No matter what your job or title, as a manager, there is one thing that should always be top of mind: helping your team care. Care about the work they’re doing. Care about supporting their peers. About doing more. Care about making things better. Simply care. There is a lot that goes into getting someone to deeply and genuinely care about something. It’s a  lot of work and you might be thinking, “Why is it my job to make someone else care? Shouldn’t they care on their own?” And I agree. The ideal scenario is that they care, but what they care about might not be aligned with you need them to care about. We polled our some of our clients and people in our networks who are respected team leaders and asked them what their secret sauce is when it comes to helping inspire their teams to care. We’ve seen first hand how these leaders motivate and engage their teams through the toughest times and through complex change and are excited to share their expertise with you! Here’s how to help your team give a shit: Aligning incentives Everyone has something that drives them. Figure out what that is for the individual. It can be as simple as asking your team, “What motivates you?” If someone is motivated and driven by recognition, then use recognition as a motivator to help someone care about what they are doing. I see managers live by the philosophy that no news is good news. If someone lives for the recognition and reward, then in their mind, they’re doing an average job. This is demotivating and deflating for the individual. It can lead to disengagement and unfulfillment. Another way to think about incentives is by rewarding the right type of behavior. If someone goes above and beyond for their client, recognize her or give her a bonus. This positive reinforcement signals to the individual that I must keep doing this because it leads to positive outcomes. Focus on the why It’s month end and your team is falling 25% behind their target goals. On top of that, your organization is going through a huge restructuring. It is pure chaos. Your employees are trying to keep their heads above water and in their silos, churning and burning, losing steam and getting to the danger zone. I bet your team has forgotten what they’re doing or why. They’re just focused on trying to hit their numbers. This is where we’re failing the team. As leaders, you know the ultimate destination and have to remind the team every single day where you’re headed, why it matters and how they’re helping to get there. Jason Lindauer, Managing Partner at Verizon, is no stranger to change. He works tirelessly to help his team stay motivated and provide the best results to their clients, especially during times of change. He first explains that “Without change, we are just waiting around to fail.”  The goal is always to make improvements in one way or another that position us to improve on performance, provide additional value, or become more financially efficient.  Either way, if we don’t make sure that our team understands the big picture, they will not be ready to embrace it. Show them you care Tim Fagan, Chief Revenue Officer of TEGNA, tells us, “The notion of ‘giving a shit’ is a pillar of my entire management philosophy. It was Teddy Roosevelt who said, “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” This couldn’t be more true, both in business as well as in your personal life.” Tim contributes their client success to the employees demonstrating that they care about the client. This is a very important note and it’s worth repeating. As a leader, you show your team that you care, and in turn, they care. They care about their clients and put their heart and soul into what they do. This is what leads to satisfied clients and an increase in revenue. To emphasize the importance of this, we asked our own CEO, Nicole Wood. She says,  “I’m an actions speak louder than words person, and I like to lead by example. If I want my team to give a shit about their work and my company, then I need to give a shit about them. Not just as employees but as people. If you support your team in their personal and professional goals, make meeting with them a priority and intentionally direct work to them that you know they will enjoy, then you show that you are listening and that you care about their happiness. As a result, they will care about yours and will demonstrate that through great work.” Be positive It’s hard to care when you are surrounded by negativity. It’s important to stay positive and to spread your infectious energy to others. Jason shares a story with us about how he uses positivity to win over clients, “I recently showed this with a few of my team members when I took them out to prospect into their new territories. We stopped into approximately 20 locations and all I asked is that every place we walk into with just the biggest smile on our faces. In doing so, they experienced the best outcome they had in a while. Why? Because it is hard for someone to be rude to you when you are so happy.” As Jason points out, positivity is infectious. Even through the phone, one can recognize if the other person is smiling. Being positive helps you and the team navigate through tough times and stay in the discomfort where innovation and change happen. Get on the same page When done right, this helps to eliminate a lot of miscommunication. We’re referring to setting expectations, being open, vulnerable and understanding one another. We spoke with Bob Tweedie,  Director of Learning and Development at Blackstone, who did a powerful exercise with his team. “We created a simple team

Doing the work to make a company more diverse and working to create inclusive teams can sometimes feel as if we are climbing a mountain. On top of that, true change as an organization will take years. I am a bit impatient so I started thinking about what are ways we can make an immediate impact around me. In 2015, Google released findings from Project Aristotle, an internal research project spanning 2 years to answer the question “What makes an effective team at Google?” Google found the most important factor contributing to effective teams is psychological safety. Psychological safety, defined by Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson, is a belief that you will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes. In short, it is how comfortable individuals with taking risks and being vulnerable with their team. What might psychological safety have to do with diversity and inclusion? Everything. The old adage we hear is people don’t leave companies, they leave bad managers. I do not disagree, but I would argue being on a bad team is a major factor we don’t talk enough about. Diversity and inclusion starts at the team level. Managers have a responsibility to ensure they hire a diverse team. Research has shown when you work with people who are different from you, they challenge your thinking and sharpen your performance which leads to having a smarter team. However, when you have a team of people with a whole lot of opinions, good outcomes cannot happen without inclusion. Inclusion is the job of every single member on a team and a core part of inclusion is creating psychological safety for your team members. How to create inclusive teams: Be curious. It is important to recognize every person on your team brings with them a unique set of characteristics and experiences that influences how they might show up at work. Most of what you will not be able to infer based on observations. I don’t know about you, but from my corporate experience, I tend to be hesitant about voluntarily sharing aspects of myself in the workplace. However, when someone is genuinely curious and asks me questions, I am much more willing to share. Be the curious person on the team and lead by example. Start simple by finding out how they can contribute more to the team, questions could be:– What part of the job gets you most excited?– What are some strengths you bring to the team?– What’s something you’ve done recently that you are proud of? Listen and help others be heard. Asking a good question is a good start but you also need to actively listen to the answer. When you feel heard, you are willing to continue sharing information. It’s part of human nature, therefore the response you provide someone who voices an opinion helps to conditions them for the next time. Listening becomes increasingly important when you work on a diverse team because there’s a higher likelihood conflict will arise. Showing that you’re willing to listen, especially when you’re not in agreement with someone takes practice. However, those conflicts, when handled well could turn into innovative ideas and new ways to collaborate. Reframe failures. Let us be honest here, you’re a unicorn if you never make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes, some are minor and some have a large financial impact. Failure is hard to grapple with internally but can be even more brutal when there are witnesses. If it’s so common, why does it make us so embarrassed? The norms we’ve learned is to hide failures, keep silent and don’t push back – if we don’t see it, then how would we know if it’s common. We focus so heavily on execution when it comes to work, we would be better off if we think of it as a learning journey. The next time you make a mistake think about what happened? What can you do better? What bigger mistake did you avoid because of what you did? How will the incident help you in the future? Share what you learn and ask others for ideas on how you could have done it better. When others share with you a mistake, respond by asking them the same questions. Creating this dialogue opens the doors for others to be empowered to share their own experiences. Building a psychologically safe work environment and working to create inclusive teams requires a leader. The leader can be you, whether you have the title or not. This takes courage on your part but if you don’t do it, who will? Being on a good team makes all the difference at work to people individually. If we’re going to achieve corporate diversity and inclusion goals, we have to start with individuals and teams, to give them an example of how effective it is when people feel their unique perspective matters and is heard.

