Chanakya’s strategies to improve team performance
We are often stuck with the dilemma of how to get the work done? What is the best way to drive the workforce? A long time ago, the author of Arthasastra, Chanakya the great and in recent past Radhakrishnan Pillai who interpreted and made the scripture easy to understand in his book called Corporate Chanakya, has explained the following three modes.
Instigation
Motivation
Inspiration
While Radha sir takes the method of what a leader should not do, I am merely sharing my experiences and letting you decide how you want to drive your workforce!
As I love stories, here’s one for you. I was asked to take over a team, this was a team of veterans, not the literal but the ones who have spent a lot of time and have a lot of experience. However, this team was never recognized as the best performing team.
Once I took over, I read team dynamics, met each one and heard them. A week in the team I called for a team meeting. The only agenda was to share what I wanted for this team. It was a one slide presentation and all it had was as follows
What we discussed was to leverage our past, as that’s the strength, get together now and zoom towards the future which will be shining. That’s when we decided to win the best teams award.
It was coincidental that our CEO was visiting when the HR team had planned the R&R function, the team was delighted to receive the best team award and I was so proud that each and everyone got the recognition that they deserved.
From my perspective, I used all three modes to get the results
Instigation: I asked the team to take a look at the rolling trophy and see if there is enough space for our team’s name to be on it? I knew when they would look or grab the trophy someone will say something from the other teams, and this would surely trigger some juices within their brains.
Motivate: A grand reward money and dinner with VP was associated with the award and this was a great motive for any team to fight for it. However, this was always present, but the team was not inspired enough to go for this motive and that’s why it was super important for me to inspire.
Inspire: The team had a great experience and we had engineers with niche skills, however, we were dropping the ball is a few routine kinds of stuff and that clearly showed that the team was not bothered they were burnt, and they did not care about any reward. However, in my discussion, a single flavor came out, that they did not know how they were contributing.
This happens a lot with individuals or teams who are in one role/project for a long time. As a leader, it is important to get them to refocus on the company values and goals; while drawing a clear path on how their work affects the company’s goal. By doing this we give a meaning to the daily grind a greater purpose which is “The” way to inspire.
Therefore, I started talking to the team about how our work was affecting POC’s, New logos and renewals instead of spending time talking about customer satisfaction, resolutions, etc. Which helped them realize the great purpose and bang! The charts shot up…
Conclusion
I don’t believe that there is any one way to get the work done, we need to come up with a formula with variables like Instigation, Motivation, and Inspiration. We need to read the team and their needs and then balance the values of each variable to get the right results.
