what good can your team do if they are not inspired? 

Andy Ng, Asia Trainers

If you too want to get the most out of your team, practice the above 7 ways and you’ll reap the rewards like what my coaching clients and seminar participants have achieved. For more information, email to andy@asiacoachingtraining.com, visit www.asiatrainers.com/SeminarsList.php or call Cassandra Kang (Andy Ng’s PA) at 6225-17984 during office hours.