One of your top team members sends you that cryptic, “Do you have time to talk this week?” email. You, of course, get a meeting on the books as soon as you can. Then the bomb drops. They tell you that they’re leaving the company. What?! Why?! They are such a solid performer. I thought they were happy here. I wonder if there is anything I can do to get them to stay! Maybe. But by this point, it is probably too late. You need to identify signs that your employee is about to quit far in advance when there is still time for you to do something about it. Of course, you’re not a mind reader, and we’re not expecting you to be. You’ll never know with 100% certainty how everyone is feeling all of the time. You can, however, proactively engage your team members in ongoing dialogue about their goals. This helps ensure they are constantly learning, growing and being rewarded. These are all key components of retaining your team. So to start, who might be a flight risk? How can you tell if your employee is about to quit in advance? Signs Your Employee Is About To Quit They haven’t gotten a significant raise in a while Money is not everything. I repeat – money is not everything. It is, however, very important. It is important not just because it is our livelihood, but also because it is a quantifiable reflection of our worth. If you have a team member who has continued to up their skills and contributions, who has recently received additional education or training, who has taken on additional responsibilities – all of these are worthy of a raise. Not just a cost of living bump, but a significant raise. If your top team members aren’t being financially rewarded for their continued contributions, they will likely start to look externally to find someplace that will reward them. If you have a team member who is a high performer that you don’t want to lose, proactively advocate for budget to continue to increase their pay or award them a bonus. Or if that isn’t financially feasible, identify other ways to reward them. Maybe you can include them in a high profile meeting. Or provide them with additional training or even award them with additional vacation time. Acknowledge their worth, and do what is in your power to demonstrate that to them. They’ve made requests about their role within the company Coaching people through career transitions is a specialty of ours at Ama La Vida. We are sure to capture data about their decision to leave so we get the full picture. More than half of our career transition clients have spoken with someone within their organization about their desire for things to change before seeking support from a coach to help them determine their next move. That means that more than half of your employees aren’t leaving you guessing at all. They are actually coming to you and saying, “Here’s what I want.” “Here are changes I’d like to see.” “Here are opportunities I’d like to be involved with.” Sure, they might not pepper onto the end “or else I’ll leave,” but what if you thought about it that way? I don’t want you running around fearful that people are leaving every time they make a comment. But I do want you to take their requests seriously. Of our career transition clients, 14% say they would want to stay with their employer if their role was improved. So sure, that’s not everyone, but a 14% improvement in retention is nothing to scoff at. When your employees come to you expressing interest in gaining new experience or working through some challenges, listen to them. Take their feedback to heart and do what you can to create the opportunities they are looking for. It is better for the organization to retain them than having them leave and have to train someone brand new. They are disengaged. If someone starts missing meetings and deadlines, passing on optional events and raising their hand less, they could be an employee checking out and are about to quit. This is especially true if this is a new pattern of behavior. It is possible that they are just going through something personally or are totally slammed. But more often than not, they are beginning to disengage from the company. If someone’s energy and enthusiasm toward their role begins to shift or if they start to have a drastic change in mood, it could be a sign that they are disengaging. Have a conversation with them to check in. Ask what is going on and what has caused this shift. Ask what they need to feel more engaged in their work. Set an action plan for yourself and for them to help reinvigorate them. Suspicious calls and appointments If you’ve ever interviewed for jobs while still in one, you might be able to recognize this behavior when you see it. If one of your team members starts regularly taking private calls or leaving for appointments, it could be a sign that they are interviewing elsewhere. However, it is also possible that they are dealing with some personal or family issues, so don’t jump to conclusions or become accusatory. When you are in a private space and having a one-on-one conversation, you can ask them directly. You can say that you’ve noticed this pattern of behavior and that you are concerned about them. Ask them if they are okay. But also express that you respect their privacy, and they of course should only share anything they are comfortable with. In most cases if it has gotten to this point, they likely won’t share with you are they are interviewing. And that’s okay. You can still try to implement changes which will entice them to stay. And, if nothing else, show them that you are invested in them and care about their career and