2 Quick Tips to Show Appreciation and Engage with the Project Team
The purpose of this article is to provide two quick tips on how to show appreciation and engage more with your team. They will be grateful that you are aware of their efforts, will feel greater enjoyment about being on your team and they’ll be excited about being a part of creating something with others.
Team communications is a project piece under the LEAD domain and within the People segment in the MPM model.
Team communications is a project piece under the LEAD domain and within the People segment in the MPM model
Appreciate at Holidays and for Accomplishments
Around Thanksgiving and Christmas, there’s a lot of messaging around being thankful and appreciative of things you have; that applies to your project staff too, but it doesn’t just have to be at holiday time.
Many project teams will be made up of both introverts and extroverts.
If a team member is quiet or not very confident, they may not talk up their accomplishments – this does not mean that they don’t want recognition.
Remember to Show Appreciation Often
In the role of project manager, you need to keep an eye on all of the project streams of activity.
That means that you, more than anyone else, should be aware of when a member of your team is working extra hard, or additional hours, to get things done.
Recognize them for it, and do it personally, by sending a simple email, such as:
“Hello X I just wanted to say thanks for getting Y done and the extra effort you put into it. It has really helped the project out, and I appreciate it.”
Appreciation can be Simple
It is amazing how simple emails like that can let your project team members know you appreciate their efforts, because you do, so remember to tell them.
If it’s at Christmas, and it’s appropriate, and your organization allows it, provide the note in a card and enclose a small gift-card – even $15 or $25 to a local coffee shop or tea house, or their favorite drive-thru or fast-food restaurant.
Next time their out driving and want a quick bite, they pull out their gift card, and have a treat on you, and it gives them good feelings about being on your project and working with you.
It’s surprising, but every time I have done that, even if it was just $15, it is always appreciated.
Something to keep in mind too, is if you keep it small, it also reduces feelings of needing to reciprocate.
Appreciate the Family Too
It’s important to be aware that a person’s partner or family often bear the brunt of overtime or long days in the office and can sometimes influence your team member’s choice of workplace.
If your gift is something that can be shared by your employee with their family, it can act as thanks to their partner as well, and make up for any quality time that was missed as a result of project crunch time.
If you include a gift card for two for a restaurant in a Christmas card, and express thanks to your team member and their spouse or partner in the message of the card, you might be surprised at the response. You might find that the team member is very thankful and will probably mentions their spouse or partner in the thank you, and that lets you know that it does resonate.
The more you can personalize feedback or thanks to your team members, the more meaningful it becomes to them.
Summary
It’s important to make your environment safe for staff to raise issues or concerns, offer feedback, come to you with questions and problems, and show vulnerability when they’re uncertain and need help.
But it’s just as important to make them feel valued, and remembering small details, appreciating their effort, and demonstrating awareness will go a long way towards building a positive team environment.
Action Steps / Apply This Knowledge
- Take 5 minutes. Think of the last challenging task that someone completed for your project. How did you show appreciation to whomever was involved to emphasize an obstacle they overcame?
- If you haven’t said or done anything, send them a quick email – it doesn’t have to be anything big; in this case immediacy is more important than scale. A few informal sentences at the right time are more meaningful than a big gesture that comes too late after the fact.
- At a holiday time, send a meaningful email, give a gift-card, or have a pizza lunch: show your staff that you appreciate what they do and notice when they go the extra mile in their jobs – you’ll be surprised at the difference it makes to your team dynamic.
- Prompt engineering guidance for AI GPTs such as chatGPT: “I’m a business leader managing a project whose purpose is Y, and delivering X. What are some innovative ways I can show appreciation for the efforts being put forward by my team?”
Learn More to Do More
Business evolves through change initiatives otherwise known as projects. The key to managing these change initiatives so you have more time, and less stress is to use simple strategies and tools.
Check out the Learning Hub’s other Articles with Actionable Steps, organized with a busy leader in mind, by topic or main idea, and with some AI GPT (e.g. ChatGPT) prompt engineering suggestions under the Action steps: https://simplepmstrategies.com/learning-hub-index
LEAD - Show Appreciation
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