This edition of Sparked was published and delivered on January 6th, 2023.
Sparked is Fired Up! Culture’s bi-weekly email newsletter focused on what drives culture and engagement in the workplace. This newsletter is for leaders who are ready to get intentional about bringing their team together, building engagement, and harnessing the power of culture to drive results.
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Ignite your Team with an Inspiring Purpose
The ability to define and clearly communicate an inspiring purpose is foundational to motivating team members to engage in their work.
It doesn’t matter if you are leading a team of three of an organization of 120, you should constantly be working to make your team’s purpose relevant, finding a variety of ways to consistently communicate and connect that purpose to the daily work being done by your team.
The purpose you build and share should be audacious. It should feel big and aspirational, yet achievable.
Many leaders feel like they don’t have everything in place to craft a purpose for their team. That’s likely true, many leaders don’t have the perfect picture to work with. But work with the information you have today, move forward to define, communicate, and iterate as needed. The perfect situation with complete information likely isn’t coming anytime soon. So work with what you have and iterate as needed.
Take Action to Build Engagement
- Identify the purpose of your team
- Connect the work to that purpose
- Make. It. Present.
- Watch your team latch on and engage
For your Consideration
Does each person on your team understand the purpose of your organization or team?
Does each person on your team understand how their work levels up to deliver on that purpose?
Connecting those dots is an important part of your leadership and a great way to build engagement for individuals and your team collectively.
Helping a team member make that connection requires that your team or organization has a clearly defined purpose. There’s vision. There are strategic priorities. There’s tactical work to support the strategy.
Identify where the day-to-day work levels up to meet those larger initiatives.
Does the group you lead have a clearly defined purpose? Is it relevant? Is it inspiring? Consider what work you need to do to better define, communicate, and integrate the power of purpose for your team.
Further Exploration on Purpose
- Ready to define your team’s purpose? Check out our latest post on where to draw inspiration.
- Learn about the purpose gap that exists between upper management and core team members.
- Did you know…team members who find their work meaningful are 69% less likely to quit their jobs in the next six months.
Reading Recommendation
We’re big fans of Simon Sinek at Fired-Up! Culture.
Start With Why is a fantastic read for any leader ready to dig in further on the topics of purpose and inspiration.
Sinek explores the significance of purpose in the workplace and believes all great business starts with why an organization exists. The concept of why has the power to substantially drive not only our businesses and teams, but our lives as well. The Golden Circle is a great framework for leaders working to drive alignment from purpose down to actionable day-to-day work for their team members.
If you haven’t read it already, pick up Start With Why.
