Flower Empowered

  ProjectsAtWork  

To motivate teams, link individual interests to work assignments.

In the effort to motivate team members, project managers use personality, persuasion, negotiation, technical competence and even reciprocal favors. But one of the best ways to motivate is by linking work assignments to interests. When people find work meaningful and challenging, they perform better. And this empowerment can be fostered through an exercise that uses a flower metaphor.

The following exercise helps reveal individuals' career interests, and can be used to tie those long-term interests to near-term work assignments. The concept originated in an aerospace environment where 20 team members on loan from other departments staffed a project. As the project manager, I wanted to optimize the talent pool, manage workloads and maximize performance by matching assignments to individual strengths and interests. It worked.

Sowing the Seeds
To begin the flower exercise, schedule a meeting with a team member. Explain the discussion is "on the record" and will be taken seriously. Then, draw a flower with seven or eight petals, large enough to write inside. This unconventional format avoids the constraints of a prioritized list of interests, allowing ideas to flow more freely. At the heart of the exercise is meaningful conversation between you and the team member. Maintain an open, …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.