Architecture team leaders find themselves charged with many tasks and
one critical goal for the firm’s success: motivate and inspire the architecture team.
While extrinsic rewards sometimes motivate people, true motivation comes from within. The leader’s job requires them to find the spark of inspiration and fan it into flames — without ever dampening the fire.
How You Can Motivate and Inspire Your Architecture Team
These days, everyone has a lot on their plates. If you’re leading a design team, you’re no different — except that the team looks to you for inspiration and motivation. How does an architecture leader motivate & inspire the team? With strategies like these:
- Brainstorming and collaboration.Explore new ways of doing things, whether trying an app or collaborating in different ways. Adopt the mantra that every idea has potential, but having no new ideas can be devastating. Without responsible risk-taking, nothing changes or improves.
- Making it personal.Regardless of how much creativity goes into it, a project is inanimate. To bring it to life and motivate your designers, introduce them to the client. By understanding who they are working for, your architects will become more intentional in planning and designing.
- Opening the door for discussion. No one is always right, but even the weather forecaster is right sometimes. Tuck away your ego, and encourage the team to share ideas. Some of them will slide off the wall like Jello — and that’s okay. Some will stick, and that’s even better.
Questions That Keep the Conversation Going
If your team isn’t used to brainstorming and collaborating, you may need to help by asking great questions.
- I’m curious about what you think.
- Can you tell me/us why you feel that way?
- What would happen if . . . ?
- Does anyone else have an idea about this?
- I see you’re deep in thought. Will you share what you’re thinking?
Open discussions by themselves aren’t enough to inspire and motivate. Leaders who validate team responses also build an atmosphere of trust, leading to creativity. You can try phrases like these:
- I hear what you’re saying.
- Let me think about this for a moment.
- I like how you’re reacting with an open mind.
- These ideas have changed my mind.
- I could be wrong, but . . . .
By incorporating these statements in your discussions, you’re demonstrating the soft skills you want to foster in your team: listening, humility, respect, and openness.
As Charles Kettering said, “There exist limitless opportunities in every industry. Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier.”
Suppose you can motivate and inspire your architecture team to take more risks, collaborate on projects and embrace flexibility. In that case, you’ll position yourself as a place where top talent wants to stay — and you’ll easily attract new talent.
Welcome to the new frontier!
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