A daily exercise to energize your team

If you feel like your team is suffering from a type of inertia as you try to return to business as usual, you are not alone. The pandemic has upended our lives in a pervasive way, and the workplace is not likely to ever be the same again.

The silent promise

When we sign on to a new position in an organization, there is often a great deal of paperwork, including a scope of work with deliverables and expectations related to your role. But as a leader, you are making a contract with your team that is much stronger, one that’s the glue that keeps the team together; a psychological contract.

A psychological promise is what bonds teams together. These bonds can be based on shared goals or purpose, feelings of friendship and caring, or ideals. This is a critical factor in top-performing teams, because the bonds we form create the energy we need to work well as a group.

Broken bonds must be mended

One of the major disruptions the pandemic caused has been to change our work environments, home environments, priorities and views of the world in a way that has shaken the foundations of our former bonds. If you feel you are having trouble getting your team back in the work groove as we settle into a new routine, it may be that you haven’t spent the time recreating these bonds. As a leader, it would be well worth investing time in reconnect and understand how people have shifted their views of work-life balance and long-term goals. This is necessary to defeat the inertia that many teams are feeling.

Plan to spend time connecting with your colleagues and see what you can do to fill them with positive energy. Positive feedback is important, so embrace it. There is a bonus effect: if you energize one person, it’s contagious, and will spread to others, so making an effort to do this on a daily basis will benefit the whole team.