How do you maintain team members' motivation and enthusiasm in a small, fully remote team?
Zhiqi Shi
12 replies
For me,
1.Mutual Understanding
In a small team, it's crucial for members to have a good understanding of each other's personalities, working styles, and even personal circumstances. This foundation of information sharing and empathy forms the most important prerequisite for maintaining cohesion.
2. Shared Goals
Rather than focusing solely on smoothing out differences during collaboration, it's more important to ensure everyone agrees on the end goal. For instance, does the team prioritize earning more money, achieving a better work-life balance, or pursuing an ambitious, long-term vision? Having a shared purpose helps align efforts and maintain motivation.
3. Achieve Clear Progress Quickly:
While long-term goals are essential, for remote teams, maintaining cohesion often relies on achieving small, tangible victories. Identifying and successfully completing such smaller milestones with high quality is crucial. These incremental wins not only build momentum but also reinforce a sense of accomplishment and keep team morale high.
Best wishes to all such small teams, and to myself as well.
Replies
Business Marketing with Nika
minimalist phone: creating folders
I think it strongly depends also on reliability and inner dedication of each member. Not everyone is self-disciplined enough to complete the work from home. :)
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@busmark_w_nika agree with you. So, this make it even more important to carefully choose the right people in advance.
Elon Jump
Threaten them not to pay. Works all the time
Totally depends on company culture and individual personalities. A few things that can help: 1) Have regular virtual team building activities/games 2) Do frequent 1:1 check-ins to make sure everyone is engaged & motivated 3) Publicly recognize great work 4) Ensure roles & goals are super clear. But you're right, strong self-discipline and dedication are a must for remote work to succeed long-term!
Regular team meetings, even if brief, go a long way in maintaining motivation. Having a dedicated time to sync up, share progress, and discuss any challenges or new ideas keeps everyone engaged. Using collaboration tools like Slack or Asana for casual check-ins and banter helps remote teams feel more connected too. And don't underestimate the power of virtual team building activities to boost morale! 🙌
Tempo-Pulse
I agree. Clarify the value of the goals is also a good motivation for team.
For example, every member of our team clearly knows that haptic music ultimately delivers an inclusive, innovative music experience.
Everyone recognises this value in haptic music, so we all work very hard to bring great haptic music experiences to our users.
- Transparent Communication
Keeping every member informed about goals, progress, achievements and challenges is essential for fostering trust. Team members should clearly understand what they are working on and what they are achieving together.
-Reward Contributions
Providing members with positive feedback and appropriate rewards can greatly boost their motivation and morale.
Understanding each other, aligning on goals, and celebrating quick wins can help. Also regular video chats and virtual team-building activities can boost morale too. We usually run UX workshops which help them work together to find new and creative ideas.
I completely agree with you! Building mutual understanding and ensuring clear progress are key to a motivated remote team.
In my experience even a quick check in to celebrate small wins can boost everyone's energy and keep me moving towards bigger goals